Upper Labial Artery Aneurysm

Q: Dr. Eppley, I suffer from an upper labial artery aneurysm. I also have the visible pulsating happening in the center right of my lower lip too but its in the inside of my lip so it isn’t visible to people that see me. I’ve been suffering with this humiliation for the past ten years. 

You can literally see the artery in my upper lip pulsating in the center right part of my upper lip(extremely noticeable to other people). The entire artery through out the right side of my upper lip is so swollen that I can bite it and feel it against my teeth. 

But on the same day this happened ten years ago, even though the pulsating on my bottom lip is harder to see, the right side of my bottom lip became severely discolored. The discoloration on the bottom lip is on the right side as well and stops right were the pulsating blood vessel is on my bottom lip. and where there pulsating is on my bottom lip there is a small lump. Do you think that is the source of the pulsating/swollen upper and lower labial artery? At the time all the doctors after all the scans and blood test weren’t able to help me. Just recently did I find out myself that this is a medial condition that other people suffer from. I thought I was alone suffered with this problem. 

Will laser therapy work in hiding the pulsating artery? 

A: The surgical treatment for an upper labial artery aneurysm or prominent labial artery is ligation. This almost always has to be done through at least two ligation points. In your case it may actually require three given the upper and lower labial artery involvement. In a true aneurysm the protruding sac may also need to be removed as well.

Laser treatments are not going to be remotely effective for this type of vascular problem.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana