I have a very long upper lip. Although I'd like to get an upper and corner lip lift, I wasn't ready to shell out the 25K that one famous doctor wanted to do the 3 procedures he recommended I need. (Corner, upper lip lift and V-Y Plasty on lower lip.) I decided to try a preliminary step of getting a small fat transfer to my lower lip, which I hoped would give the top and lower lip better proportions. (I had read that a natural proportion for upper to lower lip is 1:3) In addition, I have a flat philtrum. The doctor to whom I went suggested she could try to create a modest philtrum using fat transfer. The procedure was done on 12th. I am told it will take 3 weeks before the lower lip looks somewhat presentable. Here is the start of my journey. (Side note: I had small amounts of fat put into the side dents in my nose to try to hide a previous rhinoplasty and some filler in the crease between my chin and lower lip and a tiny amount in the corner of my eyes to hide the dark circles.) Updated on 18 May 2015: Lips are hard and bruises are still there. I should amend my original post to say that the ratio of top to bottom lip is supposed to be 1 to 1.6. I had asked my Dr to be conservative and said I was simply going for a natural ratio and that I was planning on going to for an upper lip lift. I am hopeful that when the swelling comes down, it will look natural. But worried that my decision to do this will end up looking unnatural. And if it does look unnatural, I will need to figure out if this is because I need to adjust the upper lip or because I made a poor decision to do this in the first place. Time will tell. Updated on 19 May 2015: Impatient for the bruises to heal, I had a dermatologist zap the darker bruises. It also looks like the swelling continues to diminish on lip, side of nose and under eyes. The laser to the bruises has helped, although it is expensive and probably I should have just sucked it up and waited the 2 more weeks for everything to resolve as normal. I have been taking arnica and bromelain as instructed as well. Updated on 19 May 2015: My upper lip (the entire surface area) seems a bit puffy. It is my hope that a lip lift will be able to tackle this area and make it look more harmonious and natural. The mental crease (the crease that is between the chin and lip) apparently increases with age and putting filler in that area can help great a more youthful appearance, which is why I had it done. Updated on 30 May 2015: Swelling seems to be all gone. The amount of fat in the lower lip is very conservative. When I speak, the added fullness is more apparent. I am now prepared to move forward with a lip lift. I am happy with the impact of the fat on the indents of my nose and my lower eyes. Updated on 31 May 2015: Profile show and one with makeup Updated on 31 May 2015: Wanted to get the before and after photos side by side to easily compare Updated on 31 May 2015: Updated on 15 Sep 2015: Well, all the swelling is gone and I think I was too conservative with the fat transfer. There is not much difference so I may do this again. But Today, I am getting a lip lift. My upper lip is 22mm, which is waaaaay too long.
I received fat transfer to my feet not for cosmetic purposes but because I had destroyed the fat in my feet with multiple steroid injections I received for Morton's Neuroma. MN is an inflammation of the nerve between the toes which often occurs to women over 40 who run or wear high heels. Without fat on the bottom of my feet, I could barely walk barefoot the distance from bed to bathroom. Without fat on the top of my feet, it was painful to curl my toes under. I am posting this because there are people out there who may benefit from both the cosmetic and the medical benefit of this procedure, if it works. This is especially true for aging folks who have discovered that with age, they experience fat pad atrophy, making walking in anything but Birkenstocks impossible. I received this procedure from Dr. Alesia Saboeiro, who (as the protege of Sydney Coleman) is among the finest fat grafters in America. The recovery has involved not walking on my feet for -- so far -- 10 days. I suspect it will be another 10 days before this is possible. I am trying to be vigilant about not putting weight on my feet, because I am aware that the pressure can kill the newly transplanted fat. It will be weeks until I know if this procedure has improved the pain from the loss of fat or if this has in any way helped mitigate the pain from the morton's neuroma. Updated on 26 Mar 2014: It is now 2 weeks after my surgery and I am still unable to walk or stand on my own two feet. The doctor grafted 45 cc of fat to each of my feet, this includes to the top and the bottom. When I have tried to gently test my foot by placing it on the ground and pushing down a little, my feet feel like water balloons that are being