Consequences of lip augmentation - possible problems after the procedure

Marina Matyushkina

Cosmetologist, work experience more than 7 years

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Lip augmentation is one of the most popular procedures in aesthetic cosmetology. Most often, the incentive to perform it is the natural desire to look more beautiful and attractive, to make the face more harmonious and sensual.

One of the fears that worries patients before this manipulation is related to the fear of pain. In fact, modern practices allow the procedure to be performed without any unpleasant consequences.

The decision on how to numb the lips is made by a cosmetologist immediately before augmentation. Cosmetology uses advanced and safe drugs and techniques for lip augmentation and pain relief.

Features of the lip augmentation procedure

Hyaluronic acid is most often used to change the volume of the lips. Lip augmentation with hyaluronic acid is harmful only in large quantities. This drug is natural. Its distinctive ability is to retain water in cells. Every person has acid in their body. But under the influence of sunlight and age, a person loses this substance.

A cosmetologist may suggest giving your lips an attractive and aesthetic appearance, and for this you need to prepare:

• analyze the patient’s health status;
• find out your wishes regarding the procedure;
• no contraindications;
• choice of execution technique;
• selection of anesthesia;
• injections;
• removal of edema;
• care recommendations.

If you follow all care recommendations, the swelling will subside in 4-5 days. Girls who want to achieve extraordinary lip augmentation should understand that they cannot inject a lot of the drug. Lip augmentation is not harmful if you follow the rules.

Violation of the rules may cause:

• severe swelling;
• unexpected change in lip shape;
• formation of balls.

It is best to repeat the intervention after complete recovery, that is, in a month.

How to fix uneven lips

You can correct the shape, increase or decrease the size of your lips using cheiloplasty. Its implementation involves surgical intervention or the use of minimally invasive aesthetic correction techniques. It should be noted that plastic surgery is performed extremely rarely: in the presence of serious congenital or oncological pathologies.

In other cases, clients are advised to seek help from cosmetologists at specialized clinics, of which our institution is one.

Correction of lip asymmetry in our clinic is carried out using contouring with fillers and (or) threads.

• The use of fillers (dermal fillers) based on hyaluronic acid allows you to form a beautiful lip shape, give them the desired volume and visually make them more symmetrical.
• The use of cosmetic absorbable threads helps to model the shape of the lips, giving them beautiful outlines. With their help, you can lift the corners of your mouth and form the correct symmetry.
• Botulinum toxin injections are indispensable for correcting asymmetry caused by nervous disorders, spasms of facial muscles or excessive activity of facial muscles in the smile area. A precisely administered drug blocks the transmission of unwanted nerve impulses in just 1 procedure. After it is carried out, the lips get rid of “tightness” and “distortion”. They become more symmetrical and look as natural as possible.

Fillers and threads are introduced into the problem area in the form of microinjections. Their use helps to obtain almost instant correction results. Over time, its severity increases.

What results will you get in our clinic?

Extremely desirable! For doctors of the highest category who work in our clinic, correcting uneven lips is not a complicated procedure. Years of experience and certified preparations (fillers, threads) allow us to carry it out with a guarantee of a positive result - in every case.

Is it painful and how many procedures are needed?

You can correct the shape, add the necessary volume or straighten the lip line in just 1 visit to the clinic. The one-step procedure does not cause severe pain, because it is performed under local anesthesia, which eliminates all painful sensations.

Contraindications

• The main contraindications to contouring procedures are the following body conditions:
• individual intolerance to drugs;
• systemic use of medications that impair blood clotting;
• infectious diseases;
• chronic diseases in the acute stage;
• oncological pathologies, etc.

Sign up for your first consultation with a doctor at our clinic to review the full list of contraindications, ask any questions you may have, and learn how to prepare for the procedure.

Recovery after the procedure

Curvature of the lips when talking, smiling or in a calm state is easily eliminated in 1 procedure. After the procedure, slight swelling, redness, or soreness of the lips may occur. All unpleasant phenomena go away on their own and do not require specific treatment.

During this period, you need to protect the lip area from various kinds of negative influences: do not rub it, do not consume hot food and drinks, do not apply cosmetics, etc. The recovery period lasts only 3 – 5 days, after which you will be able to enjoy the results for a long time.

Contraindications

Many girls dream of changing something in their appearance. For example, plump lips are almost everyone’s dream, but, unfortunately, not everyone can achieve it. The characteristics of the body do not always allow such manipulations. Many people think that “pumping up” lips is harmful, but this is not true!

