Gummy Smile Botox Treatment

Gummy smile Botox treatment relaxes the overactive muscle that lifts your upper lip too far, so less gum shows when you smile. It takes about five minutes, and it’s one of the treatments I get asked about most.

If you cover your mouth in photos, or smile with your lips half-closed without really meaning to, you already know the feeling — even if you’ve never called it that.

Plenty of people who come to see me about this aren’t unhappy with their teeth at all. They just don’t like how much gum shows the moment they laugh properly.

So let me be clear about what this is, because the wrong explanation is everywhere online.

A gummy smile means your upper lip lifts higher than average when you smile, exposing more of your gum line. It isn’t your gums growing or your teeth being wrong.

Often, it’s the muscles above your lip simply pulling a little too hard.

Botox can help with that — but only with that specific cause, and I’ll be honest below about when it isn’t the answer.

What Is a Gummy Smile?

A gummy smile — clinically, excessive gingival display — is when more than about 3mm of gum is visible above your top teeth when you smile fully.

A little gum on show is completely normal, and on plenty of faces it reads as open and youthful.

It only becomes something people want to treat when it dominates the smile and starts to feel like the first thing they notice in every photo.

The key point is what’s actually happening.

Often, your teeth and gums are healthy and in proportion — it’s your upper lip that travels too far up when the smile muscles fire.

That distinction matters, because it decides whether Botox will do anything at all.

What Causes a Gummy Smile?

There’s rarely one single cause, so this is worth reading before you assume Botox is right for you.

Broadly, a gummy smile comes from one of these:

• Overactive upper-lip muscles. The muscles that lift your top lip are hyperactive — they pull too strongly, so the lip rises too high. This is the cause Botox treats — and a common one.
• A short upper lip. A naturally short lip exposes more gum even with normal movement.
• Excess or low-sitting gum tissue. Sometimes the gums simply sit lower over the teeth than average.
• The way the teeth or jaw developed. If the upper jaw bone grew longer than usual (your dentist may call this vertical maxillary excess), or the front teeth sit slightly forward, the gum shows more.

Here’s the honest part: Botox only helps when the problem is muscular.

If your gummy smile comes from bone, gum tissue or tooth position, relaxing a muscle won’t change it — and I’d be doing you a disservice to inject anyway.

That’s exactly what the consultation is for.

How Does Botox Treat a Gummy Smile?

Botox is botulinum toxin type A — a protein that eases off muscle pull.

Think of the muscles above your lip as a set of cords that lift it when you smile. In a gummy smile, those cords pull harder than they need to.

Treating a gummy smile with Botox doesn’t freeze the muscles or remove the smile — it relaxes that pull, so the lip stops at a more natural height and less gum is exposed.

In practice, I place a small dose into the lip-elevator muscles on each side of the nose.

The muscle relaxes over the following days, the lip travels a few millimetres less far on a full smile, and the gum line settles lower.

Your smile is still yours — it just doesn’t ride up as high.

Because the effect is muscular, it’s also temporary. As the Botox wears off, the muscle gradually returns to its old strength.

That’s not a flaw — for a lot of people it’s a feature, because it means nothing is permanent if you decide it isn’t for you.

Am I a Good Candidate?

The best candidates are people whose gummy smile is driven by lip movement — the lip lifts high, the teeth and gums are otherwise fine.

If that’s you, it’s usually a sensible option to consider.

It’s less suitable, or not suitable at all, if the cause is skeletal (the jaw bone) or dental (gum or tooth position).

In those cases I’d rather point you toward the treatment that actually addresses the cause — orthodontics, a gum or crown-lengthening procedure with a dentist, or in the more pronounced skeletal cases, surgery.

I don’t carry out those myself, but I’ll tell you plainly at consultation if that’s the route you need, rather than sell you a treatment that won’t work.

Age isn’t a barrier in itself, though it’s worth knowing the upper lip naturally lengthens a little over the years, which can soften a gummy smile on its own.

For most adults who are bothered by it now, a reversible, adjustable approach like Botox is a sensible place to start. It’s one of the Botox treatments we offer in Birmingham.

How Many Units of Botox for a Gummy Smile?

There isn’t a fixed number, and anyone quoting you one before they’ve seen you is guessing.

The right amount depends on how strong your lip muscles are and how much gum shows when you smile. It’s a small, precise dose, split between both sides, and worked out at your consultation.

Because it’s a small dose, placement matters more than quantity — it’s the precision that gives a natural result.

I’d rather start conservative and review you than overdo it on day one. It’s far easier to add a touch more at a follow-up than to wait out an over-relaxed lip.

