Hi hi, I’ve only had cosmetic surgery(?) twice, but based on my experience with full-face facial liposuction and eye surgery on a face that is especially sensitive to swelling, I’ll share the methods I used to reduce swelling fairly strategically.
First, I gathered information through 1) YouTube 2) searches 3) academic conference papers 4) overseas academic journals 5) my own self-tests, and compared changes in my body every day, hour by hour, to filter out only the things that seemed to work as accurately as possible.
[Principle of swelling] Swelling, broadly speaking, happens when bleeding occurs from capillaries and such under the skin through a wound, blood pools there (later becoming bruising), and various body fluids begin to accumulate in order to heal the capillaries and the inner skin tissues, causing the area to puff up. So in the end, you can understand swelling as body fluid and old blood inside your body. The body slowly absorbs dead cells and fluid, and the key is how quickly you can promote that process.
= To promote absorption of body fluid and dead cells (settling of swelling), you need to maximize lymphatic and blood circulation. That way, nutrients + oxygen are supplied quickly through the blood, speeding up “recovery,” and activating the lymphatic system speeds up “fluid absorption.” Improved recovery + absorption rate = ultra-fast reduction in swelling + bruising << this is the core point
From here on, I’ve narrowed it down only to accurate materials I kept testing and looking up.
[1] You don’t need to drink pumpkin juice and things like that. They say it has a diuretic effect, but there’s no need to pay money for it. And it’s already well known that it has not been medically verified at all. It would probably be better to drink another kind of tea instead. Pumpkin is high in sugar, so it makes you gain weight.
[2] Drink at least 2 L or more of water When your body has more water and the blood concentration becomes thinner, nutrients can be supplied to the wound area faster and more often, so recovery becomes faster. Also, urination needs to become more frequent through water intake so faster body-fluid absorption is accelerated too..!
[3] Take a venous + lymphatic activator The effect is far more direct than teas for reducing swelling. There are almost no side effects either. The downside is the price..? (I take one a day, and it’s almost 5,000-8,000 won) It boosts blood circulation and lymphatic function (the system responsible for body fluid), forcing the swelling-reduction speed to increase. If you go to a pharmacy and ask for a hemorrhoid treatment (liquid), they’ll give it to you.
[4] It’s actually better not to do warm compresses. Usually hospitals say to do cold compresses at first, then warm compresses afterward, but every doctor says something different, so compresses were what I researched the longest... The conclusion is that it’s better not to do warm compresses. Because within one week, wounds may look healed to the naked eye, but the tissue inside the skin often isn’t. If you switch straight to warm compresses in that state, it can actually worsen bruising and interfere with swelling reduction. On the other hand, cold compresses inhibit and contract cellular activity, so they’re good even after treatment. (They inhibit swelling-related cellular activity, but lymphatic and venous circulation continues anyway, so it doesn’t matter.) On YouTube, people often talk about cold until days 3-5 and then warm afterward, but it’s not good ㅠ
[5] For exercise, running is better than walking; weight training is forbidden Of course, exercise like weight training, which requires strong force in a short period of time, is negative for all wounds or surgeries, so you shouldn’t do it. That’s why they tell you not to exercise. But walking has too little benefit compared with the time invested. So after searching and searching, I found that doing something like “interval running” for about 1 hour, mixing sprinting + normal walking and sweating a little bit was the best. It lowers the sodium concentration in the body and has a very big effect on overall swelling relief, and since it gives an immediate boost to fluid circulation, it’s also very good for fluid absorption. However, if you sweat too much, the wound area can become contaminated, so you need to manage it well. For me, after running for 2 hours once, the swelling decreased to about 1/3-1/2 compared with right before.
[6] Sleeping while sitting is something you really have to do, even if it’s hard Using a high pillow and things like that had too weak an effect. The best is definitely just sleeping sitting up on a sofa, or with a large pillow or clothes behind your back. If you sleep sitting up, because of gravity, the swelling has no choice but to go down faster. Once, I slept lying down by accident, and even though I was on a low-sodium diet, the swelling puffed right back up again. When I slept sitting up again, it quickly got better..
[7] Increase the time for ice compresses People don’t recommend doing it for a long time, talking about frostbite and things like that, but anyway, after about an hour, an ice pack is almost melted, so you can just fall asleep with it on. And in normal times too, it’s good to keep one extra ice pack ready and apply it frequently while working or during the day. Ice compresses work so well... I wore glasses and put frozen Zzayo Zzayo on top of my glasses, doing it for several hours almost every day.
*** I sought a lot of advice on medical aspects and used evidence, but my personal opinions are probably mixed in, so use this only as a reference~. People think I manage swelling so well that they can’t tell I had surgery, so I’m sharing the information!
(The photos show the process of my surgery.)
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