The lips are a central part of the face. They play an important role in the outer appearance. However, many people, especially women, are dissatisfied with their lips and want to have their shape or volume changed.
They have a lip correction performed. There are many different techniques for lip correction, as there are many different goals that can be achieved. But there are also other reasons that may make it necessary to have a lip correction. Depending on the type of lip correction, it is performed either by plastic and aesthetic surgeons or by doctors specializing in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
Causes
There are three reasons why a lip correction is performed. One is a congenital maldevelopment of the lips, a cleft lip and palate. Depending on the severity of the condition, either only the lip or the jaw and palate are cleft.
The reason for this is an abnormal development of the face during the embryonic period. A split lip causes problems with eating, drinking and speaking. Therefore, it is important to treat this cleft lip early.
Lip correction may also be necessary after accidents. If the face is very badly damaged by external forces, lip correction has not only cosmetic reasons but also medical ones. Often an oral and maxillofacial surgeon must reconstruct not only the lips but also other parts of the face.
However, lip correction is often not a medical necessity, but is requested by patients for cosmetic and aesthetic reasons. In most cases, these are women who are either dissatisfied with the shape of their lips or want more volume in their lips. This includes women whose lip volume has decreased due to their advanced age, which can make their facial expression appear severe or sad. This dissatisfaction can lead to patients having their lips corrected due to the high psychological stress.
Techniques and procedure
There are different techniques of lip correction. Many of them aim to increase the volume of the lips, but lip correction can also change the shape of the lips. In principle, lip correction can be performed at any age, but special attention should be paid to the choice of method during pregnancy or in case of existing allergies, as certain techniques can lead to complications.
First of all, a consultation with a plastic surgeon must clarify what the patient’s expectations of the final result are and to what extent these expectations can be met by the surgeon. A suitable method must be chosen to achieve this goal. There are various methods to choose from.
A common method is injection with hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the skin and is a moisture reservoir. It provides the skin with sufficient moisture and ensures that it does not dry out.
It is also often used in cosmetics for treating wrinkles. As hyaluronic acid is also a natural component of the skin, it is well absorbed by the body. This is why the effect lasts for a maximum of 6 months, as hyaluronic acid is then absorbed and broken down by the body.
Therefore regular sessions are necessary to achieve a lasting effect. Hyaluronic acid is injected into the lips in the form of a gel and is used to replenish volume and refine contours. There are various techniques for injecting the gel into the lips.
Depending on whether the syringe is injected from the outside or from above or below, different effects can be achieved and the shape of the lips can thus be customized. A reduction of wrinkles on the lips can also be achieved by injecting hyaluronic acid. Collagen can also be injected into the lips to increase volume, but is rarely used nowadays because the allergic rejection reactions are comparatively high.
Another possibility is the transplantation of the patient’s own fat. It is also known as lipofilling. In this procedure, the body’s own fat tissue is removed from suitable locations and injected into the lips.
Possible donor sites include the abdomen, thighs or buttocks. Fat cells are then suctioned off, specially processed and then injected into the lip using a hollow needle.Since the body’s own tissue is used, lipofilling is the most compatible method of lip correction. However, a light anaesthetic must be administered to inject the fat into the lips, so there are more risks.
In addition, the healing process of this method is longer than with the use of hyaluronic acid. When using autologous fat, the subsequent swelling lasts longer and bruises (hematomas) may form. If necessary, the treatment must be repeated after two to three months, as not all the transferred fat cells grow in the lips.
As an alternative to autologous fat transplantation, lip volume can also be increased by dermis-fat implantation. In this procedure, a thin strip of skin with attached fatty tissue is removed from the groin area and inserted into the lips. Here, too, swelling and bleeding is to be expected after the operation.
Synthetic implants can also be inserted into the lips. However, this is very rarely performed in Germany, as the alternatives with hyaluronic acid or the patient’s own fatty tissue have significantly fewer side effects and lead to rejection reactions less often. Here, small, elastic tubes are inserted into the lips, which have the advantage that they are not broken down and absorbed by the body.
Cheiloplasty can be used to shape the contour of the lips. However, the volume is not changed. The lip is cut along the lip contour and a strip of skin above the incision is removed.
The lips appear wider when subsequently sutured together. The scar is hardly visible here, since it lies exactly at the transition from the lip to the skin. This procedure requires local anesthesia of the lips and the surrounding skin and a light narcosis.
Cheiloplasty can be performed on an outpatient basis. If a lip correction has to be performed as a result of an accident, lip tissue often has to be repaired because it is destroyed. In most cases several surgical procedures are necessary for this. These require general anesthesia, among other things because they involve a great deal of time. The correction of a cleft lip also requires general anesthesia, since in most cases it is corrected at the age of three to six months.