As we age, certain things happen to our bodies. Just one of these things is our lips lose the things that keep them nice and plump – the collagen and natural fats. The good news is if your lips were fuller than most in your younger years, the decrease won’t have so much of an impact, but if you have always had thin lips, this decrease in the lip necessities may prove to be all too obvious for your liking.
Thankfully, there are a few ways that you can get around this thin-lipped problem, and just one of the many methods that women are resorting to in order to obtain bigger lips is to have fillers. You have fillers to fill in the wrinkles as you get older; it only makes sense to consider using fillers to achieve fuller lips, right? Well in some ways yes but you must remember that this procedure will be more painful than the fillers that you would have elsewhere in the face, simply because the lips are full of nerve endings that are going to feel every pin-prick! Luckily, this pain will only last a few moments, and once the filler has been injected, the pain will have dissipated. Anesthetics can also help.
So, how do lip fillers work?
Let’s take a look at what your lips are made of – lots of nerve endings, with a rich supply of blood, (this is why lip cuts bleed so much) and lots of mucous tissue, thin skin and fatty cells. When you use a filler to get bigger lips, the filler itself is injected just below the skin, directly into the tissues of the skin to plump it up. Various methods will have different procedures, of course, and just one of the most popular is Gore-Tex which uses small strings that have been inserted into the lip to allow the tube of filler to flow freely.
Now let’s get to the real questions you have about lip fillers. After all, you have already done the majority of your research – this is wise before any kind of procedure on the body. What about the questions that the internet may not be able to help with?
What do I need to do before I have my lip fillers injected?
Clearly, you are going to want to have a consultation with a doctor or qualified medical professional that has a certain amount of expertise in lip fillers. You are going to want to be sure that you have picked the right doctor for the job, as well as the right lip filler for you. You are also going to want to have a good idea of what kind of pout you want – sensual and full, slightly thicker lips due to age thinning, really big lips that Angelina Jolie would be proud of? These are things that you are going to want to discuss with your doctor to ensure that you are happy with the end results.
Your doctor is likely to inject a sample of the ingredients into your body to ensure that you have no adverse reactions, much in the same way that you would do a strand test before using hair dye.
For a week beforehand, you are going to want to avoid alcohol. This thins the blood and will make the procedure more painful, as well as putting you at risk of heavy bleeding; you are puncturing the skin with the needles after all. You are going to want to avoid any Vitamin E products, as well as aspirin.
On the actual day of your procedure, you should avoid wearing makeup, and at the very least, refrain from using any products on your lips.
Now what happens?
Once you have made your mind up, gone through the beginnings of the procedure, and you are now sitting in the doctors chair ready to be injected, you may feel nervous. This goes without saying, and happens with any procedure on the body, whether it is cosmetic such as lip fillers, piercings, tattoos, and even a teeth cleaning!
Once you are comfortable in the chair, local anesthetics are used on the area to provide as little pain as possible, and you may be asked to hold ice on the area to avoid swelling. A small needle will then be used to apply the lip filler along the natural lip line. In general, the entire procedure will usually take around fifteen minutes, depending on how much of an effect you want to have, and once this is over, you will usually find the bulk of the pain has gone away.
The Waiting Game…
So, you have had your lip fillers in, you are holding ice on the area to reduce swelling and bruising, now what do you do? Obviously, once the local anesthetic wears off you are going to have a small amount of pain, but most people find that they can return to normality within a couple of hours. The effect may be scary at first, but don’t forget that your lips will have to swell before they go down to their normal, slightly bigger size. The “trout pout” may encourage you to take a couple of days away from work. You also may want to refrain from kissing for a few days! (If your man can stand it!)
It’s not what I wanted!
The one thing that a lot of women feel when they have the lip fillers done is that the lips aren’t as big as they would have wished for them to be. In reality, it is better to inject too little rather than too much – the Doctor does not want to be held liable for your “trout pout”, and you can always go ahead and have more injected if the look isn’t what you want. You certainly don’t want to go too big right from the bat; otherwise you will just look silly.
Final Questions
So, to sort out those last minute questions!
How long will it be before I see my finished results? Well, the swelling and bruising will last about a week, so after 4/5 days you should start seeing some normality return. It is advisable to give it at least a week before you see your final transformation to be sure that all has gone down.
How long will it last? Usually the lip fillers, dependant on the one that you have chosen, will last anywhere from six months to one year, for the temporary ones at least, and this gives you much more room to play with if you want to have them smaller or bigger once the initial procedure is done with.
Are there any side effects? This is a cosmetic procedure so of course, there will be certain risks that you will need to take on board. As we have mentioned, your lips will be swollen and bruised for a few days, up to a week in some cases, after the fillers have been injected, and this will lead to the inevitable “trout pout”. Infection is a risk as well; you are injecting strange stuff into your body, but as long as you follow the directions set out by your medical professional that completed the procedure, you shouldn’t have any problems. Your doctor will be able to discuss all risks with you at your consultation, and it is wise to ask questions to prepare yourself.
How much will it cost me? This is the all important question for many women – especially if you have gone for temporary ones that will need to be repeated. The cost will depend very much on the doctor that you go to, as well as the filler that you have chosen. You will usually find that the price will range, (per lip) from $300 for the plain and simple collagen injections, to over $1500 for the newer technologies of filler. This is something that again, you are going to want to discuss with your doctor.
Also see Fix Your Lips – It’s Not Hopeless!