Letybo Injections in Chicagoland

Letybo (letibotulinumtoxinA-wlbg) is a botulinum toxin type A injection. It belongs to the same family of wrinkle relaxers as Botox Cosmetic and Xeomin, and at the level of the muscle it works the same way. If you are new to this category, our explainer on what letibotulinumtoxinA is and how this newer neurotoxin reached the U.S. market covers the background in more depth.

The frown lines between your brows, often called the 11s, are not creases in the skin surface. They form because two muscle groups, the corrugator supercilii and the procerus, pull the brows inward and downward every time you concentrate, squint, or frown. After years of that repetition the skin above those muscles folds along the same lines until the fold stays visible even when your face is at rest.

Letybo interrupts the pull. Placed into the muscle, it blocks the release of acetylcholine, the chemical messenger a nerve uses to tell a muscle to contract. Without that signal the treated muscle relaxes, the inward pull eases, and the skin above it stops being folded along the same crease. The line softens because the muscle is resting, not because anything was filled in or taken away.

The effect is temporary and local. It acts on the muscles your injector treats, and it fades as nerve endings regenerate their connections over the following months. That is why Letybo is a maintenance treatment rather than a one-time correction, and it is also why placement matters: the muscles that create your frown lines sit close to the muscles that lift your brow, so dose and injection points are chosen to relax the first without weakening the second.

Letybo is made by Hugel, Inc., a South Korean biopharmaceutical company, and it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2024. It reached the American market well after Botox Cosmetic and Xeomin, but it was not an untested product on arrival: it had been in aesthetic use in Asia and Europe for years beforehand.

The approval rests on BLESS I, BLESS II, and BLESS III, three randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trials that together enrolled more than 1,000 subjects across the United States and Europe. Those studies measured Letybo against placebo in moderate to severe glabellar lines.

Boxed warning: distant spread of toxin effect. Like every botulinum toxin product, Letybo carries the FDA’s most serious category of warning. The effects of the toxin can spread from the injection site to other parts of the body, from hours to several weeks after treatment, and can cause swallowing and breathing difficulties. These effects can be life threatening, and there have been reports of death. They can occur in people with no previous swallowing or breathing problems.

If you develop trouble swallowing, speaking, or breathing, unusual muscle weakness, drooping eyelids, double vision, or loss of bladder control after treatment, seek emergency medical care immediately. Call 911 or go to an emergency department. Do not wait to reach the clinic first. Contact us afterward so your injector has it on record.

This warning is a property of the drug class, not something that distinguishes Letybo. Botox Cosmetic and Xeomin carry it as well.

Letybo is FDA approved for one purpose: the temporary improvement in the appearance of moderate to severe glabellar lines, the vertical frown lines between the brows produced by corrugator and procerus activity, in adults. That is the full extent of its approved indication.

This is a genuine difference from the other two neurotoxins we carry. Botox Cosmetic and Xeomin each hold FDA approval across all three upper-face zones: the glabellar 11s, horizontal forehead lines, and crow’s feet at the outer corners of the eyes. Letybo’s approval covers the frown lines alone.

So when a treatment plan involves your forehead or your crow’s feet, our injectors reach for Botox Cosmetic or Xeomin for those areas rather than extending Letybo beyond what it is approved to treat. It is common for a single appointment to involve more than one product for exactly this reason, and it does not mean anything has gone wrong with your plan.

Within the frown lines, the label dose is 20 units in total, divided into five separate intramuscular injections of 4 units each, distributed across the corrugator and procerus muscles. Your injector confirms the specific placement by watching how your muscles actually move, because brow anatomy and the strength of the pull differ considerably from person to person.

Your visit begins with a complimentary consultation. You will be asked to frown and to raise your brows so your injector can see how your muscles move at rest and in motion, which is what determines where the product goes.

This is also the point to mention any neurotoxin you have had before. Tell your injector about botulinum toxin treatment within roughly the last four months, including which product was used and the dose. Potency units are specific to each product, so a unit count on its own is not usable clinical information without the product name attached to it.

The injection itself takes only a few minutes. The area is cleaned and Letybo is placed with a very fine needle across the frown-line muscles in five small injections. Most people describe it as a brief pinch or sting. No anesthetic is required, though a cold pack is available if you would like one.

