Are Lip Fillers Bad for You in the Long Run?

When it comes to lip fillers, there are a few things to consider before taking the plunge. While they can help to tighten the skin and create fuller, more sensual lips, overuse of fillers can lead to long-term damage, such as lip wrinkles, impaired attachment of facial fat pads, and skin irregularity and aging. It's important to be aware that the effects of lip fillers will gradually wear off over four to six months, so you should be prepared to commit to touch-up treatments in order to maintain your desired results. The amount of substance injected can be controlled, so that the physician has better control over the amount of lip volume that is created.

If you have a BLT allergy, your healthcare provider may give you a nerve block injection to numb your lips. After carefully marking the areas to be injected, very fine needles are used to inject the substance into the lips. If you are left with loose lips as a result of regular overinflation, the only remedy is lip reduction surgery, which can leave significant scars. Fat injection is the exception, as the procedure requires a small area of liposuction to remove fat from another part of the body before the injection can be given.

Injectable lip augmentation techniques can be performed quickly in your doctor's office with little or no downtime. Keeping ice on the lips before injections also helps numb the area and potentially helps with bruising and swelling. After another doctor recommended that she have injections in her lips every four months, one patient visited Grossman for her quarterly replacement. In the subsequent interrogation, she acknowledged that she had received Restylane injections into her lips by a dermatologist approximately 6 months before the development of a submucosal nodule on her lower lip.

Fernández-Acenero and colleagues (200) reported on a 48-year-old woman who developed a lump on her upper lip 2 months after receiving a single Restylane injection. It is best to wait to eat until the injection of the topical anesthetic or nerve block has disappeared so as not to accidentally bite your lips or alter the filling.