Alternatives for shortening a long philtrum to a lip lift?

Lisa, thank you for your questions.  As you can imagine, without any pictures, its hard to really be able to give you anything other than a very generalized answer.  However, your situation (long philtrum + excessive tooth show + volumized lips) leads to me to believe that your issue may be more of an orthognathic concern.  Again, without any pictures and the ability to examine your bite as well as getting any history of braces, etc, its hard to be definitive.  However, I often find your situation in patients who come ask me about lip lifting and I end up sending them to see a orthognathic dentist.  Anyways, sorry to be so vague, however, I hope that I was able to help in some way.  Best of luck. 

There are several changes to the upper lip that can be achieved with the upper lip lift, one being more upper teeth show, the other being more fullness and pout to the upper lip.  While there is always both of these, the ratio of how much the lip is shortened vs how much pouting is achieved can be somewhat controlled by the amount of deep tissue vs skin that is removed.  I suggest you do your homework and find a surgeon experienced with these procedures who can explain this to you in your case.

An accurate assessment of this issue would require seeing your photos.  A lip lift is not indicated if you already have upper teeth show unless the teeth are very long in which case they can be shortened along with a lip lift. Again, photos are essential.

In any lift lift or vermilion advancement procedure there are always going to be tradeoffs. Shortening the long philtrum will change the volumetric appearance of the upper lip either centrally (lip lift) or the whole lip.(vermilion advancement) The question then becomes which can you leave with the best…a long philtrum or a shorter philtrum with a fuller upper lip.