Your lips may feel stiff or rigid immediately after injection with dermal fillers. Don't worry — this is entirely normal, and the lip fillers will soften with time. Your lips may also be swollen and tender, which can contribute to the lip filler feeling hard under the skin.
The filler can take several weeks to soften and settle into your skin. This means that patients won't see the ultimate results of their treatment immediately. Although individual results will vary, many people achieve the full effect within two weeks after receiving their injections.
Hard and tender lumps suggest that your body might have reacted to the filler. A mild allergic reaction can be sorted out quickly and easily by a prescription of steroids, which our aesthetic medical professional can provide you with. This prescription is available at most pharmacies.
Generally, any lumps or bumps that appear after fillers will disappear on their own within one to two weeks. Give the treatment a couple of weeks to improve, applying ice regularly.
Massage is always the first step to help reduce lumpiness after fillers. You can be pretty aggressive in trying to mash the material into a smoother shape. If that doesn't work, your doctor can inject hyaluronidase to "melt" or dissolve the filler.
Upon injection, dermal fillers may feel firmer or harden due to a healing response of the body. Additionally, the filler needs to settle into the correct and ideal position. Some fillers may feel firmer than others. Injectors do tend to use firmer fillers for the cheeks, especially if accentuating the cheekbones.
So while the body naturally breaks them down over time, there is a way to speed up the process: Injections of hyaluronidase. Hyaluronidase is what the body produces naturally to break down fillers, so by injecting more, it allows the lips to regain natural shape quicker, usually going down within 3-4 days.
Many of these videos recommend massaging your treatment area immediately following your injection—but this can be harmful. In some cases, we recommend our patients massage their fillers following treatment to smooth them out below the skin; however, too much massage too soon may cause the filler to migrate slightly.
Massaging the treated areas can disrupt the dermal filler and cause the hyaluronic acid solution to move out of place. This can lead to an uneven or lumpy appearance.
In reality, fillers take up to four weeks to “settle,” according to Healthline. Different types of fillers can settle more quickly, and your lifestyle and similar factors can also affect the amount of time it takes to settle.
That said, these injectable treatments take some time to integrate into your tissues, and it's normal for your dermal filler to take up to two weeks to fully settle into your face.
Experiencing lumps in lips after injectable filler is extremely common—and lumps most often resolve naturally with time. Gentle lip massage 5-7 days after the treatment can help smooth any lumps and bumps in the lips.
If your lumps last longer than two weeks, they may have been caused by congealed hyaluronic acid. Although this cause is rare and uncommon, this can be corrected by injecting hyaluronidase into the lump. Hyaluronidase, like hyaluronic acid, occurs naturally in the body and is used to dissolve filler when needed.
If the filler is in a location further away from direct blood flow than other locations, then this means that cells that secrete hyaluronidase will not be able to reach the hyaluronic acid gel, and will therefore be unable to dissolve it.
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.
It is possible that bruising and swelling have created hardness which should soften over the next two weeks.
Dermal fillers are soft, gel-like substances that are injected under the skin.
The Results Improve Over Time
Because these injections stimulate your body's production of collagen and elastin, the final results of treatment won't be seen for several weeks. Even as the hyaluronic acid is processed by your body, healthy collagen and elastin grow at a more significant rate.
Although extremely rare, dermal fillers are able to migrate within the skin if consistent and adequate pressure is applied to them. For this reason, we advise patients not to get a facial, massage (on the treated skin), or microdermabrasion for the first two weeks following their filler injections.
DON'T: massage your lips.
Massaging freshly injected lips risks moving the filler around causing the possibility of desportation and undesirable results.
Delayed-onset nodules occur in 0.5% of HA filler treatments, typically four weeks to over one-year post-treatment. These nodules are believed to occur due to either delayed onset inflammation or bacterial biofilms. Often, these nodules have preceding infectious or immune triggers.
The lumps will be assessed on their consistency (soft, hard, or rubbery) and whether they are tender to the touch. Soft lumps are the easiest to manage, as these are more likely just undissolved or clumped filler which your Provider can smooth with a firm massage.
Migrated lip filler is visibly noticeable and usually presents as lumps, but can also appear as a puffy upper lip, lack of a defined border between lip edge and above and/or below the lip border – think duck lips. If you're prone to lip filler migration, you may be wondering why it keeps happening.
DON'T touch the treated area for at least 6-8 hours afterwards. The risk of infection is much higher in the time immediately after your filler treatment, so medical experts recommend not touching the affected area for at least that amount of time.
Filler can take 2 weeks to settle and this is completely normal.