Facial plastic surgery

Lip augmentation

Lip augmentation is a type of cosmetic surgery that aims to improve the appearance of the lips by increasing their fullness through enlargement.

Lip augmentation by fat injection before.		Lip augmentation by fat injection after.

Full lips with an accentuated border have often been associated with beauty and youth. Tribal peoples worldwide have introduced various materials into and through the upper and lower lips of both genders to enhance beauty. Unfortunately, one of the effects of human aging is atrophy of facial fat including the lips. In most cultures, this translates as no longer attractive, youthful nor desirable.

Young, full lips.		Old, atropied lips.

Lip Augmentation can be done at Agave Clinic by means of a liplift and/or injection of a fat graft taken from the same patient (autogenous fat graft). We don't use foreign substances for lip augmentation due to the risk of infection and rejection.

Liplift

In the lip lift procedure, a wave-like segment of skin (thicker in the middle) is removed directly under the nose. The upper lip becomes shorter, which also has the following benefits:

• The lip is rolled up, so a larger vermillion area is visible.
  
• The resulting curvature increases the lip projection.
  
• The upper teeth can be exposed about 3 or 4 mm.

Before liplift		After liplift

Procedure

A liplift can be performed with local anaesthesia or in combination with other procedures under general anaesthesia. After having made the design for the excision, the local anaesthetic is injected. The skin is excised and the wound closed in 2 layers. The non-reabsorbable skin sutures are removed after 5-7 days.

Recovery

Recovery is fast and without complications.

Injection of the patient's own fat (autogenous fatgraft)

This can be taken by liposuction anywhere in the body where there is sufficient subcutaneous fat (donor site) and used to inject into the lips. The donor site is normally the upper leg, abdomen or the submental area (below chin).

The trick of the fat transfer is to inject only a very little amount of fat with each pass of the needle. This way the grafted fat will be in direct contact with the surrounding tissues and a fast ingrowth of vessels will be possible. Thus the fat can survive. The effect of injecting the fat mainly on the inner side of the lip, directly under the intraoral mucosa, is an outward rolling which shows more of the inner lip.

The effect of injecting the fat mainly on the inner side of the lip, directly under the intraoral mucosa, is an outward rolling which shows more of the inner lip.

Procedure

After the injection of local anaesthesia in the donor site, a couple of mililiters of fat are aspirated using a blunt needle on a syringe. This fat is centrifuged to separate blood, oil and local anesthetic from the fat cells. The fat cells are then poured into a tiny syringe on which a blunt needle is placed. The lip is injected with a minimal amount of local anesthesia after which the fat cells are injected along the inner side of the lip, just under the lip mucosa. Approximately 1/50 to a maximum 1/10 ml of fat cells are injected with each pass of the needle.

Recovery

Immediately after the surgery the lip will be quite swollen and bruised. In about 3 weeks time approximately 80% of the bruising and swelling will have disappeared. After 4 months you can get a good impression of the final result. After 6 to 8 months, if necessary, another fat graft may be preformed until the desired effect has been obtained.