A mother-of-three was left paralysed after her routine Botox top-up. Amanda Wolaver, 33, from Goodhope, Georgia, thought she was slowly dying when she started having severe headaches that left her unable to move and made her housebound for months. The sales director had gone for her routine anti-wrinkle injection in her face to smooth out her crow's feet, eleven lines and forehead, and went to sleep early because she had developed a migraine. But the next morning, she had to go to the hospital as she "couldn't function or string sentences together". A CT scan in 2023 showed her symptoms had "nothing to do with the injections" even though she would eventually find that not to be the case. Amanda went on to have spinal tap surgeries and had a heart monitor implanted to find the cause, with doctors suspecting MS or an autoimmune disease. She could not do anything or leave the house and became wholly dependent on her husband, Josh, 39, as strong smells or loud noises would trigger her dizziness.
"It was the worst decision I've ever made. I couldn't be the mother I wanted for my three children," she admitted. The mother of Landen, 16, Braxton, 11, and Havyn, five, said she was unable to walk, move or drive. In the end, she had to spend more than 22,000 in March 2025 on tests for an MRI to confirm she had experienced TIA strokes - temporary disruptions of blood flow to the brain - and was suffering from iatrogenic botulism, a rare condition where toxins attack the nervous system and cause paralysis, according to the NHS. This was caused by botulinum neurotoxins, which are the active ingredient in the neurotoxins Botox and Dysport, which the mother had been injected with for the first time. Dysport is an anti-ageing compound with the same ingredients as Botox, but is said to have longer-lasting effects. "That knocked me back," the mother said, "to be told I had suffered from multiple small strokes in my brain made me think that this would eventually k!ll me." Two years on, she still is not fully recovered and is waiting for time to detoxify her body, as there is no specific treatment. Ms Wolaver changed her diet completely to manage her symptoms, cutting out caffeine and soda, as well as having her breast implants removed to let her body detoxify fully. She hopes that by sharing her story, she highlights the risks of Botox so that the same thing will not happen to others. "I learned the cost of beauty the hard way," she said, and admitted she had finally embraced her wrinkles.
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