Can I Have A Subnasal Lip Lift With Braces On?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I’m wearing braces and the distance between my upper lip and nose is short maybe 1.2 cm now. But I know that if I take off the braces the distance will increase to 1.4 or 1.5cm. I don’t want to do lip augmentation. I want the lip lifting procedure and I want to do it wearing braces. Is that possible?

A: Having orthodontics appliances in place does not impede the ability to do a subnasal lip lift. The question is whether one can tell how much to remove so as not to end up with an overdone result. Subnasal lip lifts that have had too much skin removed have no recoverable strategy…you can’t put back the skin that was removed without a very visible graft under the nose. If your calculations are correct you would do a 3mm skin resection for your subnasal lip lift. If you have do do the lip lift before your braces are removed just make sure it is a conservative amount of skin removed. Removing your braces ma result in the lip lengthenng a few millimeters. But since you have not done that test (remove your braces and measure it), assume that maybe no change in lip length will occur.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana