For some aesthetic practitioners even the thought of a vascular occlusion will bring them out in a sweat, a nightmare scenario.
At some point in your aesthetic career you will most likely come across a VO, you can certainly overcome a lot of anxiety surrounding VO’s by arming yourself with the knowledge to prevent and treat one if you ever need to!
1. Prevention
It may seem obvious, but this is always better than waiting for it to happen!
Know your facial anatomy, go over this regularly to keep it fresh in your mind. Even borrow friends and family to study their faces to test your knowledge!
Ensure you are injecting slowly. As with anything, rushing can mean you are more likely to make mistakes.
No patient would chose to put themselves at risk for a faster appointment over safer and better results.
If you are feeling nervous, take a minute to relax and take a deep breath.
You should always watch the patient, look to see if there is anything unusual on skins surface. If you see any changes, there might be cause for concern but you will never know this unless you are paying attention!
2. Be Prepared
As Heather mentioned, this does not mean preparation of the lips. You, the practitioner should be prepared!
Most of us will panic naturally during any emergency let alone the dreaded vascular occlusion but you need to be ready to act if you are faced with one.
Every Healthcare Improvement Scotland registered clinic is required to have an emergency kit. Make sure you know where it is on the premises and all products should be checked monthly to ensure they are in date.
Familiarise yourself with what is in the kit and what you should use in case of a vascular occlusion. You can print out a help sheet to keep in the box to help you.
We recommend being a member of a complications group such as ACE or CMAC and your clinic should have their own policy to help in the case of an emergency.
3. Check Both Sides
When it comes to Capillary refill time, make sure to compare the side in question to the opposite side.
If you do this and realise the other side is low too, you could be panicking for no reason!
This is why you need to judge both sides to know the original capillary refill time before jumping to any conclusions.
4. Keep Learning
Its important to keep learning, keep your knowledge and clinical skills up to date so your patients get great results and you keep safe too!
