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.
Do I massage my lips after lip fillers? Do not massage your lips for 24 to 48 hours after the treatment. Once your swelling subsides down, you can gently massage your lips with light pressure.
Give your lips a very gentle massage. Imagine that you are making Italian pasta using a “mattarello”, a rolling pin. Gently press your lips between your thumbs and forefingers and roll your lips between your fingers. Massage your lips 2-3 days after having a lip injection.
Massage can encourage the filler to be broken up by the body more quickly. But in practice this still takes a long time (like weeks of daily vigorous massage) to improve the outcome. This may also spread the product over a larger area causing more problems.
DON'T: massage your lips.
Massaging freshly injected lips risks moving the filler around causing the possibility of desportation and undesirable results.
In rare cases, facial fillers like Juvederm can migrate to another site of your face within a few days of your injections. This happens when the filler moves before it has fully bonded with your facial tissue.
The most common cause of lumps after a filler treatment is swelling and bruising from the injections themselves. These should naturally subside within the first week.
While massage can sometimes improve mild symptoms such as moderate lumpiness or slight asymmetry, don't perform massage on your fillers unless instructed to do so by your plastic surgeon or injector.
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.
When the cause is congealed hyaluronic acid (which usually occurs if you used fillers from the Juvederm and Restylane families), it can be easily corrected by injecting hyaluronidase right into the lump. Hyaluronidase, like hyaluronic acid, occurs naturally in the body.
Lumpiness is very common to feel in your skin in the days after injection of dermal filler into the face, including the upper lip body and the cheeks and the chin area and along wrinkles and folds when injected to lift these. It will usually resolve within a couple of weeks.
Generally, within two weeks the lip filler is no longer malleable. You should be able to massage or move your lips without changing the shape of them given you are two weeks post-injection. Though it is not exactly the same for each patient, lip filler stops being malleable after about one week.
The hardness feeling you are describing may be totally normal and seen a few days after you have the Juvederm done. Within usually a week or so the feeling will subside and around week 2 you should be satisfied its effects. I recommend placing a cold compress to this area and gently massage this filler.
"Lip filler migration is generally a result of the fact that hyaluronic acid fillers absorb water, and they can begin to create some extra volume and extra absorption of volume in areas that were outside of the primary injection site," says Dr. Karam.
During this two week period, the hyaluronic acid in your filler will settle into your dermal tissues and begin to interact with the water in your skin. This process will hydrate your skin and give you a healthy, youthful appearance.
Fillers come in pre-filled syringes, usually with 1 mL per syringe. To avoid duck lips, stick to one syringe per treatment. Honestly, some times we won't even use the whole syringe to avoid the risk of duck lips.
Fillers remain moldable for 1-2 weeks, and pressure can deform your filler.
Do not drink from a straw, as puckering your lips can put pressure on your lips and cause pain and swelling.
Your swelling should go away after 24 to 48 hours, but it may take up to a week. If you want your lips filled before a big event, like a wedding, you should schedule the procedure at least two weeks ahead of time to make sure you've completely recovered.
Now for some of the finer points of lip filler after care. Use aquaphor as a lip gloss for the rest of the day to reduce risk of infection. Eating is fine, but minimize wiping or rubbing your lips. Avoid kissing, massaging, smoking, or drinking through a straw and only touch the mouth area gently.
The good news is yes, those pesky filler lumps will in fact go away. It's actually quite uncommon for patients to experience any irritation or lumps following their procedure, but if you do, then you should expect them to dissipate after a few days.
The swelling that can often occur after Lip Fillers can cause the lips to look a little uneven for a short time. This doesn't necessarily mean that anything has gone wrong and it may just take a little time for the product to fully settle and for residual swelling to subside.