Lip Filler Side Effects and Nose Tip Necrosis: What You Need to Know

Introduction

Lip fillers have become one of the most commonly performed cosmetic procedures around the world, valued for the quick, visible results they offer with relatively little downtime. For the vast majority of people who get them, the experience involves nothing more than the expected mild swelling and bruising that resolves within days. But like any procedure that involves injecting material into the body, lip fillers carry real risks — and one of the most serious, though rare, is a complication called nose tip necrosis, where tissue at the tip of the nose is damaged or dies due to an interrupted blood supply.

This guide exists because understanding this risk properly — not to create fear, but to create genuine, informed awareness — is one of the most important things anyone considering a filler procedure can do. The difference between a safe, routine procedure and a serious complication very often comes down to one single factor: whether the person performing the injection has a precise, thorough understanding of facial vascular anatomy. This guide explains exactly why that matters, what nose tip necrosis actually is, how to recognize it early, and what treatment involves if it occurs.

It's worth being clear from the outset about the actual scale of this risk, since context matters enormously here. Serious vascular complications from lip filler are considered rare in the overall picture of how many procedures are performed safely and successfully every single day around the world. This guide is not meant to suggest that lip fillers are inherently dangerous or that they should be avoided — it's meant to explain, clearly and specifically, exactly what separates a safe procedure from a risky one, so that anyone considering treatment can make a genuinely informed decision, ask the right questions of a potential provider, and recognize warning signs early if something does go wrong.

What Are Lip Fillers

Lip fillers are injectable cosmetic products, most commonly made from hyaluronic acid, a substance naturally found in the body that helps skin retain volume and hydration. When injected into the lips, filler adds volume, shape, and definition, and results are typically visible immediately, lasting anywhere from several months to over a year depending on the specific product used and individual factors.

The procedure itself is generally quick, often performed in a clinic setting using a fine needle or a blunt-tipped cannula, sometimes alongside a topical or local numbing agent to reduce discomfort. While the procedure is minimally invasive and often described as routine, it still involves inserting a needle or cannula into an area of the face that is dense with blood vessels, nerves, and other delicate structures — which is exactly why proper anatomical knowledge on the part of the injector is so critical, a theme this guide returns to throughout.

It's worth understanding a bit more about hyaluronic acid itself, since its properties are directly relevant to both why it's such a popular filler choice and why it plays such an important role in the emergency treatment described later in this guide. Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring substance already present throughout the body's skin and connective tissue, where it plays a role in retaining moisture and supporting skin structure. Because the body already recognizes this substance, hyaluronic acid fillers are generally very well tolerated, with a low risk of the kind of allergic reaction sometimes associated with older filler materials. Just as importantly, hyaluronic acid can be broken down and dissolved on demand using a specific enzyme called hyaluronidase — a property that has fundamentally changed the safety profile of modern filler treatment, since it means that if something does go wrong, including the vascular occlusion this guide focuses on, there is a genuine, effective way to reverse it quickly, a safety net that older, non-dissolvable filler materials simply didn't offer.

Common, Mild Lip Filler Side Effects

Most people who get lip fillers experience only mild, temporary side effects that resolve on their own within a week or two. Being aware of these expected, low-risk effects helps distinguish normal healing from the much rarer warning signs of a serious complication, covered later in this guide.

These effects, while sometimes visually noticeable in the first few days, are considered a normal, expected part of the healing process and are not cause for alarm. What this guide focuses on instead is the much rarer, more serious category of complication that requires genuine urgency and awareness — beginning with what nose tip necrosis actually is.

It's worth briefly explaining why these mild effects happen at all, since understanding the difference between expected tissue response and a genuine warning sign is part of what makes it possible to tell the two apart confidently. Any needle passing through skin causes some degree of minor, localized trauma to small superficial blood vessels and soft tissue, which is exactly what produces the ordinary bruising and swelling most people experience — a normal, self-limited inflammatory response that resolves as the body naturally repairs this minor, expected tissue disruption. This is fundamentally different from the vascular occlusion discussed later in this guide, which involves a much larger, functionally significant blood vessel actually being blocked, cutting off blood supply to an entire area of tissue rather than simply causing minor, superficial bruising. Recognizing this distinction — ordinary, expected, superficial bruising versus severe, disproportionate pain and unusual skin discoloration — is exactly the skill this guide is trying to help build.