Where Is Botox Injected for a Gummy Smile?

The injections go into the lip-elevator muscles, just to the side of each nostril where the nose meets the upper lip — not into the lip itself.

There are usually one or two small injection points per side.

This placement is the reason gummy smile Botox doesn’t change the size or shape of your lips: the dose sits in the muscle that lifts the lip, well above the lip body itself.

What to Expect from the Treatment

The appointment is quick.

Once we’ve confirmed at consultation that Botox is right for you, the injections themselves take around five minutes.

Pain is low, and any redness or swelling is usually minimal. There’s no need for sedation, and most people go straight back to their day afterwards.

You may have a little tenderness or a small mark at the injection sites, which settles quickly.

How Long Does It Take to Work?

You’ll usually see the effect come through within about 10 days.

That’s when I’d review the result and decide whether a small top-up would help — so it’s worth waiting it out rather than judging it after a day or two.

How Long Do the Results Last?

Most people get around three to six months from a treatment, with the effect often starting to fade closer to the four-month mark.

It varies person to person.

Many patients find that with repeat treatments the gap between appointments gradually stretches out, as the muscle becomes less inclined to over-pull.

Gummy Smile Botox Cost in Birmingham

Gummy smile Botox is a small, targeted treatment — a precise dose in one area, not a full face of Botox — so it sits at the lower end of what cosmetic injectables cost.

At the clinic in Birmingham, gummy smile treatment is £75, which includes your assessment — so you’re not paying for Botox if it turns out another treatment would serve you better. You can see the full treatment price list here.

There’s no pressure and no fake-deadline nonsense. You have your consultation, you decide in your own time.

Book a free consultation

Side Effects and Risks

Gummy smile Botox is a well-tolerated treatment. Serious complications are uncommon, but they can happen.

No injection is risk-free, and you should know what’s normal and what isn’t.

Effect	How common	What it means
Tenderness, redness or small swelling at the injection site	Common	Settles within a few days.
Minor bruising	Common	Temporary; covers easily.
Slight asymmetry as the effect develops	Less common	Usually evens out, or is corrected at the two-week review.
An over-relaxed or elongated-looking upper lip	Uncommon	Linked to too high a dose or imprecise placement; fades as the Botox wears off.

The “gone wrong” results people worry about — a stiff or lopsided smile, an upper lip that looks too long or won’t quite move right — almost always come down to dose and placement, not the treatment itself.

The dose here is small and the target is specific, which is exactly why an experienced, registered injector matters more than the brand of toxin.

If something does need adjusting, it isn’t permanent: it wears off.

Before and After

These are real patients treated at the clinic.

You can see the change is in how high the lip sits — the smile itself is unchanged.

Why Choose Dr Majid Shah

Gummy smile Botox is a small treatment where the difference between a good result and a poor one is millimetres. That’s worth choosing carefully for.

Every treatment is assessed, prescribed and carried out by Dr Majid Shah (GDC No. 195211) — not delegated.

Dr Shah is GDC-registered, Harley Street trained, and has carried out more than 4,500 treatments at the Birmingham clinic.

Botox is a prescription-only medicine in the UK, which means it must legally follow a proper clinical assessment by a prescriber — and that’s exactly how it’s done here.

Book your free consultation with Dr Shah

Frequently Asked Questions

Is gummy smile Botox safe?

It’s a well-established treatment with a low rate of complications when it’s carried out properly.

“Properly” means a prescriber assesses whether it’s right for you first, and an experienced injector places a precise dose.

No medical treatment is completely without risk, and I won’t tell you otherwise — but for the right candidate, the risks are small and temporary.

Can you reverse gummy smile Botox?

Not in the way you can dissolve filler — Botox has no reversal agent.

What it does have is a built-in exit: it’s temporary, so if you’re not happy with the result, it simply wears off over a few months and your smile returns to how it was.

That’s one reason it’s a low-commitment way to try this.

Does gummy smile Botox make your lips bigger?

No. The Botox goes into the muscles that lift your lip, above the lip itself — not into the lip body.

It changes how high your lip rises, not its size or shape.

If you’re after more lip volume, that’s a different treatment entirely.

Can fillers or a lip flip fix a gummy smile?

They’re different tools for different jobs.

Dermal filler adds volume — that’s our lip filler treatment in Birmingham — and won’t stop the lip lifting too high, so it isn’t a gummy smile treatment on its own.

A lip flip uses Botox slightly differently to roll the lip outward and can be relevant in some cases.

The right approach depends on your anatomy, which is what we’d work out at consultation.