Lip Fillers
No treatment is risk free and lip fillers can go wrong. Even when in the most capable hands there are times when things don't go to plan. The most important and first thing you should do if you think your lip fillers might have gone wrong is to either go to A&E or to get in touch with a medically-qualified aesthetics practitioner, right away.
What Are The Symptoms?
If you think your fillers have gone wrong and if you have any of the following symptoms, CONSULT A MEDICALLY QUALIFIED PERSON NOW:
Severe pain
Blanching of the skin and/or white spots
Mottled skin
Blue/black discolouration
Poor capillary refill (when healthy skin is pressed, it should ‘pink up’ as soon as the pressure is removed. If the skin remains pale, it indicates the blood supply is impaired)
Blisters
Skin shedding
Visual disturbance (loss of vision, blurry vision, development of a squint, droopy eyelid after filler)
Get yourself to A&E (or the ER if you're reading in the US) and let your injector know.
Risks Can Be Minimised!
All injectable procedures come with risk, and there are lost of scary stories, however a lot of this risk can be minimised. Choosing a medically-qualified practitioner who is well trained in aesthetic practice, with a background in clinical medicines means that complications are rare, less significant, and picked up/ managed optimally if they occur. Nobody is saying they don’t happen to medical injectors, but they likely to be less significant.
There are far too many cases of filler issues that haven’t been identified and treated quickly enough, and, sadly, this is often because these treatments have been administered by someone who is not appropriately trained or qualified, not necessarily to carry out the treatment, but to spot when something has gone wrong and most importantly, putting it right. Lips swollen and oozing pus. Skin mottled and discoloured. Tissue dying. Those poor women who have put their faith in someone to make them look their best, and they end up scared, in pain, swollen and scarred.
So, how do you know if your fillers are fine and that what you’re experiencing is normal? And at what point should you seek help if you don’t think things are quite right?
What is ‘normal’ when it comes to dermal fillers?
When it comes to fillers, what’s normal for one is not necessarily normal for another.
Some people have no bruising, barely any swelling and they get up off the treatment bed with lovely, plump, natural-looking lips. This is their normal - lucky them!
Me, however, I swell and bruise. And for about 3 days post-lip-fillers, I look like I’ve overdone that cup-suction-lip trick, and that’s with only 0.5ml injected VERY carefully.
But, from a medical perspective, normal often involves:
Slight bleeding at injection sites
Bruising
Tenderness
Swelling
Redness
Discomfort
Bumpiness
This will last anything up to 5 days. Although, you should find that the symptoms ease each day following the treatment.