What Is Nose Tip Necrosis

Nose tip necrosis is a serious, though rare, complication that can occur when lip filler is accidentally injected into or compresses a blood vessel that also supplies blood to the tip of the nose. When that blood vessel becomes blocked, the tissue at the nose tip is cut off from its blood supply, and without oxygen and nutrients delivered through that blood flow, the affected tissue can become damaged and, if not addressed quickly, begin to die — a process called necrosis.

What makes this complication particularly striking, and part of why it's genuinely important to understand, is that the injection itself happens nowhere near the nose — it happens in the lip. This isn't a random or unexplainable event; it happens because of a very specific, well-documented anatomical connection between the blood vessels of the lip and those of the nose, which is exactly what the next section explains in detail.

This complication has been documented and studied in medical literature specifically because it illustrates something important about cosmetic injectable procedures more broadly: the visible injection site and the area actually at risk of damage are not always the same place. A patient receiving lip filler, quite reasonably, is focused on their lips — and yet the real area of concern in a case of vascular occlusion can be entirely elsewhere on the face. This is precisely why patient awareness of this specific risk matters just as much as provider training: someone who understands that nose discoloration or unusual pain following a lip injection is a genuine warning sign, rather than something unrelated to the procedure, is far more likely to seek help quickly rather than dismissing the symptom as unconnected to their recent treatment.

Why It Happens: Shared Blood Supply

To understand nose tip necrosis, it helps to understand a basic but critical fact about facial anatomy: blood doesn't flow to each part of the face in a neat, separate, isolated system. Instead, arteries branch and connect across different areas of the face, and the blood supply to the lips and the blood supply to the tip of the nose are, in specific individuals, closely connected through shared or neighboring blood vessels — most notably in the pathway involving the superior labial artery and the branches that continue upward toward the nose.

When filler is injected directly into one of these vessels, rather than into the surrounding soft tissue as intended, it can travel through the connected vascular pathway and physically block blood flow further along that same route — in this case, at the tip of the nose, even though the injection site was the lip entirely. This is known as vascular occlusion, and it's the underlying mechanism behind nearly every serious filler complication of this kind, not just at the nose tip but at other at-risk areas of the face as well.

This is precisely why simply knowing "how to inject" is not enough to safely perform this procedure. A safe injector needs a precise, three-dimensional understanding of exactly which blood vessels run through a given area, where they branch, where they connect to other regions of the face, and how to recognize the earliest signs that an injection may have entered a vessel rather than the surrounding tissue — allowing them to stop immediately and respond before serious tissue damage can occur.

It also helps to understand, in general terms, exactly what happens at the microscopic level once a vessel is blocked, since this explains why speed of response matters so much. Tissue throughout the body depends on a continuous supply of oxygen and nutrients carried by blood, and most tissue can only survive a limited window of time without that supply before cellular damage begins to occur, and eventually becomes irreversible if blood flow isn't restored. This window — often described in clinical terms as a matter of a few hours before damage becomes significant and harder to reverse — is exactly why any sign of vascular compromise during or after a filler procedure is treated as a genuine emergency requiring an immediate response, not something to monitor cautiously over the following days.

Facial vascular anatomy also varies somewhat from person to person, which adds another layer of complexity that only thorough training can properly account for. While the general pathway of arteries in the face follows a broadly predictable pattern, the exact position, size, and connections of specific vessels can differ between individuals, meaning a technique that's perfectly safe on one person's anatomy could carry a slightly different risk profile on someone else. This is part of why experienced, well-trained injectors approach each patient's anatomy carefully and individually, rather than applying a purely mechanical, one-size-fits-all technique regardless of the person in front of them.

The Same Risk in Other Procedures

It's worth understanding that vascular occlusion isn't unique to lip fillers — it's a risk inherent to any procedure that involves injecting material near blood vessels without a precise understanding of that specific area's vascular anatomy. This same underlying risk applies, in different forms, to hair transplant procedures, other facial filler sites, and any injectable cosmetic or medical procedure performed near major blood vessels.

A useful, if sobering, comparison helps illustrate why this matters so much: damage to a major blood vessel in the spine can, in serious cases, result in paralysis of the legs, because that vessel supplies blood to tissue far from the actual point of injury. The same basic principle — that damage to a blood vessel at one location can cause serious harm to tissue located somewhere else entirely, wherever that vessel's blood supply reaches — applies directly to the lip and nose tip connection described in this guide, and to numerous other procedures where an injector's precise knowledge of local vascular anatomy is the single factor separating a routine, safe procedure from a serious complication.

This is also directly relevant to hair transplant procedures, where practitioners work with numerous blood vessels across the scalp. A practitioner without a precise, thorough understanding of exactly where these vessels run and where they lead carries a meaningfully higher risk of causing vascular complications, even when performing what looks, on the surface, like a routine, well-established procedure. The lesson across every one of these examples is the same: the visible skill of performing an injection is only part of the picture — the invisible, foundational knowledge of exactly what lies beneath the skin at every point along the way is what actually determines whether a procedure is genuinely safe.

Beyond hair transplants and lip fillers, this same principle extends to other commonly injected areas of the face, including the area between the eyebrows, the temples, and the area beneath the eyes — all regions where major blood vessels run close to the surface and where a poorly placed injection carries a real, documented risk of vascular complications. Local anesthesia and numbing injections, used across many medical and dental procedures, follow the same underlying rule as well: the safety of the injection depends heavily on knowing exactly which vessels lie beneath the injection site, how quickly a given substance disperses through the surrounding tissue, and what the appropriate amount is for that specific location — details that separate a trained medical professional from someone simply attempting to replicate the mechanical act of giving an injection without the underlying anatomical knowledge that makes it genuinely safe.

Signs and Stages of Necrosis

The earliest stage is, by far, the most important to recognize, because this is the window where intervention can most effectively prevent lasting tissue damage. The combination of unusually severe pain at the time of injection, together with skin turning pale or a dusky, discolored shade in the surrounding area, is considered a medical emergency requiring immediate attention from the injecting provider or emergency medical care — not something to simply wait out at home to see if it improves.

It's genuinely useful to understand how this pain is typically described by patients who have experienced it, since "severe pain" alone can be a somewhat vague warning sign without more specific context. Patients who have experienced vascular occlusion often describe the pain as dramatically more intense than the mild discomfort or pressure typically expected during a filler injection — sometimes described as sudden, sharp, or burning, and clearly out of proportion to what the rest of the procedure has felt like. This distinct, unexpected intensity of pain, especially when paired with visible skin color change, is exactly the combination that should prompt an immediate pause and assessment, rather than being dismissed as ordinary injection discomfort.

The color changes described in the table above also follow a fairly recognizable pattern that's worth understanding in a bit more visual detail. Blanching, the earliest sign, refers to the skin becoming unusually pale or white, similar to how skin looks when firmly pressed and then released, except that in vascular occlusion, this pale appearance doesn't return to normal color the way it would after ordinary pressure. As the compromised blood flow continues, the skin often shifts toward a mottled, bluish-purple, or dusky appearance, reflecting blood that isn't circulating properly through the area. These are not simply variations of normal bruising, which tends to look more uniformly reddish-purple and doesn't come with the same severity of pain — the combination of appearance and pain together, rather than either alone, is what helps distinguish a genuine vascular emergency from ordinary, expected post-injection bruising.

Timing also matters when interpreting these signs. Ordinary bruising and swelling from a filler injection tend to develop gradually and predictably over the following hours to a day, following a fairly typical, expected pattern that most people are somewhat familiar with from routine injections or minor injuries. Vascular occlusion, by contrast, often announces itself immediately or within minutes of the injection itself, with pain and skin color change appearing far faster and more dramatically than ordinary post-procedure swelling would. This immediacy is itself a meaningful clue, and it's part of why experienced injectors typically observe patients closely for a period immediately following a filler injection, precisely to catch this kind of rapid, early warning sign before the patient has even left the clinic.

Is Necrosis Life-Threatening

Nose tip necrosis and filler-related vascular occlusion are serious complications, but in the vast majority of cases, they are not directly life-threatening in the sense of posing an immediate risk to life itself — the danger lies primarily in permanent tissue damage, scarring, and disfigurement if the blocked blood flow is not addressed quickly. That said, any vascular complication from an injectable procedure should always be treated with real urgency and taken seriously, since delayed treatment significantly increases the risk of permanent, visible damage, and in rare, more extensive cases of vascular occlusion elsewhere on the face, more serious complications, including vision loss when the eye's blood supply is involved, have been documented in medical literature. This is exactly why prompt recognition and immediate action, covered throughout this guide, matter so much.

It's worth drawing a clear distinction here between the specific complication this guide focuses on and the broader, rarer category of vascular complications that can occur with filler in other facial locations, since conflating the two can create either unnecessary alarm or, just as problematically, a false sense that all filler complications carry the same level of severity. Nose tip necrosis specifically, resulting from lip filler traveling through the connected vascular pathway described earlier in this guide, is primarily a tissue and cosmetic concern rather than one involving vital, life-sustaining structures. The much rarer, more serious vision-related complications occur through a different mechanism, generally involving filler entering vessels connected to the blood supply of the eye, most often associated with injections in the forehead, between the eyebrows, or around the nose bridge rather than the lips specifically. Understanding this distinction helps put the actual risk of lip filler specifically into accurate, appropriate context, without either minimizing the genuine seriousness of nose tip necrosis or overstating it as equivalent to the rarest and most severe complications associated with filler procedures in other facial areas entirely.

It's also worth acknowledging the psychological weight that even a primarily cosmetic complication can carry, since dismissing it as "just" a tissue or appearance issue understates its real impact on the people affected. The face is central to how people are recognized and how they present themselves in the world, and visible scarring or disfigurement, even when medically non-life-threatening, can have a genuinely significant effect on a person's confidence, mental health, and daily life. Taking this complication seriously, both medically and in terms of the person's overall wellbeing, is part of responsible, complete care — not something to be minimized simply because it doesn't carry an immediate physical threat to life itself.

Treatment for Nose Tip and Nasal Tissue Necrosis

When vascular occlusion is recognized early, prompt treatment can often prevent or significantly limit permanent tissue damage. The following is general information only — actual treatment must be directed by a qualified doctor, ideally the treating injector working alongside a dermatologist or plastic surgeon if needed.

The single most important factor in successful treatment is speed. Hyaluronidase, in particular, is most effective when administered as early as possible after the vascular occlusion is recognized, which is exactly why any reputable provider offering hyaluronic acid filler should have hyaluronidase immediately available on-site, along with clear training in exactly how and when to use it.

It's worth explaining, in general terms, why hyaluronidase works so effectively and so quickly for this specific complication. Since most modern lip fillers are made from hyaluronic acid, and hyaluronidase is an enzyme that specifically breaks down hyaluronic acid, injecting it directly into or near the area of concern can rapidly dissolve the filler that's causing the blockage, often restoring blood flow within a short period once administered. This is exactly why hyaluronic acid-based fillers are generally considered a comparatively safer category of filler overall compared to older, non-dissolvable filler materials used in the past — not because they eliminate the risk of vascular occlusion entirely, but because they offer a genuinely effective emergency reversal option that non-hyaluronic acid fillers simply don't have in the same way.

Follow-up care after an episode of vascular occlusion, even one caught and treated early, typically continues for some time after the initial emergency treatment. The treating provider will generally monitor the affected area closely over the following days, sometimes repeating hyaluronidase treatment if any residual filler or compromised blood flow remains, and will provide guidance on wound care if any skin changes did occur before treatment began. This ongoing monitoring is an important part of ensuring the best possible outcome, rather than treatment ending the moment the initial emergency response is complete.

Can Damaged Tissue Be Repaired

Whether damaged nasal or facial tissue can be repaired depends heavily on how early the vascular occlusion was recognized and treated. When caught within the critical early window and treated promptly, blood flow can often be restored before any permanent tissue damage occurs, allowing the area to heal completely with no lasting mark. When treatment is delayed and tissue damage has already progressed to skin breakdown or visible necrosis, some degree of scarring is more likely, though modern wound care, and in some cases later reconstructive or scar-revision treatment, can meaningfully improve the appearance of affected skin over time.

This is, once again, why early recognition matters so profoundly — the difference between full recovery and lasting scarring very often comes down to how quickly the warning signs described earlier in this guide were noticed and acted upon.

