Before Treatment
Avoid taking aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as Ibuprofen, Advil®, Motrin®, Nuprin®, Aleve®, Celebrex®, Fish oil, Gingko Biloba , St. John's Wort and high doses of vitamin E for at least 7-10 days before your appointment, unless medically necessary.
Avoid alcohol, caffeine, Niacin supplement, high-sodium foods, high sugar foods, refined carbohydrates, spicy foods, and cigarettes 24-48 hours before and after your treatment. (All of these factors may increase risk of bruising and swelling).
Avoid Alcohol and Caffeine
It's also important to avoid too much caffeine both before and after your scheduled appointment. This is to ensure you get the best possible results. Caffeine and alcohol both dilate blood vessels and this can cause the injectable to diffuse and become less effective.
For 3-5 days before treatment, avoid blood thinners like NSAIDs (including Advil, aspirin, and Aleve) and fish oils. Any blood thinning medication can increase the risk of bruising and swelling after your Botox treatment. If you need to take an over-the-counter pain reliever, take Tylenol instead.
Avoid heat exposure for 24 to 48 hours, which includes hot showers, tanning beds, hot tubs, and saunas. While alcohol consumption after Botox is not usually a risk, it is recommended you not drink alcohol for 24 hours as a precautionary measure. Alcohol is a blood-thinner, so it could potentially exacerbate bruising.
Along with alcohol you should avoid drinking excessive caffeine before or after your procedure, in order not to dehydrate and increase your heart rate. By increasing your heart rate and blood flow, the Botox can destroy itself more quickly before the skin tightening effects have time to take place.
Facial prep
Don't use a chemical peel, suntan, or facial in the days leading up to your Botox treatment. You can apply arnica topically to reduce any bruising that might occur, and ice your face periodically before and after the treatment.
Before your Botox treatment, you should avoid drinking alcohol for at least 24 hours. And if you can abstain for the week before the procedure, so much the better. After treatment, avoiding a drink for a couple of days helps you heal optimally and get the most out of your injections.
The only person you never need to tip is a doctor, even for aesthetic treatments like Botox (another reason to only get injections from a dermatologist or plastic surgeon). At the end of the day, all of these stylists, aestheticians, and technicians live off their tips, so be sure to help them after they've helped you.
While Botox and fillers are incredibly safe, they can come along with side effects that alcohol can worsen. If you have an appointment to get injectables, staying away from alcohol for at least 48-72 hours before, can be a clever idea to lessen the effects of swelling, bleeding and bruising.
The main goal of Botox is to make your skin look rejuvenated and youthful, but alcohol before a treatment can dry out the skin and make those desired results harder to achieve. Instead of martinis, drink a lot of water for the week before your treatment.
Drink Plenty of Water
To get the most out of your Botox treatments, drink between half a gallon and a full gallon of water per day. This helps your skin with cellular rejuvenation and cellular turnover, keeping it hydrated, fresh, young, and healthy.
Go au naturel - Your skin will be cleaned with rubbing alcohol or an antiseptic before you get Botox, so feel free to show up to your appointment with nothing on your skin. If you wear makeup, they will take it off anyway.
Don't lie down for at least 3 hours after receiving Botox. Don't go into any saunas, hot tubs, or tanning booths for at least 4 hours. This helps to prevent bruising, because heat can raise your blood pressure. Otherwise, you can resume your regular activities right after getting Botox.
The first 24 hours after Botox are the most important. During this time, the Botox can shift and resettle in a different location. Luckily, this only lasts for a day and you will be able to take hot showers the day after your Botox treatment.
For this reason, many practitioners and injectors recommend that you avoid drinking alcohol directly before and after your Botox treatment, as bruising might occur at the injection sites where your Botox injections were administered.
Some products that may interact with this drug include: certain antibiotics (including aminoglycosides such as gentamicin, polymyxin), anticoagulants (such as warfarin), Alzheimer's disease drugs (such as galantamine, rivastigmine, tacrine), myasthenia gravis drugs (such as ambenonium, pyridostigmine), quinidine.
Are there any Foods or Drinks I Should Stay away from after Botox? There are no foods or drinks that you need to avoid when getting Botox and no special diet is required.
The results from Botox last anywhere between 2-6 months; the average result lasts about 3-4 months. Why does Botox eventually stop working? Your body makes new neurotransmitters all the time, so the “blocking” effect of Botox gradually wears off as these chemicals start circulating in your body again.