Flights, Sun and Altitude: A Nurse’s Rules for the Week Before a Trip

A Knoxville nurse injector explains what a flight, a beach week and a mountain trip each do to your skin, and what she avoids in the days before leaving.

By Sarah Hitchcox, RN, BSN

I am a nurse in Knoxville, and I spend a good chunk of my week talking to people about trips. Beach weeks in the fall. A work conference in Denver. A cabin in the Smokies for a long weekend. The question I hear is almost always the same: “Can I still come in before I leave?”

The honest answer is that it depends less on the treatment and more on the trip. A flight, a week of sun, and a few days at altitude each do something different to your skin and to your body. Once you know what each one does, the choices before you pack get much simpler.

This is how I think it through with my own patients. It is not a rulebook, and your own provider may see it differently. But it is what I actually do.

Start with the trip, not the appointment

Most people plan backwards from a date on the calendar. They want to look rested for a wedding or a reunion, so they book the closest open slot before they fly.

I ask them to start somewhere else. What kind of trip is it? Will you be in the sun all day? Will you be somewhere dry and high? Will you be somewhere you cannot easily call me if something feels off?

Those three questions sort almost every trip I hear about into one of three buckets: the flight itself, the sun, and the altitude. Each bucket has its own short list of things I would rather you avoid in the days before you leave.

What a flight does to you

Cabin air is dry. You sit still for hours. You lean your face against the window, or you fall asleep on your hand, or you rub your eyes when you land. None of that is dramatic on its own, but it is a poor environment for anything on your face that needs to be left alone.

Botox is the treatment people ask about most before a flight. At Botox Knox Med Spa (https://botoxknoxvilletn.com), our West Knoxville injectables office, the appointment itself takes only ten to fifteen minutes and there is no downtime, though I do ask patients to skip the workout that day, stay upright rather than lie flat for the following four hours, and hold off on facials or massage to the face for at least ten days, so the plane is not really the concern. What I care about is timing. Botox and other neuromodulators take about two full weeks to reach their full effect, though some brands like Dysport tend to kick in sooner. That is why I advise getting any neurotoxin done four to six weeks before a trip or big event, so there is time for a touch-up if we need one, and so it is settled before you leave rather than settling somewhere I cannot see you.

So for a flight, my rule is simple. Do not make the injectable appointment the last thing you do before the airport. Give it room. If you have a question about how it looks or feels, I want you to be able to come back in, not send me a photo from a hotel bathroom.

Filler is a different conversation. It can swell or bruise for a few days, and a window seat with your cheek against the plastic is not where I want that swelling to happen. I also prefer that a patient not leave town right after a filler appointment, in case of an adverse reaction such as a vascular occlusion. If a trip is close, I would rather talk about it in person than book it and hope.

On the plane itself, the things that help are not glamorous, and most of them are already in your bag. Water. A plain moisturizer you have used before. Sunscreen, even in a window seat, because the glass does not block all of it. Nothing new, nothing you have never put on your face.

Sun: the beach, the lake, the boat

This is the bucket where I say no the most often, and it is almost always about lasers.

Laser hair removal, laser skin revitalization, and lesion reduction all work by putting energy into the skin. Sun does the same thing in its own way. Stacking the two close together is a bad idea, in either order. Freshly treated skin does not belong on a beach, and a fresh tan changes how I plan a laser session in the first place.

If you tell me you have a beach week coming up, I will usually hold off on laser and microneedling until you are back and the color has faded. That is not me being cautious for its own sake. It is the same conversation I would have with anyone who sits by a pool every weekend in July.

Microneedling is not necessarily off the table if you are going to be in the sun, but the treatment needs to be at least three to five days before something like a beach trip. I typically just advise waiting until afterward, because microneedling can even help lift pigmentation, and that pigmentation will increase after time in the sun.

Sun is also why I ask about the trip at all. People sometimes book a laser series in the spring without mentioning that they spend every summer weekend on Norris Lake. The series does not fail. It just gets interrupted, and then we are picking it back up in October once the color has faded.

The same goes for a long weekend on a boat or an afternoon at a ballgame. It does not have to be a resort. If your skin is going to see a lot of sun, I want to know before I plan anything around it.

What travels well into the sun? Botox that has already settled. A sunscreen you like enough to reapply. A hat with a real brim. A moisturizer that does not sting. A good vitamin C serum belongs in that bag too. It brightens the skin and helps protect it against free radical damage from sun exposure, which makes it one of the few “extras” I actually recommend packing. That is about it, and that is fine.

Altitude: ski trips, mountain cabins, thin dry air

Altitude gets less attention than sun, but it combines two problems. The air is drier than at home, and the sun is stronger. A ski week is a beach week with a coat on.

There is a third problem that has nothing to do with skin. Mountain trips are often remote. A cabin an hour from a paved road is a wonderful place to be, and a bad place to be if you are wondering whether something is normal.

So for altitude, my rule is about newness. I do not want the week before a remote trip to be the first time you try anything. Not a first Botox appointment, not a first laser session, not a first round of a skincare product. Do the first time when you are home and can come back in. Do the repeat when you like, once you know how you respond.

That applies to our GLP-1 weight-loss program too. The medication is prescribed with regular check-ins, and dose changes happen at those visits. If you are traveling, say so at the check-in before you go. I would much rather plan around a trip than have a change land in the middle of it.

The short list I avoid in the week before

If you take nothing else from this, take the list.

• Anything for the first time. New treatment, new product, new provider. The first time belongs at home.
• Laser or microneedling before sun. Beach, lake, boat, ski slope. Wait until you are back.
• An injectable appointment on the way to the airport. Give it time to settle while you are still nearby.
• A tan before a laser visit. Tell me about the trip and we will move the date.
• Skipping the conversation. A quick consultation at either of our offices is the fastest way to find out whether your plan is a good one.

What I would rather you do

Come in early. If a trip is on the calendar, the best time to talk about it is when you book, not when you are in the chair.

At Sarah Hitchcox Aesthetics (https://hitchcoxaesthetics.com), consultations are free at both our Bearden office on Kingston Pike and our Farragut office on Campbell Station Road. Bring the dates. Tell me whether it is a beach, a mountain, or a conference room. We will work backwards from there, and if the right answer is “wait until you are home,” I will say so.

Then pack the boring things. Sunscreen, a moisturizer you trust, water on the plane. Leave the experiments for when you are back, and enjoy the trip.