squeezed on one end -- as if they are going to pop. The pain level is similar to how a bruise feels if you press into it deeply. I find that moving about with a wheelchair is tough because the feet feel best when elevated above the heart. In addition, I have found that crawling around on my knees and hoisting myself up all the time with my arms is starting to give me minor overuse issues in my elbows and wrists, as if I have tennis elbow or carpal tunnel syndrome. So for anyone who considers doing this, please note that the recovery will be quite long. Updated on 1 Apr 2014: Alas, status quo on my feet situation. I will post an update when there has been a noticeable change one way or the other. Updated on 28 Apr 2014: As of today, I can walk up to a mile. But I do so while in pain -- and slowly. Standing for longer than a few minutes starts to hurt my feet. Most of swelling is gone. But if I walk a bunch, the swelling comes back. Trying to beat back the worrying voice in my head that fears this won't get better. Updated on 6 May 2014: As of May 6th, I can walk short distances, about a mile, and I can also stand for 5 or so minutes in MBT or rocker type shoes without too much pain. But walking or standing without shoes is a bit painful. I wondered if this was just a factor of the surgery to the bottom of the feet, but the tops of the feet, where I also had fat transfer, is also a little tender to the touch if I press firmly. On the positive side, about a month or so ago, it would have been impossible to press or massage the feet with more than a feather light touch. Updated on 18 Aug 2014: I am walking, hiking and exercising, with the help of MBT shoes. (Rocker type shoes.) I can walk in bare feet without pain. The fat transfer went perfectly. My feet look 20 years younger. But that wasn't the reason I had this done. I hoped the fat transfer would make my feet feel better from the damage done by the steroid injections for the morton's neuroma. The Morton's neuroma is still there but not as bad as before, which might be because I spent a month in a wheelchair and have been walking in these special shoes. I still can't wear flats or sandals for very long but I can for a short period of time. I no longer have the symptoms and issues on top of the feet that I had after the steroids dissolved the fat that was there. One unexpected outcome of this procedure is that I no longer have dry, cracked heels. When we get older, apparently, having dry, cracked heels is normal. But the fat that was placed in my heels has now eliminated this issue, which neither I nor the doctor had anticipated. Updated on 14 Dec 2014: Here is a photo of the top of my feet today, Dec 15 2014. I am purposely standing on a line in the tile to show you about where the fat transfer on my feet began on the top. (I didn't want to take a pen and draw on the top of my feet.) The fat was placed from that line to the base of my toes. Above that line towards the ankle and where the veins become more pronounced is where no fat transfer was done. It looks completely natural. No one would know I had done anything. Now I wish I had asked her to place fat all over my entire upper foot. The fat on the bottom of the feet is another story. I think some of it stayed and it is better than before but either I needed a lot more fat to be transferred there, or perhaps I destroyed much of the fat that was there from walking on it too soon. (Pressure necrosis, it is called) Updated on 14 Dec 2014: For those who are considering this, the recovery would have been dramatically shorter and less uncomfortable had I not done the bottom of my feet. IF I had just done the top, I could have been back to work and walking around in about in a week or two. There was never pain after the surgery except when I tried to walk and then it was more a weird sensation from the swelling on the bottom of my feet. So for those who want a cosmetic improvement to the top of the feet, I'd highly recommend doing this with my doctor.
My story has a good ending! I had a very bad lipo result. I was misrable and unhappy. For the last two years since my first lipo i went to other two plastic surgeons trying to fix this deformed body that i had but unfortunatelly things went much worse. I was so so miserable and almost gave up and then...i heard about this AMAZING plastic surgeon Dr ALESIA SABOEIRO from tribeca plastic surgery in Manhattan. I couldnt believe that anyone can fix my body. This angel Dr operated me for 6 hours! She is super professional, artist, very patient, understanding . I concider my self as a very luky to find her! Now i look amazing. My body is back! I feel so good about my self. I am happy! I know how hard it is to be in a body that makes you miserable. It affected me in such a bad way. I couldnt live anymore. So this is my story and i really hope that it helps!! Good luck!
