It Has Been Ten Days Since My Botox and One Eyebrow Sits Higher Than the Other. Will It Even Out on Its Own?

Only one muscle raises your eyebrows. The frontalis runs up your forehead, and every time you lift your brows, that is the muscle doing it. Botox placed in the forehead relaxes it.

The catch is that the frontalis is wide, and it doesn't have to relax evenly. If slightly more product reaches one side, or one side of the muscle is naturally stronger to begin with, the busier side keeps pulling upward while the quieter side settles. That difference shows up as one brow riding higher.

The most recognizable version of this happens at the outer edges. When the center of the forehead relaxes but the outer fibers stay active, the tail of the brow arches up into a sharp peak. People call it a Spock brow. It can show on one side only, which is why it reads as asymmetry rather than a style choice.

There's a second cause. Several muscles pull the brow down, including the corrugator and procerus between the brows and the muscle ring around the eye. If those relax unevenly, the side with less downward pull drifts up. Same visible outcome, different mechanism, and it changes which spot an injector would treat to fix it.

One more thing that surprises people: almost nobody has perfectly matched brows to start with. A small difference you never noticed can become obvious once your forehead stops moving enough to disguise it. In that case the asymmetry was already there, and the Botox made it easier to see.

These get talked about together and they are not the same problem.

Brow asymmetry means the eyebrow itself sits higher or lower than the other one. Your eye opens normally, your field of vision stays the same, and what bothers you is the shape of the arch.

Eyelid ptosis means the upper eyelid itself hangs lower over the eye. The eye looks heavy or half closed, and in more noticeable cases it can shade the top of your vision. It happens when product reaches the muscle that holds the eyelid up, which sits deeper than the brow muscles. It is less common than brow asymmetry, and it also fades as the effect wears off, generally over several weeks. Prescription eye drops that stimulate a secondary lid-lifting muscle can help in the meantime, and that is a conversation to have with a medical provider rather than something to try on your own.

If you have changes to your vision, double vision, or any trouble swallowing or breathing after a neuromodulator treatment, contact a medical provider promptly. Those symptoms belong in a different, more urgent category than a brow sitting a few millimeters high.

The correction is usually small. If a brow is riding too high, a couple of units placed into the outer frontalis just above that brow lets it come back down. If a brow is sitting too low, treating the muscles that pull it down on that side can let it lift. Either way the corrective dose follows the same timeline as the original treatment, so most people see the change within a few days rather than instantly.

Day ten to fourteen is the standard point for reviewing how a Botox treatment settled, so you're right on schedule. Calling now is reasonable. If anything, waiting another three weeks just shortens the stretch of time you get to enjoy an even result before the whole treatment starts wearing off. Bring two photos in even, front-on lighting: one with your face relaxed, one with your brows raised. That's what lets your injector see which muscle is still working.

For a fuller picture of the settling curve, see how long Botox takes to work.

You'll find advice suggesting you exercise the high brow down, massage the area, or apply ice. At day ten, there's no good mechanism behind any of it.

Botox binds to the nerve ending within hours of injection. By the time you're a week and a half out, that binding is long finished, and pressure or muscle effort won't move it. This is also why injectors ask you to avoid rubbing the area in the first day, when product can still shift before it settles. The advice makes sense in hour one and stops making sense by day ten.

Two things reliably change an uneven brow at this stage: a small corrective dose placed by an injector who can read which muscle is still pulling, and time.

Tell your injector what happened, which brow lifted, and roughly when you noticed it. That single piece of history changes how the next treatment is mapped. A photo from around day ten or fourteen is more useful than a description.

Beyond that, two habits help. The first is having your baseline asymmetry looked at before anything is injected, since a brow that already sat higher needs a different dose than one that did not. The second is keeping enough movement in the forehead that the muscle can still balance itself.

At ALGM Beauty Bar, Lily Gazaryan works from smaller unit counts placed precisely, so your eyebrows still raise and your forehead still moves a little. If you want a sense of the numbers involved, how many units a forehead usually takes covers the ranges.

“I still have all my expressions, but the fine lines are totally gone”

Kayla B. McKenna

Botox and Dysport at ALGM Beauty Bar in Los Angeles are performed under medical oversight from Dr. Aloysius Fobi, MD, FACEP, Medical Director, who is board certified in Emergency Medicine by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. Injections are administered by Lily Gazaryan, founder and a certified injector with over 15 years in the medical industry.

Every appointment starts with a consultation to confirm your goals, go through the treatment areas, and review your medical history. Treated areas include the forehead, the glabella between the brows, crow's feet, the masseter, a lip flip, and the neck. Visits run 15 to 30 minutes. Botox is priced per unit, most sessions use 20 to 60 units, and your range is quoted in the consult.

“the balance she created looks amazing. Refreshed but not overdone.”

Marisol Rivera

Patients come from Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Encino, North Hollywood, and Burbank. To have an uneven brow looked at, call ALGM Beauty Bar at (747) 755-5333 or book a Botox consultation through the contact page.