Juvederm: Stories

I'm in my mid twenties and had hollowness under my eyes ever since I was a kid. I guess it got slightly more pronounced as I got older so I had to get better at concealing it. I had good concealer days but you couldn't hide the tear trough depression no matter how great the concealer was so I finally decided to treat myself and get them filled in. I only got one syringe and used about one third of it on my upper lip and the rest in the tear troughs. My PS put numbing cream under my eyes and I sat with it for half an hour. I don't know why he didn't put any on my lip because the Novocaine injections hurt A LOT. I didn't feel them under my eyes at all though. I hear the lips are very painful to do so it's probably not uncommon to have so much pain during the numbing injections. The good news is I didn't feel a thing when he put in the juvederm. I'm happy with the results. This is my very first time getting anything injected or doing anything to my face so I have nothing to compare it to, but I got the results I wanted. My left tear trough looks perfect. My right one isn't as smooth but is still a huge improvement from the hollowness. My upper lip looks slightly bigger but it's still swollen. I wanted minimal results on my lip, as they are already naturally full. I just wanted to increase the top one slightly. The swelling of my lip was scary right after the procedure, but six hours later it went down. I have no bruising and just tiny red dots at injection sites. I have those same red dots under my eyes but they are hardly noticeable. There is a bruise at one of the injection sites but it looks like a birthmark and can easily be concealed. He told me to come back in a week to see how everything settled and in case I want another syringe. I don't think I will get one unless that slight dent under my right eye gets more pronounced and my lips shrink even more. We'll see. So far so good! Update: The injection scabs around the lips remained for three days but a tiny bit of concealer and lipstick took care of that. My right eye still has a minor dent but I'm happy with the overall results.

I touched up the lips and the eyes in May 08.  I only touched up the right under eye at that time and it came out a little poofy then, so I had to massage it for a while.  It's a lot better now and I don't think I will need to touch it up for another 6 months.   I went for a touch up of the lips last week and I"m really happy with the results.  I posted a new picture from my most recent touch up.

Update 5/11/09 I went for some botox (for brow lifting) last week and to see if I need touch ups and the doctor said I didn't.  I can't believe my tear troughs still look good after a year!

I wanted to do the lips more but I don't want to pay for an entire syringe to only use a third of it... I guess I'll wait until I need to touch up the troughs.  I wish the stuff would come in smaller sizes!