Will I need to hide after filler?
Will I bruise after a filler? Will I need to wear my sunglasses at night??? Will I need to hide in my house for a month or go incognito?
If I showed you all the vasculature under the skin, you would ask me "how in world did I not bruise you after your filler?" With that said, we have tools that looks for veins prior to injection. And the good news is, most of the bruises come from veins. We scan the areas prior to certain procedures. This helps minimize large bruise especially in the temples.
Second, there are things you can do to help avoid bruises. Thinner blood means more bruising. Anything good for the heart is going to increase the likelihood of a bruise. So, staying away from red wine, aspirin, and fish oil is a must. As a general rule, we tell patients to avoid the use of aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories such as Motrin, Naprosyn, Aleve, and others for 1-2 weeks. These all effect the platelets (clotting cells in our blood) for up to 2 weeks.
There are also other supplements that may increase your risk of bruising as well. As mentioned above, fish oil. Others include, ginkgo biloba, garlic, flax seed oil, vitamin A, and vitamin E. These should be stopped 3 days to 1 week prior to injections.
And last, but not least, alcohol. Try to avoid alcohol and cigarettes at least 48 hours before your procedure. (The cigarettes should really be avoided forever! I know you know that that, but just saying!)
So those are the things to avoid. Now, lets talk about what prevents. You should consider pre-treatment with the naturopathic supplement, Arnica Montana, a day before or the morning of the procedure. We sell this in the office or you can obtain at many of the local health food stores.
And now, what happens if you get one? The good new is they are typically not huge, since you have followed all the above recommendations. You will continue to take the Arnica mentioned above. We have a LED light we can put you under to speed up the healing process. We also have the Cutera 532 nm laser that helps bruises go away faster. And the other tool we have is Colorescience Corrector Palette. This helps cover up the bruise while it fades. I have bruised myself on my chin. It looked like a cross between smeared grape jelly and really bad Sharpie art. It covered for several hours. If you saw me as a patient, I bet you didn’t even know!