What You Need to Know about Lip Augmentation

At The John Bull Center for Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Medispa in Naperville, Illinois, Dr. John Bull performs a variety of procedures to help people regain health and look their best including Lip Augmentation.

Lip augmentation is a procedure that more and more women are choosing to undergo, and Dr. Bull has extensive experience in this area. To learn more about this procedure, or to schedule an appointment, contact The John Bull Center today.

What Is Lip Augmentation?

Lip augmentation is a procedure used to create fuller-looking lips. During augmentation, your lips are injected with collagen or fat from another part of your body. Collagen and liquid fat are then absorbed. Follow-up treatments may be required to maintain results.

Technique:

In most cases, a patient’s fat or a natural or synthetic material is implanted or injected into your lips. A single injection typically produces the desired look. This result may be temporary and can depend on the material that is used. You may need extra periodic injections in the future. A key factor to success is the proper placement of injected material.

Often a natural sheet of collagen from donated skin is added through small incisions located inside the corners of the mouth. Once the implant is inserted, it gradually becomes mixed with your natural tissue.

In many cases, some synthetic implant choices include SoftForm and Gore-Tex.

Other options are:

• Injectable implant material from your own skin.
• Material from donor tissue.
• Fascia: This is injectable donor tissue that comes from connective tissue that supports body structure. This can also be performed as an implant through surgery.
• Injectable donor tissue that is derived from a molecular component of the human body.
• Restylane: This is a clear injectable gel. The acid in Restylane is very similar to what is found naturally in the body.

Laser lip rejuvenation is another patient option. This procedure tightens elastic tissue and collagen underneath the lips.

Benefits:

• Most patients can return to normal activity immediately following non-surgical procedures. Procedures with sedation typically carry a one-day recovery time. Surgeries take about a week to recover from.

Temporary procedures, such as fat injection or collagen injection, may appeal to you if you want to see how you look with fuller lips without the change in your appearance being permanent.

Other Things to Consider:

• There can be allergic reactions stemming from lip augmentation. This can include redness, itching, swelling or a firm feeling at the injection site.
• Other potential complications are bleeding, asymmetric lips and migration of your implant. Typically, swelling or bruising can linger for three to seven days.
• Patients who have a reaction to pre-treatment collagen skin tests should not opt for lip augmentation. Also, those with allergy histories may not be candidates for lip augmentation. Patients suffering from inflammatory skin conditions or infections may have to postpone having lip augmentation done.
• Collagen injections last up to three months. Fat injections can offer results that last longer. But this treatment can be unpredictable as far as degree of improvement. Fat injections also can cause scarring or lumping.

There are many techniques used to perform lip augmentation. Contact our office to learn which procedure best suits your needs.