Lip beauty can be maintained in several ways, and lip fillers are a great addition to give your lips a plump and full appearance, correct imbalances that make your lovely smile a bit uneven or crooked, and help you achieve a slightly different lip shape, and correct the wrinkles from lip edges. They’re more generally called dermal fillers, and they are fillers that are FDA approved to go into other body areas.
Selection of the Right Filler
While many dermal fillers are approved, fillers with hyaluronic acid should be what you choose to enhance your lips. We use a variety of HA lip fillers including Kysee, Juviderm products, Skinvive, and RHA products. Combination therapies or layering can enhance your individuality and help your achieve your goals. Fillers can be done in one session, or layered over time months apart.
Neurotoxins such as Botox and Dysport can give some similar effects, but cannot achieve the full look of lip filler, but may enhance the look you are going for. Your injector can give you insights as to who should chose this.
At Hada the lip dermal filler procedure takes just a few minutes and is minimally invasive. But the procedure is not permanent, and you’ll need to get future injections to maintain the lip fullness and appearance the filler creates. But sometimes the persistence of the look is quite long.
You may have swelling or tenderness and bruising after the procedure, though the side effects should be minor. The products used will molecularly pull in some water to the injected tissue area, and often also have numbing solutions that will dissolve, which is why some of the initial swelling will not last.
If you have bruising at the injection site, it may help to use arnica tablets, or apply aloe vera, vitamin K, or arnica creams.
Mostly individuals treated express discomfort not pain. Do not freeze your tissue, but gentle cooling can calm both discomfort and swelling. Apply ice to your lips afterward using an ice pack or an ice cube covered in a thin cloth (so it doesn’t stick to the lip and cause pain). This will help ease swelling, itching, bruising, and soothe discomfort or pain.
Avoid strenuous exercise for 24 to 48 hours after you get lip or any other dermal fillers. Elevated blood pressure and heart rate from exercise may make swelling or bruising worse. It’s fine to engage in light activity, like walking or gentle yoga.
Nutrition and Skin Health With lip filler
Stay well hydrated. Drinking plenty of water, sticking to a healthy diet, will help your body heal. Too much alcohol can be dehydrating too.
It is theoretically possible that too much sodium, which may worsen swelling. Consider levels of dietary salt such as what you consume in sports drinks
Avoid high temperatures, like steam rooms, saunas, or heated exercise classes for 48 hours after treatment. High heat can make swelling more pronounced, but this probably won’t affect the overall outcome.
Ask your injector which pain medications are suitable to take in the days after your treatment. Typically, they tell you to avoid blood-thinning medications like ibuprofen or aspirin.
If you’re getting lip fillers for a specific event, make sure to leave plenty of time in between the procedure and the event to allow your lips to properly recover.
Try to sleep with your head elevated on pillows to reduce swelling. Do not sleep on your face.
Avoid makeup on your lips for up to 24 hours after the procedure.
Here are a few other things your doctor will likely recommend avoiding after your lip filler procedure.
Your doctor will likely recommend that you wait at least a week after your treatment before flying. This is because the air pressure in a plane can make swelling and bruising worse.
You’ll see very immediate results with lip fillers, but once the swelling goes down, the results will not look quite as dramatic. It typically takes about 2 weeks for the filler to settle in and achieve the final, desired look.
Injection Side Effects
Side effects of lip fillers can occur within hours, days, or weeks after receiving the injections, but occasionally may arise weeks, months, or years later.
These side effects include:
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bruising
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itching
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swelling
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pain and tenderness
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redness
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rash
In some cases, people may experience more serious complications of dermal fillers. In these cases, you should see a healthcare professional. Read more below.
If you experience intense bruising or swelling for more than a week, check in with your doctor. It’s rare, but allergies and reactions are possible.
Vascular occlusion happens when the filler is injected into or around an artery, which reduces or stops the blood flow. The surrounding skin and tissue will start to die without adequate blood supply, this most often is recognized right at the time of injection. Signs of vascular occlusion include immediate, severe pain and a change in skin color, which can look like white spots or blotches.
It’s also important to note that the pain could take a while to become noticeable because most fillers include the numbing agent lidocaine, which is an anesthetic. It can take several hours to wear off after the injection procedure.
Clumping, nodules, and bumps can occur with any dermal filler, often these will resolve without treatment, but you should seek consultation to see if they need more medical management. Lumps caused by the fillers with hyaluronic acid, can be dissolved with a medication called hyaluronidase. But many lumps from this filler will simply improve with massage and time.
If lumps are caused by inflammation, healthcare professionals may treat them with corticosteroids, and then appear to go away in some cases but not all. Lumps and bumps resulting from dermal fillers can often be removed surgically if they don’t go away on their own.
If you have had cold sores due to herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1). Dermal fillers can trigger an outbreak, which may require antiviral treatment, but it’s nice to use these before being injected.
Alternatives?
There is a product called Oneself we carry at Hada that is a non-injected lip filler.
Advanced Injectors at Hada Cosmetic Medicine
Lip fillers are injections of hyaluronic acid or other dermal fillers that give the lips a plump, full look. The procedure is quick and minimally invasive and comes with little downtime. Experience in all types of filler options, and a cosmetic office that offers many products, and has had years of experience such as at Hada Cosmetic Medicine, is the best option for successful lip filler treatment.