Lip Lift in Reston, VA

I'm about to get a lip lift in Virginia. I am posting two photos of me. One is me with lip injectibles in lips, and also above my upper lip (bad idea, looks horrible). I went last Thursday and had the filler taken out of my upper lip. (I left the filler in my lower lip, although I might get it taken out. I think it's pretty exaggerated.) There's still some in there however. I think I need the doctor to inject more Vitrase.

The second photo is after the Vitrase, in preparation for my lip lift this Friday.

I look really bad right now :( I had forgotten how long my upper lip was. I had the filler in for over 2 years. That didn't really look good either though. Very ducky-looking, very fake.

I should also mention that the price includes a corner lift and the Vitrase injections.

So it's over. I was really super anxious leading up to this. I was afraid it was going to really hurt. Well, it didn't, surprisingly enough, and there's little pain, little bruising, and not that much swelling. Not at all what I expected. My biggest concern now is that I didn't get enough skin taken off, and that it might have to be modified, but the doctor did say that that is not a big deal. That it's better to err on the side of caution and come back later and just take a little off after. He said it's a minor procedure and nothing like what I just had done. I'm not sure how it works, and what effect another one would have scar-wise, so we'll see. I'm probably jumping the gun anyway. I know I need to be patient and let the swelling go down and see where I'm at. I'm just anxious and was hoping for more spectacular results sooner! Anyway, my post-op is on Thursday, so we'll see what the doc thinks and how I look. Either way, it's a huge improvement on my natural overly long upper lip!

Today is day 3 after surgery and I'm still anxious about how this will turn out. The corners of my mouth are so droopy. I look more mopey than I did before the surgery. I am praying that that changes soon :(
I'm on steriods and I've been icing my lips all day.

I'm updating because I'm unsure of how I look! I think it looks okay, but I'm definitely missing all of the fullness that my filler gave my upper lip. Now there's absolutely NO filler in my upper lip, this is all natural, so now I feel like it looks too thin! It's like I had too many things done at once. I removed all filler from upper lip and then had the lip lift. Also, I have no idea how much swelling there still might be, so I don't know if my face looks heavy because I'm bloated or because of swelling or just plain weight! Aaargggh!

Today is day 11, and I feel like my lip is dropping. I'm been comparing my pics for the last hour from the days after the surgery to today. I'm definitely obsessing. The doctor said that for 9 out of 10 people, as the swelling decreases, the lip moves upward. I'm afraid that I am the 10th out of 10. It seems like it's pretty much done. I mean, I don't see any more swelling, and I think now it's starting to drop a little. I don't know, but I do know that my doctor is very conservative, and now I'm afraid he didn't take off enough skin. He said it wouldn't be a big deal to come back and take off a little more, but I have no idea how that works. How could it be that simple?

I should also mention that I had the doctor put more Vitrase in my upper lip, when I went to have the sutures out, because I felt like it looked like I still had filler in part of my upper lip, and that it was looking lopsided.

Okay, I'm going back for my revision on Thursday! I am more scared this time, because I'm doing it under a local instead of general anesthesia :( Has anyone had it done under a local? I would prefer the general, but although the revision is free, to go under again would cost $800, which I can't afford. So instead I'm taking Valium and hoping that I feel out of it enough to not realize what's going on.