Q. Is it safe or even wise to get Restylane injections in my face before or after bilateral total hip replacement surgery? I’m concerned about the possibility of infection having two prosthetics. The THR surgery will be later on this year. I used Restylane (tear trough) a couple of years ago with good results. If it’s OK, how many months/years should I wait either before or after the THR? I’m 48yrs, fit, [was] very active and developed severe hip osteoarthritis. Thank you in advance.
A. This is a very reasonable question! We live in an environment where we, human patients are bombarded by germs. Viruses, bacteria and yeast are the 3 main concerns regarding infection when placing a prosthetic device in the body.
In general, with proper anti-septic care, particularly using alcohol and iodine or chlorhexidine prep on the area to be injected with a filler, your risk of injection is rare. Concerns do exist regarding biofilms on injectables and these too are rare.
I recommend my patients to wait 3 months or more before or after a prosthetic is placed for filler injections (molecules which last more than a few hours or days in the body) and to receive written clearance from the prosthetic surgeon. This is not the case with single small molecules such as Botox where a 2 to 3 week window should suffice for the body’s normal immune defense system to clear the “germs”.
I hope this is helpful. All the best! Is it safe or even wise to get Restylane injections in my face before or after bilateral total hip replacement surgery?
Q. Is it safe or even wise to get Restylane injections in my face before or after bilateral total hip replacement surgery? I’m concerned about the possibility of infection having two prosthetics. The THR surgery will be later on this year. I used Restylane (tear trough) a couple of years ago with good results. If it’s OK, how many months/years should I wait either before or after the THR? I’m 48yrs, fit, [was] very active and developed severe hip osteoarthritis. Thank you in advance.
A. This is a very reasonable question! We live in an environment where we, human patients are bombarded by germs. Viruses, bacteria and yeast are the 3 main concerns regarding infection when placing a prosthetic device in the body.
In general, with proper anti-septic care, particularly using alcohol and iodine or chlorhexidine prep on the area to be injected with a filler, your risk of injection is rare. Concerns do exist regarding biofilms on injectables and these too are rare.
I recommend my patients to wait 3 months or more before or after a prosthetic is placed for filler injections (molecules which last more than a few hours or days in the body) and to receive written clearance from the prosthetic surgeon. This is not the case with single small molecules such as Botox where a 2 to 3 week window should suffice for the body’s normal immune defense system to clear the “germs”.
I hope this is helpful. All the best! 
