Please call 754-277-4120 to schedule an appointment at our convenient location in Fort Lauderdale. Dr. Michael Frederick also serves the surrounding Broward County towns of Weston, Hollywoood and Cooper City. We also welcome patients from the Miami area, including Aventura and Coral Gables. Dr. Frederick also has strong ties to our Palm Beach neighbors from Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter.
Lip augmentation with fillers is very common and there is a large variety of fillers that can be used depending on the result that you are looking for. However, some lips are better treated with a more permanent surgical solution like a bullhorn lip lift. Lip surgery can also be done to remove unwanted moles or repair lips damaged from silicone injections. Browse through our collection of lip augmentation and lip lift before and after photos, then read below for more information.
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Best Lip Fillers
- There are many types of fillers that can be used. These are my recommendations based upon their properties and what type of lips you are aiming for.
- Restylane Silk: $700 This product was designed for the lips. It has a very fine particle size which is great for accurate placement and a high g-prime which means that it maintains a lot of structure. This is great for the patient who wants beautiful luscious lips that pop. Of note, this product can cause more temporary swelling than others in the first 2 days because of histamine release.
- Juvederm Ultra/Ultra Plus $700 This is the tried and true classic that many patients started with and still stick to because they love it. If you want a little more fullness go with the juvederm ultra plus.
- Restylane Refyne/Defyne: $750 This product is manufactured with XpresHan Technology which makes it the most flexible product on the market and thus the most natural with movement. If you’re goal is natural looking refinement than this is it. If you want the flexibility but also a little more fullness then choose the Defyne.
Candidates
The ideal candidate for lip lift surgery is a patient with a long white lip and a thin red lip. In these patients the white lip is too long and rotates the red lip down making it thinner. In these patients fillers may not be able to provide the optimal result and some poor injectors don’t appreciate the rotational problem and inject too much along the white roll in an attempt to rotate the lip upward. This folly creates the feared duck lip phenomena. Some patients are born with a longer white lip and thin upper lips but this also is a condition that worsens with age. MRI studies have shown that with age the white lip lengthens and loses volume. Thus, a lip lift is often combined with a facelift to reverse aging.Procedure
A surgical lip lift is commonly called a bullhorn lip lift because the incision is hidden along the base of the nose and wraps slightly around the nostril, forming the shape of a bullhorn. Some of the white lip is removed and then the wound is closed, pulling the lip up and rotating the red lip up to give more red lip show. Once fully healed the incision virtually disappears in the crease.
Recovery
Lip surgery can be done under local anesthesia and thus most patients don’t feel any pain until several hours after the procedure. Then a mild discomfort develops that can be easily treated with pain medication, often just Tylenol or ibuprofen. The majority of the swelling will resolve within a week and the scar will undergo a normal maturation process. If the surgery is a repair of the red lip then swelling can persist for much longer.
Complimentary Procedures
A lip lift is commonly performed with a facelift because the lip ages just like the rest of the face. With age the white lip lengthens and the red lip thins, making facelift patients optimal candidates for a lip lift. It also does not change the length of recovery or discomfort.
FAQs
HOW ARE LIP LINES TREATED?
Lip lines or smokers lines occur with age and worsen as the skin ages. These are deep creases etched into the skin through repetitive movements of the lip over many many years. These lip lines will never go away completely because you cannot paralyze your lip like we do our forehead with botox but they can be improved. Fillers can be injected to soften them or you can improve the quality of the skin with deep chemical peels or laser treatments. In the right patient who needs a lip lift the lines can improve because the skin is pulled tighter.
WHAT TYPE OF ANESTHESIA IS USED FOR A LIP LIFT?
A surgical lip lift can be done awake under local anesthesia and will take around an hour.
WILL I EVER NEED FILLERS AND A SURGICAL LIP LIFT?
It is not uncommon for patients with a very thin downward rotated red lip to need a surgical lip lift and lip fillers because the lips can be de-rotated and deflated. The bullhorn lip lift shortens the white lip and rotates up the red lip into the proper position creating the right shape that is then enhanced with the filler.
IS A LIP LIFT PERMANENT?
One of the main benefits of a surgical lip lift is that the results are permanent!
HOW MUCH DOES A LIP LIFT COST?
A surgical bullhorn lip lift under local anesthesia costs approximately $2500
*RESULTS MAY VARY