Minimise chewing. Duration: one to two weeks of soft food, then gradual return. Chewing works the lower face constantly.
Steak, crusty bread, raw carrots, gum and anything requiring a wide bite are out. Soup, eggs, fish, soft fruit and yoghurt are in. This rule matters most for jawline and lower-face threads and less for brow threads.
Do not rub, massage or press the face. Duration: a month. This includes washing.
Pat with fingertips, do not scrub. It also includes the habit of resting your chin on your hand, which several readers reported catching themselves doing at their desks.
No facials, facial massage, microcurrent, radiofrequency or other face treatments. Duration: usually four weeks or more, per your practitioner. These all move or heat the tissue the threads are sitting in.
The rules that protect against complications
Keep entry points clean and dry as instructed. Duration: until healed, usually a few days. Prevents infection at the one place the skin was opened.
No makeup over entry points. Duration: a day or two, or as advised. Same reason.
Avoid alcohol. Duration: a few days at least. It dilates blood vessels and increases swelling and bruising.
Avoid blood-thinning painkillers unless your practitioner has said otherwise. Duration: a week or so. Aspirin and ibuprofen increase bruising.
Ask before taking anything.
No saunas, steam rooms or hot yoga. Duration: two weeks or more. Heat increases swelling and can affect the thread material.
No strenuous exercise. Duration: about a week for light activity, two for anything vigorous. Raised blood pressure increases swelling and bruising, and sweat is not what you want around healing entry points.
A walk is fine. A spin class is not.
Postpone dental work. Duration: two to four weeks, longer per some practitioners. Wide mouth opening for a prolonged period loads the lower-face threads hard.
Reschedule the cleaning.
The rules about sun
Los Angeles readers need a separate section for this. Fresh entry points and bruises pigment more easily under strong light, and healing skin is more vulnerable to it. Sun exposure also works against the long-term result by degrading the collagen the procedure is relying on.
For the first two weeks, stay out of direct sun as much as you can. A wide hat and a high-factor sunscreen applied gently, without rubbing, once the entry points have closed.
After that, sun protection is simply part of protecting a result that you paid for. This city does not make that easy in summer, which is one reason autumn and winter appointments are popular with people who have done this before.
Rules that are sensible but secondary
Some list items are prudent without being decisive. Avoiding large earrings and heavy glasses for a few days, since they can press on treated areas. Not swimming in pools or the sea until entry points are healed.
Avoiding smoking, which impairs healing generally and works against collagen specifically. Taking it easy at work for a couple of days. None of these will ruin a result on their own.
All of them tilt the odds.
A timeline you can put on the fridge
Days one to three: back sleeping, cold compresses through cloth, soft food, minimal expression, no alcohol, no exercise, no makeup on entry points, no sun.
Days four to seven: same, with light walking allowed and entry points usually healed enough for gentle cleansing.
Week two: back sleeping continues, soft food eases toward normal, light exercise resumes, expressions still restrained, sun avoided.
Weeks three and four: normal sleeping for most people, normal food, moderate exercise, still no facials, massage or dental work, sun protection maintained.
After a month: most restrictions lift, with your practitioner's confirmation at follow-up. Sun protection continues indefinitely if you want the result to last.
The rules people argue about
Some aftercare items vary between practitioners, and readers write in confused about which version to follow. A few of the recurring disagreements, with our reading of why they differ.
Ice or no ice. Most practitioners advise cold compresses for the first day or two. A minority advise against, on the grounds that patients press too hard.
The disagreement is about pressure, not cold. Cold through cloth, held lightly, is what both camps are describing.
Arnica and bromelain. Some clinics hand these out; others call them unproven. The evidence for either reducing bruising is modest.
Neither is likely to harm. Ask your practitioner rather than the supplement aisle.
How long to avoid side sleeping. Advice ranges from five nights to three weeks. The longer figures come from practitioners who have seen threads shift late.
Two weeks is a common middle. If your practitioner says longer, they probably have a reason based on where your threads sit.
Alcohol. A few days to a week is the common range. Longer if you bruised heavily.
Makeup. Some clinics allow it the next day away from entry points; others say wait three days. The concern is bacteria at the entry points and pressure from application.
Mineral makeup applied with a clean brush, avoiding the entry points, is what the permissive camp means.
Neuromodulators and fillers alongside threads. Some practitioners combine them the same day; others space them by weeks. Sequencing is a matter of clinical judgement, and it is a fair question to ask why your practitioner does it the way they do.
When practitioners disagree, the more conservative version costs you nothing but a little patience. That is usually the one to follow.
Filling the time
Two weeks of small expressions and no gym leaves a lot of evenings. Readers have sent in their recovery routines.
Quiet museums feature often: the GRAMMY Museum downtown was one reader's choice for a week of afternoons, on the grounds that nobody talks loudly in exhibition halls and the lighting is kind.
Evening classes at the community colleges were another, with Glendale Community College and Harbor College in Wilmington both mentioned for short courses that involve sitting still and not laughing much. Audiobooks and long baths, kept below the face, rounded out most lists.
When the rules and reality disagree
You will break a rule. You will roll onto your side at four in the morning or laugh at something before you can stop. A single lapse is very unlikely to undo the result.
What matters is the pattern over the first two weeks. If you do notice a change after a lapse, a new dimple, a sudden asymmetry, a thread you can feel where you could not before, tell your practitioner rather than waiting to see.
Early adjustment is easier than late.
For general guidance on wound healing and infection signs that applies to any procedure, the consumer health pages from HHS, the federal health department, are unsponsored and readable. They do not replace the phone number of the person who treated you.
Margin note
Protect the threads from being pulled for two weeks: back sleeping, soft food, small expressions, no pressure. Protect the entry points from infection for a few days. Protect the whole face from sun for as long as you want the result.
Everything else on the sheet is a footnote to those three.
