Dermal fat grafting to lip recovery period?

Hello Aeronca, you have a very common question. Perhaps this will help you understand. The word "permanent" would require an implant vs. dermis or a fat placement. I'm not a advocate of an implant. It does look great but maybe felt. A dermis implant is very different than a fat implant. Both can be used to augment one's lip. I do not use one's fat as one's body weight changes, the fat injected into one's lip also can change is size. I usually use an ONLY dermal implant to provide a lasting augmentation of one's lip. The recovery period is different than injecting fat or HA filler. If you provided pictures, my response could be more focused to your situation.
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Michael Kulick MD
ASAPS and ASPS member

A surgical lip augmentation results in swelling and bruising to the lips and tenderness behind the ears. This is usually the limiting factor to returning to work or social activities. I normally use a dissolvable suture inside the mouth and this is gone by day 7-10. About 50% of the swelling goes down by 7-10 days and you should be presentable by then. However, everyone is different in how they respond to surgery so this is a general estimation and should not be construed as an accurate assessment of your situation. Final results take 3-6 months to show and for all swelling to resolve.

It varies from patient to patient and how thick the graft is.

Six weeks is probably a fair number to have results that are 75% final.

You’ll probably be very swollen and possibly bruised for a week to 14 days.

You should be presentable but look over augmented at three weeks.

Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD