Lip Lift

Q: Dr. Eppley, let’s say a patient is interested in permanent lip augmentation. From research, Ive found the only permanent options are a lip lift, fat graft to the lips (but it’s controversial as many have reported it deflating too soon) and the silikon 1000 injections. My concern with the lip lift is the scarring, especially because I have olive-dark tone skin and have read that those with darker pigmentation are more prone to keloid scarring. If I were to treat my skin to become lighter, does that help with the issue of dark skin = keloid scarring? I’d really like a lip lift as it seems the only permanent option.

A: For the sake of clarification, there is also two other permanent lip augmentation methods, a lip or vermilion advancement and internal mucosal V-Y advancements. So there are a few other options of which the concerns about scarring exist with the one (lip advancement) but not with the other. (mucosal rollout)

I have done many lip lifts on dark-skinned patients and I have never seen any adverse scarring issues such as keloids. So this would not be a major concern based on my lip lift experience.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana