Who doesn’t like large plump lips? Tastefully enhanced lips can take years off your appearance. Many patients opt for simple, less invasive lip augmentation with Hyaluronic fillers leads to some fantastic results.

However, not all patients are ideal candidates for fillers, and this can result in unfortunate outcomes:

• Longer upper lips cannot support endless filler injections
• The shape of the lips cannot be altered by filler injections
• The wrong type of filler can result in migration of the product and a puffy unnatural overdone look—“Duck Lips” or arguably worse; “Fish Lips”

When this is the case, a lip lift is the more appropriate approach.

A lip lift is a small surgical procedure done under local anesthesia that can restore or enhance the eversion of the upper lip showing more of the teeth and creating more of a pout rather than a horizontal protrusion or shelf.

As we age we lose bone structure support, and tissues tend to stretch and hang lower. This creates a flatter, less perky lip. Removing a small amount of skin with an incision hidden below to the nose, the lip is elevated and lifted upward, restoring it to a more natural position. This beautiful result is accomplished without constant injections or the risk of overfilling.

The surgery itself can be done comfortably awake with local anesthesia. It is a fast, one hour procedure and you are home resting the same day. Sutures are usually removed at day five and the ensuing incision is hidden in a natural skin crease. The incision will be pink for about a week but can be covered with make-up.

Lips will be swollen for about 7-10 days depending on the patient. Proper elevation and reinforcement means that the result will be long lasting. Additional tweaks with filler may be performed in the future, but often less product is needed.