Downtime is minimal. You can drive yourself home and return to work the same day. You will be asked to stay upright and avoid lying down for about four hours, and to skip strenuous exercise, saunas, and facials for the rest of the day. Small raised bumps at the injection points usually settle within 15 to 30 minutes, and any pinpoint bruising typically fades over a few days. The Letybo aftercare steps that protect your frown line results are worth reading before you come in.

Letybo is injected at all four of our Chicagoland clinics. You can book frown line treatment at our Frankfort med spa, the La Grange injectable clinic serving the western suburbs, our Shorewood location near Joliet, or the Mount Greenwood neurotoxin clinic on Chicago’s southwest side.

Letybo does not work immediately. Most people begin to notice their frown lines softening about 2 to 4 days after treatment, and the effect continues to build, reaching its peak at roughly 1 to 2 weeks. Judge your result at the two-week mark rather than the day after, because the muscle relaxation is still developing before then.

From that peak, the typical duration is about 3 to 4 months. That is not identical for everyone. Metabolism, the strength of the treated muscles, the dose used, and how consistently you have treated the area in the past all affect how long a result holds. Patients with strong corrugator muscles often find the effect fades sooner than average, and people who treat the area regularly over time frequently find their results become more predictable.

Letybo should not be given more often than every 3 months. That interval comes from the FDA approved label, and it exists in part because more frequent dosing is associated with the development of antibodies that can make botulinum toxin treatment less effective over time. We schedule maintenance around that floor rather than under it.

If your lines have not softened at all by the two-week mark, tell us. That warrants an assessment rather than an immediate repeat injection, and adding more product before a first dose has fully taken effect is not the answer.

Duration is the question patients ask most, and we cover what makes Letybo wear off sooner or last longer between appointments in more detail, including metabolism, dosing, and treatment history.

Express Med Spa carries Letybo, Botox Cosmetic, and Xeomin, so this is a question about fit rather than about which product is available to you here.

Letybo and Botox Cosmetic are both botulinum toxin type A. They relax muscle through the same mechanism, they carry the same class boxed warning, and in the frown lines they serve the same purpose. The practical differences come down to the breadth of the approved indication and to how an individual patient responds.

Botox Cosmetic is FDA approved across the glabellar lines, the forehead, and crow’s feet. Letybo is approved for the glabellar lines only. If your plan is focused on the 11s between your brows, both are on the table. If it extends to the forehead or the outer eye area, your injector will use Botox Cosmetic or Xeomin for those zones.

Response to neurotoxins is individual, and it is common for someone to prefer one product over another without either being the better product in any general sense. Patients who felt a previous toxin looked heavier than they wanted, or who found it wore off sooner than expected, sometimes choose to try a different one. That is a reasonable thing to raise at a consultation.

Patients weighing the two usually want the detail side by side, and our comparison of Letybo and Botox for frown lines, covering onset, duration, and how each feels goes further than this page can.

At Express Med Spa neurotoxins are priced per unit, and the per-unit price does not change based on which of these products your injector uses. Choosing between them is a clinical conversation rather than a cost one. If you want the mechanics of how per-unit neurotoxin pricing adds up across a treatment, we break that down separately.

Xeomin (incobotulinumtoxinA) is the third neurotoxin we carry. Like Letybo it is a botulinum toxin type A, and like Botox Cosmetic it holds FDA approval across all three upper-face zones rather than the frown lines alone.

What distinguishes Xeomin is its formulation. It is purified so that the vial contains the neurotoxin protein without the accessory proteins that accompany it in some other products. Whether that matters for a particular patient is a clinical judgment, and it is one reason someone with a long neurotoxin history may be guided toward it.

The unit point matters more than the brand comparison. Potency units for these products are specific to each one and are not interchangeable. A unit of Letybo is not equivalent to a unit of Botox Cosmetic or a unit of Xeomin, and there is no conversion factor that can be applied between them. Each product’s own labeling states this.

The practical consequences are worth understanding. Comparison charts that line up units needed across brands are misleading, and a price expressed per unit cannot be compared across products either, because the units are not the same quantity. It also means your injector needs the name of the product you had last time, not only the number of units, in order to plan your current dose safely.

For a closer look, see Xeomin and Letybo compared on formulation, purity, and approved treatment areas. We are also asked about Dysport, a botulinum toxin we do not carry; how Letybo differs from Dysport on dosing units and diffusion explains why that distinction matters when comparing wrinkle relaxers.