For cases where some degree of permanent tissue damage has already occurred despite treatment, it's worth understanding that modern dermatology and reconstructive medicine offer meaningfully more options today than in years past. Depending on the extent and location of scarring, options a specialist might discuss can include laser treatments to improve skin texture and reduce discoloration, topical treatments to support skin remodeling over time, and in more significant cases, reconstructive procedures performed by a plastic surgeon. None of these later options change the importance of prompt initial treatment — they simply mean that even in a worst-case scenario, ongoing medical care can still meaningfully improve outcomes over time, rather than leaving a person with no further options once the initial emergency has passed.

It's also worth acknowledging the emotional dimension of this kind of complication, since facial scarring, even when relatively minor, can understandably affect a person's confidence and wellbeing. Anyone navigating recovery from this kind of complication deserves both competent medical follow-up and a compassionate, patient approach to their own healing process — comparing one's own recovery timeline to idealized images or unrealistic expectations online tends to add unnecessary distress on top of an already difficult experience, whereas working steadily with a qualified provider through the full recovery and any follow-up treatment tends to produce the best both medical and emotional outcomes over time.

Recovery and Skin Healing

For milder cases caught early and treated promptly, recovery is often straightforward, with the skin returning to a normal appearance within days to a couple of weeks as blood flow is restored and any minor surface changes resolve. For cases involving some degree of tissue damage, healing takes longer and benefits from careful wound care, including keeping the area clean, following the treating doctor's guidance on any topical treatment, protecting the area from sun exposure to reduce the risk of lasting discoloration, and avoiding picking at any healing skin, which can worsen scarring — a principle that applies to healing skin generally, not just in this specific context.

Patience is genuinely important during this recovery period. Skin healing, especially after any degree of tissue injury, happens gradually over weeks, and pushing for faster results through unproven home remedies or excessive intervention can sometimes do more harm than good. Following the treating provider's specific guidance, rather than general online advice, is the safest and most effective path through recovery.

A few general wound care principles apply consistently across most cases of healing skin, regardless of the specific cause, and are worth understanding for anyone going through this kind of recovery. Keeping the area appropriately moisturized, as directed by the treating provider, tends to support healthier healing than allowing skin to become dry and tight, since well-hydrated skin generally forms less noticeable scar tissue than skin that's allowed to dry out excessively during the healing process. Gentle, non-abrasive cleansing, rather than vigorous scrubbing, protects newly forming skin from unnecessary additional trauma. And consistent, daily sun protection — not just during obviously sunny weather — matters more than many people realize, since healing or recently healed skin is often more vulnerable to sun-related discoloration than mature, fully healed skin, and this vulnerability can persist for weeks or even months after the visible healing process appears complete.

It's also worth setting realistic expectations about timeline. While mild cases may resolve within one to two weeks, more significant tissue involvement can take several weeks to months for the skin to fully settle into its final healed appearance, and any scar tissue that does form will generally continue to soften and become less noticeable gradually over the following months, in many cases for up to a year or more, before reaching its final, most improved appearance. This gradual improvement is a normal, expected part of the body's healing process, and it's part of why dermatologists and plastic surgeons often recommend waiting a meaningful period before pursuing more intensive scar-revision treatments, since the skin's own natural healing may continue to improve the appearance considerably on its own during that time.

Risk Factor Chart

Each of these factors compounds the others rather than acting entirely in isolation. An unqualified injector using a high-volume, fast injection technique in a high-risk vascular zone, without hyaluronidase readily available in case something goes wrong, represents close to a worst-case combination of risk factors stacked on top of one another. By contrast, a well-trained provider who works slowly and deliberately, uses a cannula rather than a sharp needle in higher-risk areas, and keeps emergency reversal treatment on hand addresses nearly every one of these risk factors at once — which is exactly why the cumulative effect of choosing a genuinely qualified provider is so much greater than any single individual precaution taken on its own.

Why a Qualified Provider Matters Most

Of everything covered in this guide, this is the single most important, actionable point: the qualification, training, and anatomical knowledge of the person performing any filler or injectable procedure is the single biggest factor determining whether it will be safe. A properly trained provider understands exactly where high-risk blood vessels run in the specific area being treated, uses techniques designed to reduce the chance of entering a vessel (such as slow injection, low pressure, and often a blunt-tipped cannula rather than a sharp needle in higher-risk areas), and — critically — recognizes the earliest warning signs of a problem immediately, rather than after significant time has passed.

