Lip Injections for Preventing Cold Sores?

In fact treatments like laser, exfoliation (think dermabrasion or microderm) and peels can trigger cold sore outbreaks. Most plastic surgeons will actually pre-treat with medications to suppress outbreaks for some of these more aggressive treatments (but typically not for injectables). I hope this helps.

DT, This is an interesting question, but there is no correlation with lip injections and reduction of cold sores. David Shafer, MD New York City

Cold sores can come as a result of trauma (from injections) or from stress, or just because the viruses camping out on the nerve endings feel like causing trouble. Patients who are prone to getting cold sores may wish to obtain a prescription for antiviral medication from their doctor prior to injection. There are to my knowledge no injectables that prevent cold sores, only that predispose to their formation.

Actually just the opposite.  Lip injections can cause an outbreak of cold sores whcih are basically herpetic lesions.

Hello, Although I have never seen an injection spur a cold sore, it can happen with the stronger peels.This is the reasoning behind anti-viral prophylaxis with these deeper peels.   Best Regards,   John Di Saia MD  

There are no medications which can be injected into the lips which can prevent cold sores to my knowledge. What is very important to recognize is that injections into the lips can very well induce an outbreak of cold sores from the localized trauma to the area if you have developed cold sores in the past! If you have a history of developing cold sores and are planning on any type of localized injections into the lip region, definitely be sure to let your plastic surgeon know before hand,... more