Botox, famed for its use by celebrities to stave off wrinkles and keep the Minogues ageless, has become my new best friend. Not because I’m now in my thirties and starting to show the party years, but because its paralysing effects are oddly useful in someone who has paralysis.

One of the side effects of having a spinal injury is spasm. My injury happened at chest height; my spinal cord wasn’t severed but crushed. This means that there are some nerves that have stopped working but others that half work. How does this manifest?

Well I have some limited leg movement, but most of my leg movement comes from spasm. This can be triggered by any number of things; the position I am in my wheelchair, the cobbles of Oxford is a classic – anything that changes the stimulus coming through my legs. The spasms start a jerking reaction nicknamed ‘thumper’ by my friends and family (as it mimics the famous rabbit).

Sometimes I get a type of spasm called extensor spasm which means my legs shoot out and go stiff kind of like a forklift truck. It’s very odd when you can’t really move your legs voluntarily but they have more movement independently and with a lot of strength. It’s partly a blessing as it has maintained the muscle mass in my legs which help me look and feel more normal. Plus the stiffness of the spasm allows me to stand and stretch with the help of a walking frame.

So what does Botox have to do with this? Well I have been having my calf muscles botoxed for the past few years. This paralyses the overactive spasming muscles and means that as I go about my business it lessens the irritation of ‘thumper’ and friends which normally requires me to stop and sort my legs out before I continue.

It’s not only my legs that spasm either, basically any muscles below my injury site suffer the same fate. The one that causes the most trouble is my bladder. I’m sure it’s not hard to imagine what happens with a spasming bladder. I have talked about continence before and I’m lucky as I’m pretty good, but with bad spasm comes leaky bladder, which can trigger the bladder to empty. This gets really embarrassing really quickly. Recently I had my bladder botoxed and it’s changed my life.

The procedure involved an endoscope and I’ll leave it at that but 48 hours later I noticed that I could drink a coffee or beer without fear of the diuretic effect. Since then I have not had any issues at all. It’s like I have had a faulty organ whipped out and replaced with a brand new one. I guess it’s akin to getting rid of a car that’s totally unreliable for a shiny brand new one.

When you think of Botox, think beyond frownless smiles and Hollywood glamour, it has real tangible medical benefits for people like me by adding localised paralysis to an already paralysed body.