Filler Gone Wrong
April 21, 2015
Have you ever seen those pictures of women with huge lips, the kind out of cartoons or a man or woman with a face that looks void of any lines or wrinkles? These people are most likely under the influence of too much filler, giving a bad name to those of us who experience the benefit of boosted confidence from fillers and BOTOX® Cosmetic injections. It doesn’t have to be this way! BOTOX® Cosmetic and filler treatments, when done correctly, turn out beautifully.
Nasolabial Folds, or the lines starting from the corner of your nose and down around your mouth, are often called marionette or puppet lines. Men and women of a wide age range desire to plump these deep folds to make them look less tired, less angry or more age appropriate. These lines tend to become more noticeable as we age and lose fat in the face.
When done correctly with the right amount of filler, the lines soften without fully eliminating the creases, giving a natural, more youthful look. When overfilled, the face becomes somewhat distorted or swollen looking, especially if you have loose skin, in which case a facelift would be a more appropriate to improve facial wrinkles and folds.
Filler to Augment Lips
We can all name a celebrity that has had too much lip filler (Lisa Rinna, Meg Ryan, Goldie Hawn) and we don’t typically get requests for overdone lips. If you want a fuller lip, but are worried about ‘trout mouth’ your injection specialist can start small and add more at a subsequent visit. Often BOTOX® Cosmetic will be used along with filler to lift the upper lip and reduce lip lines.
Lip augmentation is often accomplished with a hyaluronic acid filler, like JUVERDERM®, which is a chemical that is natural to the human body and lasts up to 12 months. For those that want a longer lasting lip enlargement, normally a plastic surgeon will recommend starting with a HA filler to determine size desired before proceeding with a more permanent solution to thin lips. Fat injections and dermal fat grafting are both surgical procedures using fat harvested from the patient’s own tissues.
Lips can be injected with JUVERDERM® to achieve a look that is very tasteful and beautifully done. The outcome can be quite subtle by using just enough product to bring the plumpness back to lips, as it had been in younger years, but without over injecting, creating a ‘duck-like” look. Finding an injection specialist that understand this concept is the key to an excellent outcome.
Correcting Lip Augmentation
The great thing about hyaluronic fillers, like JUVEDERM® AND VOLUMA®, is that they are reversible. If a patient decides lip augmentation was not a good choice for them or if their lips were overfilled, their injection specialist can inject hyaluronidase to completely dissolve the filler. With fat injections and fat grafting it is more difficult to go backward and this is why plastic surgeons recommend starting with an HA filler.
Choosing a qualified, experienced doctor, dermatologist or injection specialist to perform your lip enlargement is the first, very important step. They should clearly explain the benefits and risks of each procedure, be able to provide you with before and after examples of THEIR patients and discuss your medical history to ensure you are a good candidate. Bringing a picture of lips you like as an example can be a helpful tool in starting the discussion about lip augmentation, but keeping expectations realistic is paramount, seeking improvement, not perfection.
