Botox Being Sought To Help Asthma Sufferers

Botox may be thought of as the injection that leaves people with lifeless faces, but the skin paralyzing drug may have a better use, helping asthma suffers get over their inability to breath.

A new procedure has doctors injecting botox in into the larynx of patients with severe asthma to relax their muscle spasms and help with breathing issues.

Botulinum toxin type A, the type used in cosmetic surgery is being tested by doctors at Melbourne’s Monash University and the trial will attempt to determine if “voice-box” asthma can be helped with the drug.

Speaking to the International Business Times Professor Phil Bardin of the trial states:

“We don’t think this will cure these asthmatics but it will help them to live better with asthma.”

The drug has already been successful in treating some other vocal cord disorders such as largyngeal dystonia (the involuntary contraction of vocal cords).

The drug could prove most useful, according to researchers up to 250,000 people in Australia alone suffer from teh condition.