Lips that enter the room first

We’d had a lovely day at the New England Aquarium. Of course, you can’t leave the building without passing through the insanely overpriced gift shop, and my kids had been given $10 to spend on whatever they liked. That turned out to be a surprisingly small number of options that they were now poring over.

Resisting the irritation rising in my chest, I got a sharp jab in the arm from my husband. He swatted me again saying, “Look! Look over there. You have to tell her you can fix those.”

He was referring to a very well dressed and put together woman in her mid forties who was probably feeling a lot like I was, waiting for her kids to sift through the stuffies and land on one that cost less than twenty bucks. Unfortunately, all of this was only the background to a set of distractingly large and unnaturally shaped lips. 

Lip filler has become a cultural sensation, and like all cultural shifts, there are people with extreme preferences on either side. Some women love the large, protuberant shape that has become the trend among younger metropolitan populations, while others claim they would never even put a drop of filler in their lips. 

If we thought long enough about it, I bet most of us would fall somewhere in the middle. As we age, our lips do get smaller, so it makes sense that we might want to reclaim some of the ‘poutiness’ of our youth. But we also don’t want our lips to enter a room before we do. The problem is, many people are afraid you can’t get lip filler without looking a bit ducky. 

Lip filler (like most filler) is a clear sugary gel that is placed under the skin with a needle. As such, the person injecting the filler determines how much is placed, and where. This is how you can get lip filler that matches your goals: find a provider who listens to you, creates a plan with you, and evaluates your results with you. It’s a partnership.

Many of my more mature patients whose main concern is marionette lines (lines or shadows that form downward from the corners of the mouth) are terrified when I mention they would get great improvement with a small amount of lip filler. To this I say, if you want your face to look balanced, a small amount of strategically placed filler will make a huge difference. 

To date, every patient who has trusted me to balance their lips with the rest of their face despite their misgivings has been glad they did. Most of them actually end up asking for more later. 

The most important risk of filler in the lip (and anywhere else) is that if it is placed into a blood vessel it will stop blood flow and lead to tissue injury in a few days. This is quite rare, and I do a few things to prevent it from occurring. First, I use dissolvable filler so if there is a problem, we can dissolve it. Second, I use an ultrasound before we begin to map out the blood vessels in your unique face so I can better avoid them during treatment. After your treatment I look again with the ultrasound to confirm blood flow has not been interrupted. Finally, I use small amounts strategically placed so as to reduce the incidence of complications. Other risks are generally mild and rare, and are treated by dissolving the filler.

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