There are not many contraindications to lip augmentation, but they are serious, and you should adhere to them:

1. pregnancy;
2. lactation;
3. immune failures;
4. disruption of the endocrine system;
5. infection or inflammation near the lips;
6. diseases (viral, infectious, inflammatory) in acute form;
7. exacerbation of chronic diseases;
8. taking certain medications (the list should always be checked with a cosmetologist).

It must be taken into account that there may be an allergy to the substance, especially if the person is allergic.

If you ignore contraindications, then after lip augmentation with hyaluronic acid there can be different consequences, you will even need the help of a surgeon.

Danger of fibrosis after hyaluronic acid

Why is lip augmentation dangerous? Fibrosis is tissue scarring in the injection area, which becomes noticeable 3-4 weeks after the intervention.

Causes of fibrosis:

• non-compliance with the cosmetologist’s recommendations;
• incorrectly selected technique for administering the drug;
• acid rejection.

Seals, so-called “lumps,” appear on the lips. If the seals do not disappear after 2-3 weeks, then you should immediately contact a cosmetologist. A professional will help prevent fibrosis after using hyaluronic acid.

What complications can there be?

Even with the choice of safe drugs, careful administration and the experience of a specialist, side effects and consequences after lip augmentation still occur.

Swelling

After injections, tissue swelling is always observed. This shows that the acid is holding water in the cells. Swelling usually disappears after a couple of days. In people prone to swelling, it usually goes away within a week.

Causes of excessive swelling:

• excessive amount of administered drug;
• low-quality filler;
• non-compliance with care recommendations.

There is a proven way to remove swelling - an ice cube. You need to wrap the cube in a handkerchief and apply it for a couple of minutes, approximately every two hours. But you need to be careful with this method, as hypothermia is possible.

Hematomas

After an intervention of this kind, hematomas may appear. The fact is that the lip area is very delicate. The cause may also be an incorrectly chosen technique for administering the drug. The bruises go away within a week. To speed up the healing process, you can use gels and ointments for hematomas.

Balls and lumps

Seals in the form of balls and lumps may appear immediately after injections or later. The appearance of a hematoma at the injection point may indicate that too much of the drug was injected. You need to properly care for it and massage it, then the balls will disappear. If the lumps increase and the pain intensifies, then you need to consult a cosmetologist.

Herpes

Herpes appears due to decreased immunity. During lip augmentation surgery, small injuries occur at the injection site. Because of this, small blisters may appear - herpes. If you are prone to the virus, you need to take medications to boost your immunity.

What to do if your lips hurt badly after fillers: endure it or run to the doctor?

Cosmetic procedures are often associated with unpleasant sensations that must be endured for the sake of the desired aesthetic effect. And sometimes the saying “beauty requires sacrifice” takes a very literal form.

Pain after lip augmentation with hyaluronic acid fillers is an inevitable consequence of contouring. As a rule, it does not threaten our health and quickly, in just a few days, goes away on its own. In this article we will talk about how to minimize discomfort during and after the procedure, and how to distinguish it from more alarming symptoms that indicate the development of serious complications and require prompt medical attention:

↑ Why do these unpleasant sensations occur?

The introduction of cosmetic gel fillers represents a mechanical trauma to the skin with a needle, after which the dense filler that gets inside immediately begins to put pressure on the surrounding tissue. This may be minimally invasive, but it is an intervention in the body with all the ensuing consequences: swelling, hematomas and pain.

The lip area is penetrated by numerous blood vessels and nerve endings, and the skin here is very thin and delicate, so discomfort in this area is always much stronger than in other areas of the face. Applying an anesthetic cream helps to survive the procedure itself, but as soon as the “freezing” stops working, the patient will experience extremely unpleasant sensations.

• It is believed that trauma can be reduced using a special “fan” injection technique: after injection, the needle is not completely removed, but remains inside and moves in different directions, distributing the drug evenly. This is not entirely true: in this way, you can actually treat the entire area by making just one main puncture - but internal damage to tissues and blood vessels will still remain.

Thus, pain in the lips after injection of fillers is a normal, quite expected consequence of injections . It can last up to several days and should gradually weaken, being replaced by a feeling of fullness, pressure from the inside. It is explainable:

• Skin injured by a needle heals quite quickly, but continues to experience increased stress, unusual tension and will adapt to new volumes for some time.
• In addition, the situation is aggravated by the inevitable swelling of the tissues - you shouldn’t be afraid of that either, such a reaction almost always occurs, does not threaten your health and goes away quite quickly. For more information, see the article “Swelling after fillers.”

↑ How dangerous is this?