I have a naturally thin lip - especially the top which completely disappears when I smile. I have been doing regular lip filler injections for two years with good result. Increasingly, my body began to metabolize the filler to where it was completely absorbed in 3 months. I gave the lip transfer a try - I was told it may take 2 surgeries (it did) and of course, results are not guaranteed. Unfortunately, my body ended up metabolizing the fat even faster than filler. I should note that this is not the doctor or practice's vault - it was made very clear to me that they cannot guarantee results and given my experience with fillers, I was disappointed but did not blame anyone. This all said, I was not happy with my experience at Tribeca Plastic Surgery and after reflection - 8 months later, I thought I would post and share my thoughts with this community. - The practice has lots of people doing lots of things with fair overlap of duties. This created much more confusion and complexity than I have experienced at other practices. I was told Mary, the PA would call me on Friday (for an op on Tuesday) to review pre-op stuff. I said that was fine I could also come in as I live nearby. Most of Friday went by without a call so I called the practice and the lady said only Mary could talk to me about it. I told her ok but I was leaving in the early evening and would be away for the weekend. Mary ended up calling me around 7:30pm and left me a message to call her over the weekend - I guess the receptionist didn't tell her I wasn't available. So on Monday, I physically went into the office to check in (this was scheduled). I asked if I should get any prescriptions that day because I would be in a lot of pain the next day. Mary, the Physicians Assistant again wasn't able to see me and the staff told me not to worry, they would give me something tomorrow. I was given sanitizing wash (like the red stuff surgeons scrub in with) to put on operative areas the morning of my surgery. I filled out all the paperwork and left. The day of my surgery, I was asked to re-enter paperwork exactly the same as i had already filled out. A nurse came in and reviewed it with me -- asking me every single question on the page. I asked the nurse about the prescriptions because I would be out of it after the surgery. She said she thought they had given it to me the day before -- I explained and she said she'd look into it. Then Dr. S came in and asked me again every single question on the page I just told the nurse (and told her when I came in for my pre op consult). At the end, I asked her about the prescriptions and she said she thought Mary had given it to me the day before. She left to also find out. Then the anesthesiologist came in -- not kidding, he AGAIN went through every question (eg my age, how i was getting home, what medications I was on and prior surgeries). I again answered him and asked HIM about my post op prescriptions. He was very surprised this hadn't been done yet and immediately called for Dr. S and the nurse. He said I would in no way be able to fill the prescriptions myself (we live in NYC where everything is walking distance) and he helped me convince them to run out to the pharmacy then and there and fill them. How frustrating but most of all it left me with a deep sense of distrust for all the disorganization. I should say that I have had a half dozen procedures (including a full body lift) so I am aware of how practices and surgeons operate. This was really scaring me. Unlike other practices, I bought my own compression garment because they wouldn't supply one. I told them it was very important that they put it on me while I was asleep. One time I had a procedure where they didn't do it and it was terribly painful trying to pull that on after you are awake. I woke up in recovery -- I should say I made the mistake of having the procedure done in the practice operating room (aka basement). Post op is just waking up on the operating table in the hallway. Because I wasn't in a bed, I woke up very stiff and sore (I had lipo on my back and fat transferred to my lips). They got me up and walked me over to a doctors office recliner chair in the corner that was sectioned off by a curtain. I was indeed in my compression garment but as I started to get my wits about me and try to get dressed, I realized that the garment was completely soaking wet. Mary, the PA came out and told me that I couldn't leave like that. I asked her why I was soaking wet and she said that the blood and liquid they use in lipo was seeping out of my back. This is when she told me that this practice doesn't suture anything - they believe in letting the body heal naturally. I was incredulous. So now Mary, a nurse and Dr. S are all standing in front of me scrambling around like deer in headlights. They seemed surprised I was wet and I couldn't understand why they didn't close the entry points. They told me I had to get out of it and get into a clean one. I started to cry, this is exactly what I didn't want !!! Now it was going to be so painful and I spent so much time researching that garment. The practice didn't have a compression garment so they put gauze all over my back and some of those blue pads they put instruments on in the operating room and wrapped my back in a stretchy wrap type thing and had me get dressed. I went home and washed/dried my compression garment. I laid down and when I woke up, I was again soaking wet. I tried to change into my now clean garment and all the pads and gauze they wrapped me in fell out and there was blood and lipo solution everywhere. I kept crying and crying. I went back into the practice the next day. Immediately, I was swarmed by Dr. S, Mary and a nurse. Mary immediately started to blame me for not calling her over the weekend for the confusion and chaos that occurred the day before. I shut that down pretty quickly and by the look in my eye all three of them knew they needed not "go there" or else I would provide a detailed summary of what really happened. They then became over the top in niceness and that was that. Stupidly, I went back for the 2nd op because I had invested money in it and my lips weren't yet done. This time I (again, stupidly) opted for local anesthesia because I was just having a small amount of lipo "harvested". We agreed in advance that everything would be closed with stitches. Dr. S gave me shots on my lips to numb it. Then she cut into my lip and started the lip procedure --- it wasn't enough though and I kept feeling the pain and jumping up and saying "I FEEL THAT!". This happened four times by which time, I was crying and miserable. After every time, she would then have to give me another shot. My dentist numbs my mouth when they deep clean my teeth and I can't feel anything (usually for hours!) I am stupefied as to how I wasn't given enough for a painful procedure. I have since learned Dr. S left the practice. I am guessing Mary is still there. I would NOT recommend.
