Juvaderm and Swelling

As you mentioned, it really depends on the patient. Do you bruise easily? A good doctor will know where and how to place to minimize the side effects but there will at least be some swelling. Have you scheduled yet? Be sure to cease any OTC meds that will thin your blood like aspirin, etc. That will help keep bruising to minimum. I'm sure, though, a good doctor will give you a list of items to stay away from or stop using.

And don't worry! You'll be fine and thrilled with the result.

I had Juvederm to lift the corners of my mouth and a little bit in the marionette lines (mine are faint) about a year and a half ago. My face is oval and on the narrow side. The minimal swelling caused my face to get round which made me look so much younger! It was reminiscent of what my face looked like in my 20s. I couldn't believe how good I looked, but it only lasted 2 days and my face narrowed again as the puffiness went down. : (

I will say, I found the procedure to be extremely painful. About halfway through, I insisted on my derm mixing the Juve with lidocaine. My derm said most people do not experience the level of pain that I did. They make a prep of Juve/lidocaine, but it makes administration a little trickier because the liquid lidocaine takes up some of the space in the line, so the derm has to really be good in estimating how much to inject so that there won't be too little or too much Juve left in the line.

The results began to fade a little after about 10 months and were completely gone at around the one year mark. So far, I've chosen not to do it again because 1) my lines are not that prominent, 2) the cost and 3) the pain. The most dramatic difference for me was at the corners of my mouth and I may do that again sooner rather than later.

In my experience, if the person doing the injecting has numbed the area well beforehand, the pain is very manageable, more of a discomfort, really. Of course, everyone's pain threshold is different. I'm usually a big baby about pain, so I would think if I can stand it, anyone could. But YMMV and all that.

As to bruising, I find that using arnica gel immediately when I got home (after I finished icing the area) helped a lot. I had no noticeable bruising after my last procedure.

On 8/27/2014 focksie said:

I had Juvederm to lift the corners of my mouth and a little bit in the marionette lines (mine are faint) about a year and a half ago. My face is oval and on the narrow side. The minimal swelling caused my face to get round which made me look so much younger! It was reminiscent of what my face looked like in my 20s. I couldn't believe how good I looked, but it only lasted 2 days and my face narrowed again as the puffiness went down. : (

I will say, I found the procedure to be extremely painful. About halfway through, I insisted on my derm mixing the Juve with novocaine. My derm said most people do not experience the level of pain that I did. They make a prep of Juve/novocaine, but it makes administration a little trickier because the liquid novocaine takes up some of the space in the line, so the derm has to really be good in estimating how much to inject so that there won't be too little or too much Juve left in the line.

The results began to fade a little after about 10 months and were completely gone at around the one year mark. So far, I've chosen not to do it again because 1) my lines are not that prominent, 2) the cost and 3) the pain. The most dramatic difference for me was at the corners of my mouth and I may do that again sooner rather than later.

Prior to the procedure, I sat with a numbing cream on my face for 30 minutes as well as ice packs. The derm was astonished that the tears were streaming down my face. That's why he had to stop and inject lidocaine. It wasn't known beforehand that my reaction would be so severe. Different people experience different types of pain differently. On the other hand, I don't even blink an eye at the dentist and I've had plenty of dental work done without complaint.

Love Juvederm, in fact love all the fillers. They keep improving them all the time, coming up with new ones that last longer. I have Juvederm on the nose-to-mouth lines, Botox around the eyes, and a fairly new one called Belotero on the tiny lines around the lips. Definitely get the area numbed before the procedure, it can be very painful; my derm says the most painful area is around the lips. I don't experience much swelling, and it tends to go away in a few hours or overnight. No bruising. All this is expensive, but it's my main splurge in life and I count it as my birthday, anniversary and Christmas gift in one. I hope you go for it and are thrilled with your results.