Lip Augmentation / Lip Enhancement Surgery

In the present era, people are becoming extremely conscious about their looks. The desire to look beautiful and attractive is so deeply rooted in people, especially women that they are resorting to almost every possible procedure that enhances their beauty. Lip augmentation surgery is increasingly gaining popularity, as it helps a great deal in making the lips appear attractive. To know more about lip enhancement surgery, read on.
Fuller lips give a more youthful look and this is what lip enlargement surgery aims at. Lip plumping surgery basically consists of injections and grafting. Using small needles, the lip is filled with a soft spongy substance that lends a plumper and fuller look. More often, the specialists make use of collagen, which is usually found in cow skin, for lip filling. However, collagen is likely to cause allergy in certain cases. In the grafting procedure, local anesthesia is applied, after which the material is inserted through the notch created in the interior ends of the mouth. The opening is then closed with stitches. One of the most popular human donor materials is Alloderm. A great alternative to Alloderm is Softform, which is not easily absorbed in the body. Many people prefer using the fat of their own bodies for augmenting the size of their lips.
When it comes to lip augmentation, it also consists of a couple of non surgical options. There is a method that can be easily performed by your dentist. Since teeth provide support to the lips, enhancing the teeth can give your lips a fuller look. Dental lip enlargement can be performed in two distinctive ways. One way is to modify the shape of the teeth arch through orthodontics. The second way is to alter the shape of the front teeth, which can be done by restorative treatments like laminate veneers. The former method lasts for a longer period

procedures

ince 2000, more products and techniques have been developed to make lip augmentation more effective and patient friendly. The relative ease of many injections is due to surgeons using tiny 30 and 31 gauge (about as thick as a dozen human hairs) needles that are used to inject the very sensitive lips. Nonetheless, topical anesthesias are often used for lip enhancement procedures.

Some of these new techniques and substances include.

• Fat transfer. Surgeons harvest through liposuction or excision the patient's fat from places on the body where it can be spared and either injected or surgically placed into the lips. Surgical applications usually require general anesthesia.
• Restylane, a non-animal, clear gel that is reported to be very close to the hyaluronic acid found naturally in the body. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there were 778,000 cases of Restylane injection in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The substance usually lasts six months and, sometimes, longer. While Juvederm is extremely chemically close to Restylane; many surgeons report the former is slightly smoother to inject.
• Artecoll. Both Artecoll and ArteFill are not used to inject the body of the lips because the substance is heavy and would show as white through the thin skin of the lips. Additionally, both products contain tiny microspheres known as PMMA (polymethylmethacrylate) which remain in the face permanently. In cases where Artecoll has been used around the edges of the lips to remove fine lines and wrinkles, some patients have reported annoying nodules or small lumps. In a few cases, surgery was required to remove the Artecoll

• Risks and side effects

  Most patients are satisfied with their lip augmentation procedure and would undergo the treatment again. Several studies have found fat grafting of the lip to be one of the best methods of maintaining a semi-permanent fuller and softer lip.^[8] When the lips are overfilled, the results can be comic, often supplying fodder to tabloid newspapers and offbeat websites. This look is sometimes mockingly called a 'trout pout'. Overaggressive injections can lead to lumpiness while too little can result in ridges.
  Common reactions can range from redness, swelling or itching at the injection site(s). Other possible complications include bleeding, uneven lips, movement of the implants or extrusion, when an implant breaks through the outermost surface of the skin. The usual, expected swelling and bruising can last from several days to a week.
  Some patients are allergic to the common local anesthetics like lidocaine and probably should not consider lip injections. A few others react badly to the skin test patients must take before receiving collagen, again, because the substance contains animal byproducts. Other patients who should forego procedures to the lip include those who have active skin conditions like cold sores, blood clotting problems, infections, scarring of the lips or certain diseases like diabetes or lupus that cause slower healing. Patients with facial nerve disorders, severe hypertension or recurrent herpes simplex lesions should also eschew lip augmentation. As in all surgeries, smokers complicate completion of their procedure as well as the speed of healing.
  Fat transfer can last longer than other injected materials but can have lumping or scarring effects. The length of time a fat transfer may last in the lips is often determined by how much the area moves and how close it is to a major blood supply. In addition, the donor fat must be harvested from another area of the patient's body which leaves another—albeit tiny—surgical wound. However, donor fat harvesting techniques have become extremely well refined.^[9]
  Gore-tex, despite its impressive rates of success in lip augmentation and other procedures, is nonetheless a foreign body which bears a slight risk of becoming infected or rejected.