I’m a little anxious about the numbing and the needles, but I know that they kind of come hand in hand, so I think I’ll be able to get through it. I’m Lizzie, and I’m getting lip filler today. So I’ve always been not overly self-conscious, but I’ve been aware that my lips are pretty thin. I’m a wellness editor. I think that getting lip filler intersects with what I do in terms of self-confidence. I think that when you feel your best, your mental health is also at your best. I think they’re kind of interchangeable. I like the way I look. I like my hair, I like my face. But I just think that getting lip filler will make me feel even better about that and I’ve just it’s something I’ve always wanted. Lip filler was actually what scared me the most because I had done everything else, but that was the last thing I left to do to myself.
But I loved it. That’s when I really got into doing it for others. Hi, I’m Dr. Palep, founder and medical director here at Spring Street Dermatology. Lip filler, I don’t think people really got comfortable with it except for the last five years. A lot of young people are coming in. I think the biggest fear people had is that you’re going to look crazy, like you’re going to look like a duck-billed platypus or, you know, you’re going to have a big, big lips. And now people are realizing it doesn’t have to be that way. We can work with your natural curves and just augment and give subtle volume and plumpness in our lips at its best. So,
Elizabeth, we want to go over what we want to achieve today, what kind of look we’re going for. As I know, it’s your first time doing filler. So we’re going to go for a natural augmentation of your natural characteristics already. You have a great border to the outside of your lip. So I’m looking to go into the body and that’s going to give you more volume and pull this up and then bring you a little more out at the bottom here. And then when you put lipstick on, it just feels a little bit better. That sounds great. Perfect. First, the patient comes in.
My medical assistant cleans them off really well. Makes sure all makeup is off, lipstick, chapstick, anything that might be on the patient’s lips. So very, very clean. For numbing, we use a BLT. What that stands for is benzocaine, lidocaine and tetracaine in order of increasing concentration to decreasing concentration. The lips is a mucosal surface, so it absorbs the numbing much quicker than your skin does. So we don’t like to have the patient numbing longer than about fifteen minutes. We gently wipe off the numbing cream, and I let them know that the filler that I’m using has lidocaine in it also. So as we’re doing the procedure, they’re going to get even more and more numb. So not to be concerned by that. Next it’s time to inject. In the injection process, there’s a couple of different techniques that we can use. The injection technique all depends on the patient’s lips and where we want to fill and how we want to fill.
After each injection, I massage just to get out any lumps and bumps. I also pinch in certain places and make sure the filter doesn’t carry over to those areas. The filler that we’re doing on Elizabeth today is volbella. It is an allergen filler. I actually have those in my lips also for subtle augmentation and typically you can get up to a year with that filler. Even though we’re using one syringe, the number of pokes that we do depends on the feedback from the patient during the procedure. So I’m constantly having an open dialog with the patient as we’re doing it. I have her look in the mirror and confirm that she likes how it’s going so far and that kind of determines what I’m doing along the process. Lip filler typically takes anywhere between 20 to 25 minutes for the injecting part. And that’s it, and hopefully you put your lipstick on and you’re ready to go. Elizabeth, tell me what you think. Oh,
my gosh, I love them. When you smile, you don’t lose your upper lip, which is really nice. And lipstick should be more fun now. Yeah, they still look super natural, which is what I wanted. Yes exactly. When I first saw myself, I immediately felt happy. They looked so natural. It actually did not hurt at all. I’m very thankful for the numbing cream. They didn’t look enormous. They still looked like my lips, just a little bit more enhanced. Elizabeth looks great. We were just going for a subtle augmentation and taking baby steps. She can always build on those lips. The swelling can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to fully go down and everybody’s different. But the average is usually three to five days for most people. Emotionally, I feel pretty great. I think they look really amazing and I already feel better about myself. I can’t wait to show all my friends and take selfies and just enjoy them.
