A Botox injection can smooth out wrinkles and takes years off your face, offering one of the simplest and most effective cosmetic procedures known to modern plastic surgery. While you can go back to your regular activities after the treatment, you do want to be very careful about how you care for your skin and how you treat the area where the injection was done.
You don’t want to ruin the treatment and diminish the results, so there are some precautions you need to take following the injection.
Avoid Sun Exposure
Botox treatments can cause some bruising as your body recovers from the process, and if you expose your skin to heat or excessive sunlight during the initial recovery process, there may be even more bruising. You want to stay out of the sun as much as possible and keep heat away from the treated area for the next one to two days.
Try to stay indoors as much as possible and try to relax and keep from working up much of a sweat. Just having a high internal temperature that comes from working out or exerting yourself can increase your blood pressure and cause bruising where the Botox was injected.
Don’t Exercise or Exert Yourself
Related to the last point, it’s not wise to work out or do much strenuous activity after you’ve had an injection of Botox. It is probably best to avoid even doing light housework, as that can increase your blood pressure and your body heat and cause bruising. You may want to hire a cleaning service such as NYC home cleaners if some housework absolutely needs to be done while you recover. You should forego exercise for the next day or two just to preserve the results of the Botox.
Keep in mind that Botox is a toxic substance, and you don’t want to spread it throughout your body. If you exercise or exert yourself very much, you can disperse the toxin and reduce the results of the treatment as well as cause some minor damage to other parts of your body.
In some cases, your doctor may recommend that you wait several days before starting back exercise, depending on a few different factors. Pay close attention to what your doctor advises following the treatment.
Avoid Makeup
This may actually be one of the hardest items on this list for some of us to do. Makeup is such a normal part of our routine that it can be difficult to not put it on each morning and touch it up throughout the day. However, if you’re touching your face and putting on makeup, you could spread the toxins and reduce the effects of Botox.
It’s advisable to wait at least a day after you’ve had the treatment to use makeup at all, just to be on the safe side and to maximize your results.
Don’t Lie Down for Several Hours
Once you’ve had a Botox injection done, you’re not supposed to lie down for about 4 hours right after the procedure. Bending over and lying down could cause that toxin to spread. It might not be secure right after injection, so you need to give it about four hours before you go horizontal or bend over. Try to stay upright for the next few hours while the Botox settles and solidifies in place.
After you have waited for four hours, you can lie down on your back, but don’t put any pressure on the area where you’ve had the injections.
Avoid Alcohol
There are a number of different activities that could hinder the effectiveness of Botox and cause unwanted side effects, like bruising. Drinking alcohol is one of those, you want to avoid alcohol for 24 hours after the treatment. In fact, it’s advisable to avoid alcohol a full 24 hours before the treatment as well. Drinking it too close to your Botox injection time can cause bruising.
Try Not to Touch Your Face
How many times a day do you touch your face? You will quickly find out once you have a Botox injection since you’re not supposed to put hands to face for one to three days. Your doctor will advise you how long you need to avoid letting your hands come into contact with your face following the treatment, but for most people, it’s about a day or two. In some cases, it can be as many as three days.
If you’re wanting your results to last and the Botox to stay where it’s supposed to, then you shouldn’t be touching the affected area for a while. You’ll have to be very conscious about where you’re putting your hands because it’s so easy to let them wander onto your face just to scratch, rub, or feel the area where the injection was.
Because you will have a little soreness there as you recover, you will be very tempted to rub the area with your fingers and try to soothe some of the discomforts.
No matter which part of your body you’ve had the Botox injected, it’s best to not touch it or rub it for a couple of days so that the injection can be as effective as possible. This also helps to keep the toxin from spreading from the injection site.
Avoid Any Kind of Skin Treatment
You also want to leave off using skin treatments for at least the first day after you’ve had a Botox injection. Avoid trips to the spa as well as at-home treatments like exfoliating scrubs, dermal fillers, facial massages, or anything similar. After a full 24 hours has gone by following the injection, you’re welcome to have these treatments done. A spa treatment can be more intensive, and you should put that off for a week or two after the injection, just to be on the safe side.
If you take these precautions, your Botox injection can be a success, and you’ll quickly start to see results. You will also minimize your recovery time and be able to get back to doing all the things you love very quickly.