It's understandable that cost is often a real factor in choosing where to have a cosmetic procedure done, but this is precisely the area where cutting corners carries genuinely serious, sometimes irreversible risk. A slightly lower price from an unqualified or inadequately trained provider is not a meaningful saving if it comes with a dramatically higher risk of permanent facial scarring or disfigurement. Choosing a licensed, properly trained medical professional — someone with genuine, verifiable training in facial anatomy and injectable techniques, working in a setting with hyaluronidase immediately available — is not an optional upgrade; it's the foundation of a genuinely safe procedure.

It's worth being specific about what to actually look for when choosing a provider, since "qualified" can mean different things in different places and it's genuinely useful to know what questions are worth asking. A trustworthy provider should be a licensed medical professional (such as a doctor, dermatologist, or a nurse working under appropriate medical supervision, depending on local regulations), should be able to speak clearly and specifically about the anatomy of the area being treated rather than giving vague reassurances, should confirm that hyaluronidase is kept on-site and readily available, and should be transparent about the specific product being used and its safety profile. A provider who seems reluctant to answer detailed questions about training, safety protocols, or emergency preparedness is a meaningful warning sign worth taking seriously, regardless of how appealing the price or the promised results might be.

It's also worth remembering that qualification isn't only about formal medical licensing in isolation — it's about specific, ongoing training in facial injectable anatomy and technique, since this is a specialized skill set that goes beyond general medical training alone. Many licensed doctors and nurses pursue dedicated, structured training and certification specifically in aesthetic injectable procedures, precisely because general medical education alone does not automatically cover the detailed, area-specific vascular anatomy knowledge this guide has emphasized throughout. Asking a potential provider directly about this specific additional training, rather than assuming a medical license alone guarantees expertise in this particular procedure, is a reasonable and genuinely important question for anyone considering treatment.

When to Seek Emergency Care

Anyone who experiences severe, disproportionate pain during or shortly after a filler injection, or who notices the skin turning pale, white, dusky, or unusually discolored near or away from the injection site, should contact their treating provider immediately and, if unavailable, seek emergency medical care without delay. This is not a situation to wait out at home — the effectiveness of treatment depends directly on how quickly it begins, and every hour of delay increases the risk of lasting tissue damage.

It's worth being specific about what to actually do in this situation, since knowing the concrete steps in advance can make a genuine difference if this kind of emergency ever occurs. The first step is to stop the procedure immediately and inform the injector, who, if properly trained, should recognize the signs and begin emergency protocol right away, typically starting with hyaluronidase if a hyaluronic acid filler was used. If the provider is unavailable, unreachable, or unable to respond appropriately, going directly to an emergency department and clearly explaining that a filler injection was recently performed and that vascular occlusion is suspected allows medical staff to begin appropriate treatment as quickly as possible, rather than losing valuable time working through a less urgent diagnostic process. Keeping the name and contact details of the treating clinic, along with the type of filler product used, readily available after any injectable procedure is a simple, practical precaution that can meaningfully speed up emergency treatment if it's ever needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions below cover the most common concerns people search for when researching lip filler safety and nose tip necrosis specifically, drawn together here to give a single, reliable reference point.

Conclusion

Lip fillers are, for the overwhelming majority of people, a safe and satisfying cosmetic procedure when performed correctly. Nose tip necrosis is not a reason to view fillers as inherently dangerous — it's a reason to understand exactly why the qualification of the injector matters so profoundly, and to treat that qualification as the single most important factor in choosing where and with whom to have any injectable procedure done.

Understanding the shared blood supply between the lips and nose, recognizing the early warning signs of vascular occlusion, and knowing that prompt treatment can prevent lasting damage together turn a frightening, poorly understood complication into something genuinely manageable — provided it's caught early, and provided the person performing the procedure has the anatomical knowledge to prevent it in the first place. No cosmetic result is worth risking permanent facial damage, and choosing a properly qualified, well-trained provider remains the most powerful protection available.

If there's a single message worth carrying away from this entire guide, it's this: cosmetic procedures, including lip fillers, can be performed safely and predictably, but that safety is not automatic — it's built entirely on the specific training and anatomical knowledge of the person holding the needle. Asking the right questions before treatment, understanding the warning signs during and after, and knowing that effective emergency treatment exists if something does go wrong together give anyone considering this procedure the genuine, informed confidence to make a safe decision, rather than simply hoping for the best.