Before you arrive
Two things to do, and one thing not to.
Do skip blood thinners you are not medically required to take. Fish oil, high-dose vitamin E, ibuprofen, and aspirin all raise your odds of bruising. Stopping them for a few days beforehand makes a real difference. If a doctor has you on a blood thinner, keep taking it and tell us.
Do come with a reference point. Not a filtered photo of a celebrity, but a photo of yourself from a few years ago, or a plain description of what bothers you when you look in the mirror. "My cheeks look flatter than they used to" is far more useful than a name.
Do not book it the day before an event. Bruising and swelling are normal, and while most people are presentable quickly, you do not want to be finding out on the morning of a wedding. Give yourself two weeks.
The consultation happens first, and it is not a formality
Before anything is drawn up, you and Diana talk through what is actually bothering you. This part matters more than people expect, because the area that bothers you is often not the area that needs treating.
Under-eye hollows are the clearest example. Plenty of people arrive asking for under-eye filler when the real issue is lost volume in the cheek below, which is dragging the whole area down. Filling the hollow directly, in that situation, can make things look worse. Adding support to the cheek fixes it.
You will also go through your medical history, medications, previous treatments, and whether you have had filler before and what happened. If you have had work elsewhere, say so, including roughly when and where. It changes the plan.
You should leave the consultation knowing what is being recommended, why that area, roughly how much product, and the exact price before anything begins. If you are not comfortable, this is the moment to stop. Nobody here will push.
The treatment itself
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Mapping | Diana marks the injection points and you look at them together in a mirror |
| Numbing | Topical numbing cream, given time to work. Most fillers also contain lidocaine |
| Injection | Needle or blunt cannula depending on the area, product placed in stages |
| Checking | You sit up and look, mid-treatment, before anything more goes in |
That third column is the part people are most nervous about and it is usually the least dramatic. You will feel pressure. You may feel a quick pinch at entry. Most patients describe it as far easier than they expected.
The sitting-up-and-checking step is not optional and it is not theatre. Filler behaves differently lying flat than it does upright, because gravity is doing something different to your face. Any injector who does the whole treatment without letting you look is working blind.
Most first appointments run forty-five minutes to an hour, most of which is consultation, mapping, and numbing rather than injecting.
Immediately afterward
You will look swollen. This is normal and it is not your result.
- Swelling peaks around day two and settles over the following days.
- Bruising, if you get it, is most likely around the lips and under-eyes, where the tissue is
thin and vascular. Usually gone within a week, and covers with makeup after the first day.
- Lips especially can look considerably bigger than what you agreed to for the first couple of
days. Do not evaluate them, and please do not book a correction, until day fourteen.
For the first day: no strenuous exercise, no saunas or hot yoga, sleep on your back if you can, and keep your hands off the treated area. Nothing dramatic, just do not aggravate it.
When you see the real result
Two weeks. That is the judging appointment.
By then swelling has resolved, the product has settled into the tissue, and what you are looking at is what you actually bought. Hyaluronic acid fillers also draw in a small amount of water over the first couple of weeks, so the final volume is not the day-one volume.
Book a two-week follow-up for your first treatment. It is how you find out whether the amount was right for you, and it makes every appointment after it more accurate.
The questions people are too polite to ask
Will it look obvious? Only if too much goes in too fast. Overfilled faces are the result of volume outrunning what the tissue can carry, usually built up over several rushed appointments. Conservative dosing with a follow-up is how you avoid it.
Can it be undone? Hyaluronic acid fillers, which covers most of what is used for lips, cheeks, and under-eyes, can be dissolved with an enzyme. That is a genuine safety net and one of the reasons they are the default starting point.
How long does it last? Depends on the product and the area, generally somewhere between six months and two years. Areas that move a lot, like lips, break product down faster than areas that do not, like cheeks.
What if I just want to talk about it? Then book a consultation and talk about it. You are not committed to treatment on the day.
The best first filler appointment is one where you leave looking like a slightly better-rested version of yourself, and nobody can tell you why.