after a night of sweet sweet lurve, ive found i have two gruesome looking hickies on my neck. it looks like i got hit by a goddamned grenade…really rather impressive!
i tried covering them up with makeup, but it didnt really seem to help.
anyone know a surefire way to get rid of lovebites.fast?!
Cover 'em with body makeup. I know of no medications or other treatments to make them heal faster.
Qadgop, MD
BeatnikMathematics
Well, hickey’s are bruises, so the quickest way to get rid of them is to treat them as such. Anything that will increase circulation to the effected area and facilitate healing the broken blood vessels and clean up of the spilled blood will help.
Gentle Massage to the effected area (I remember at least one folk remedy of rubbing it with the back of a spoon, which should at least increase circulation and help the process somewhat). If I’m remembering my basic physiology, applying mild heat (hot compress?) should also help because it will also increase circulation to the area.
[minor rant]
My next suggestion would be a long talk with the person who gave them to you, but that’s just my view. I tend to think of hickeys as someone “leaving their mark” on me on purpose in order to show I’m taken, and I take a dim view of someone deciding they “own” me. This is just my view on them, and I wouldn’t say it’s shared by the majority of the world, but for me, someone who leaves a hickey on me once gets talked to about it, someone who leaves a hickey on me twice gets to find someone new to apply them to.
[/minor rant]
-Doug
dublos, you got it right. I was working overseas and one of my co-workers was a married American from San Francisco. He got down to “making the beast with two backs” with a local gal who worked at the US embassy. For weeks everything was peachy and rosey until it was time for him to go home. Each night of the last two nights he spent with her she put a honking big hickey on each of his pectoral muscles above the nipples. I offered to put on gloves and work him over a bit to make it look like he got mugged. He tried icing them. Last I heard his plan was to sunburn himself as soon as he got home.
Anyway, there’s no question it was some kind of a possessive/territorial thing.
Ah, if only it were true. Massaging the area too soon may result in more bleeding into the tissue. Same for warm compresses. These maneuvers are best if you wait 24-48 hours after the bruise was received. Before then, icing will minimize the bruise to some extent. Either way, at best you might expect only a 10-25% reduction of resolution time, and if done improperly, it may take longer than just leaving it alone.
Qadgop, MD
Qadgop - wouldn’t leeches work? 
Ya know, they just might! But better apply them early, while the bleeding is still fresh. Really, tho, I would expect them to help cut down resolution time by only a small percentage. But that’s just a WAG on my part. I’m unaware of any well-controlled double-blinded leech/hickey studies. Wanna volunteer?
Sure! I’ll ask rjk if he wants to help.
Wait.
Leeches?! :eek: ::shudder::
Ummm, maybe another time?
[hijack]
A friend of mine was given hickies one weekend, all on her neck and along both jaw lines. She was TOTALLY unable to hide them and it took a good week or more for them to fade. I remember the first day at school after that, my innocent little sister comes up to me and asks “What happened to her? Did her boyfriend beat her?” Now what do you answer to that? 
[/hijack]
Sure, I’ve got a jar of leeches right here (although a few got out overnight - watch where you step!)
Always glad to help …
Beatnik, if you like the look of them, I apologize for this. . .
Hickies are about the trashiest thing I think I’ve ever seen, and I’m with dublos that your SO needs a talkin’ to. Anyone who thinks they have a right to leave marks on you (regardless of whether they were done in love or anger) should have another thing coming. I think they send the wrong message, and you ought to think twice before allowing them to be administered to you again.
I should point out that hickies aren’t exactly safe sex. You are actually raising blood from the capillaries through the skin, if you suck hard enough you can get a little blood on your lips and tongue (yes, I did this once by accident). This is direct blood contact, a very high risk activity.
Since you’va already got doctor’s advice, how about some folk-remedies? Really dorm-remedies, but here goes…
Toothpaste. You smear toothpaste on the affected areas. It irritates the heck out of the hickie and it’s supposed to open up capillaries or something. Even if (when) it doesn’t work, your neck smells minty-fresh.
Exercise. You go work out and get your blood pumping. Washes the hickie out of your skin. Or gives you great big muscles to beat on anyone who mocks you.
Sex. Sweaty, heart-pumping sex. Gets the blood flowing and…naw, it’s just a way to get more sex. (But YOU gave me 'em. YOU have to help them go away.) Doesn’t work on two levels.
Leeches. Always brought up, never tried.
Oil based make-up. More covering power than the powder stuff.
Turtleneck (at 85°F). A classic. Cut the arms off the t-neck if you get hot. Very subtle.
Scarves. See “turtleneck”.