How Do I Reduce Swelling Quickly?

Hey,
I recently got angel bites, and ofcourse my top lip is heaps swollen. I really need the swelling to be gone/minimal in two days. I have had heaps of piercings before, so don't tell me stuff i already know like 'swelling generally goes down in 3 - 5 days'. With my previous piercings, i just waited for the swelling to go down and didn't bother doing anything to speed it up.

Everything i've read, the main thing says to put ice on it etc. But, does ice stop the swelling long term? Or is it just a temperary fix. I put ice on my snake bites when i got them done years ago. And the ice would reduce the swelling, but then after an hour it'd just come back?

 

Anti-histamines in Tylenol might work? Reduces swelling but since your swelling is so localized; I doubt it would the reduction in swelling would be significant

 

hmm hard to do with the face. pressure helps me. but it hurts like a bitch you could try to put a ice pack on it.

 

I know that this helps with other swollen body parts, but you can try:

10 minutes Cold
10 minutes Warm.
Etc, etc, etc.
Do this for an hour whenever you have the free time. You say you have two days, so try and do 4 hours over both. Yes, it will be tedious and your arms will get sore as you have to hold whatever is cooling/heating your upper lip.

 

I just recently took my snakebites out after having them in for 8-10 months.

When I had them done at first though, I did the same as you mentioned. I just put some ice over them and tried my best to clean them whenever possible. (Don't ask me why, but I've only had an infection in my piercings when I did clean it. I've had a few others that I never bothered with cleaning and they got infected. Isn't that a little backwards?)
Anyways, just try your best not to play with them too much. I know with facial piercings, it's really tempting to fool around with it which won't help your situation any.

And if you need to get the swelling down asap, definitely switch to a smaller gauge if possible. Then when the swelling is gone and you need to put a bigger gauge in, just circle the studs (or rings? Which I doubt you have with angelbites..) around for a little bit and proceed with replacing them so you're not forcing the hole to expand and in turn cause more swelling.

Hopefully this helped the least bit? Then again, it's just common knowledge.