On women's forums you can see quite a lot of panicked messages about how terribly lips swell the next morning after the lip augmentation procedure. The word most often used in this context is “dumplings”. If this happened to you, do not rush to faint and settle scores with the cosmetologist: almost all the girls in similar topics report after a couple of days that everything has returned to normal and they are very pleased with the result. The graph of consequences by day of the week will look something like this:

Of course, each person tolerates the procedure differently, so a deviation from these dates by one or two days should not be a cause for concern. These phenomena and sensations are considered normal:

• The pain in the lips is not sharp and is associated with a feeling of fullness. On the first day it can be extremely intense, but over time it weakens rather than intensifies. It should decrease significantly or disappear completely after two to three days.
• Small hematomas and peeling of the skin in the chipped areas are allowed.
• The swelling has a uniform structure and decreases every day.
• Itching with the formation of small watery blisters is a characteristic manifestation of herpes (the virus dormant in the body has become active on the injured area of ​​the face). You shouldn’t be scared, but it’s better to tell your cosmetologist about this: most likely, he will prescribe a suitable oral drug or ointment.

Dangerous moment! If any of these symptoms occur, consult your doctor immediately:

• The pain is very strong, acute, sharp, unbearable.
• Discomfort and swelling do not decrease over time, but only increase and last more than 5 days.
• Any allergic manifestations - hives, unbearable itching, severe swelling (usually uneven, one-sided), difficulty breathing, palpitations, fever.
• Foci of inflammation are visible, a rash in the form of blisters filled with pus is the main sign of an infection. Antibiotic therapy will likely be needed.
• Sharp pain, which is accompanied by unhealthy redness or, on the contrary, paleness of the skin - this may be a manifestation of embolism, when the injected hyaluronic acid crushed the vessel and blocked blood access to the tissues. Necrosis with scarring can be avoided if you consult a cosmetologist in time and remove excess filler with hyaluronidase.
• See also the article “Complications after contouring.”

↑ How to reduce discomfort in the lips after lip augmentation

For those who do not tolerate pain well, there are several working ways to make your life easier and shorten the recovery period after the procedure. The main thing is to choose the right tactics, not to aggravate the situation and not spoil the cosmetic effect:

• Ice compress. Most likely, the first time it will be done to you in the clinic, immediately after the procedure is completed. Over the next couple of days, you can repeat this manipulation at home: several times a day, gently, without pressure, rub ice over your lips. Just not a bare piece - you need to wrap it in a sterile napkin to prevent thermal injury to the skin.
• Painkillers and ointments. But only those recommended by the cosmetologist who performed the injections! This could be Acetaminophen or even simple Paracetamol - it has an analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect, but does not affect blood circulation in any way. But Ibuprofen, Diclofenac or Aspirin should not be taken: they thin the blood and increase bruising.
• Decongestants. For example, Traumeel or Troxevasin - they fight fluid stagnation, and also remove hematomas and disinfect the surface. However, they can again be used after consultation with the doctor who performed the injections. There is an opinion that a similar effect can be achieved with the help of preparations based on the freshwater sponge badyagi - but it greatly irritates already injured skin, and also often causes allergies, so experts do not recommend this method.
• Light massage. In fact, touching your lips in the first two days after “beauty injections” is directly contraindicated: this can lead to displacement of the filler and thereby completely ruin the result. But if a large volume of hyaluronic acid is injected, it will need to be kneaded in a special way to help the drug spread as evenly as possible. This massage can only be done as prescribed by your cosmetologist; he will show you the correct technique and set the required frequency.

Let us emphasize that excessive amateur activity in an effort to alleviate one’s condition is contraindicated. If you are not sure that you can smear this, it’s better not to smear it! It is not difficult to contact your cosmetologist and consult with him, at least by phone, it will not take much time and in most cases this will be enough to relieve very severe pain and at the same time not spoil the result. And a few more specific restrictions:

• Try not to lie down for the first 6 hours after the procedure. The horizontal position will cause a rush of blood to the lips, which will provoke even greater trauma to the blood vessels and new pain. For about 10-14 more days, it is advisable to sleep on a high pillow, face up.
• In the first 2-3 days - no cosmetics, no hygienic lipsticks! This way you can introduce infection into wounds that have not yet closed. This will prolong and intensify the soreness and may also lead to inflammation.
• You need to give up active sports, visiting a bathhouse or sauna for at least a week.
• Take an antiviral drug for several days before injections to reduce the risk of herpes.

If you are confident in the quality of the lip augmentation drug used and strictly follow your doctor’s recommendations, you can rest assured: the pain after the procedure will be minimal and will go away within 2-4 days, along with the inevitable swelling and hematomas. After this, you can evaluate the result, and if all the above conditions are met, it will certainly please you!