Lip filler aftercare

Stay upright for four hours and avoid lying flat, which limits how much fluid settles into the lips. Use a cold compress in short spells — ten minutes on, ten off — against the outside of the lips rather than directly on the skin, and never anything frozen straight from the freezer.

Do not massage, press, pinch or otherwise manipulate the lips. This is the rule that matters most in the first day, because the product is still settling and pressure moves it. Kissing, drinking through a straw and anything that purses the lips hard are best avoided for the same reason.

Skip the gym, hot showers, saunas, alcohol and very hot or spicy food for the rest of the day. All of them increase blood flow to the area, which increases swelling and bruising. Drink plenty of water and eat normally otherwise.

Swelling peaks at around twenty-four to forty-eight hours and is often asymmetrical, which alarms people unnecessarily. One side settling faster than the other is common and evens out.

Keep the lips moisturised with something plain — a simple balm or petroleum jelly — and avoid exfoliating lip scrubs and strongly flavoured or tingling products for a week. Leave lipstick and lip liner off for the first twenty-four hours to reduce the infection risk while the injection points close.

Return to exercise after twenty-four hours if you feel comfortable, but leave hot yoga, saunas and steam rooms for a week. Avoid facials, dermal rollers, laser treatment and dental work on the same area for two weeks; if you have a dental appointment booked, tell your dentist you have had filler.

Small lumps are normal in the first week or two while the product integrates. Feel them if you must, but do not press or work at them — if anything is still palpable after two weeks, that is a reason to see me rather than to massage it yourself.

If you have ever had a cold sore, injections into or around the lips can trigger an outbreak. This is common enough that it is worth planning for rather than hoping about.

Tell me at consultation and antiviral cover can be arranged to start before treatment, which substantially reduces the chance of an outbreak. If one develops afterwards, contact me — it should be treated promptly rather than left, and it does not usually affect the final result.

The same applies to any recent illness, a course of antibiotics, or a vaccination in the preceding fortnight. None of them are necessarily reasons not to treat, but they are reasons to have the conversation.

Some symptoms are not part of normal healing and need to be assessed the same day. Pain that is increasing rather than decreasing after the first day. Blanching — an area of the lip or the skin around it that has gone white or unusually pale. A dusky, blue, grey or mottled discolouration. Severe pain out of proportion to what you would expect.

These can indicate vascular occlusion, where filler has compromised the blood supply to an area. It is uncommon, it is a recognised complication of any filler treatment, and it is time-critical: treated quickly it is usually resolved without lasting consequence, and left it is not.

Contact me directly, at any hour, on the number on the contact page. Do not wait until morning, do not book a routine appointment, and do not go to a different clinic — I know what was placed and where. I hold Aesthetic Complications Expert Group membership specifically so that this is managed properly, and I would far rather be contacted about something that turns out to be nothing.

Separately, signs of infection — spreading redness, heat, increasing swelling after day three, pus, or feeling unwell with a temperature — also need contacting me the same day.

Judge nothing before two weeks. Swelling, asymmetry, small lumps and a shape that does not look quite like what you discussed are all things that resolve in that window, and decisions made at day three are made on incomplete information.

At two to four weeks the result is settled and that is the point at which I would look at whether anything needs adjusting. Send me a photograph if you cannot come in.

Bruising, where it occurs, usually clears within seven to ten days. Arnica may help, the evidence for it is modest, and no harm comes of trying. Concealer is fine once the injection points have closed.