Try Botox for Problems That Make Life Miserable -- From Sweaty Armpits to Twitching Fingers

Here's a little-known secret: While Botox is famous for being better than Photoshop at smoothing out frown lines and crow's feet, its power to temporarily paralyze muscles helps more than wrinkles. It's become a terrific trouble-shooter for problems that make life miserable. On the list: migraines, sweaty armpits, twitching fingers, leaking urine, and enlarged prostates.

Yes, Botox injections have to be repeated (typically once or twice a year), and sometimes in places that may give you the willies (armpits, bladder). But the shots are way faster, easier, cheaper, and safer than surgery, which has often been the only treatment when treatment exists.

The newest Botox accomplishment is taming overactive bladders in people who can't stop leaking urine, due to either multiple sclerosis or spinal cord injuries. But that's not all Botox helps. Add these problems, which range from extremely embarrassing to extremely painful:

• Nonstop sweating. If your underarms never stop dripping (called hyperhidrosis), Botox injections every 6 to 12 months will turn off the tap.
• Chronic migraines. Botox prevents many of these painful, persistent headaches in certain patients, and also eases the kind that feel as if your head is caught in a vise or your eyes are popping out of your head.
• Enlarged prostate. Botox is looking like a good alternative to surgery for this common male complaint, also known as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
• Muscles spasms in your elbows, wrists and fingers. These are another maddening, hard-to-treat problem that Botox eases.

All this from a drug best known as every starlet's best friend (and maybe Simon Cowell's too). Cool.