How painful are lip injections? What can I do to reduce my pain? Can you take medicine beforehand to calm you down? (Photo)

You may consider asking your surgeon if he could perform nerve blocks of your maxillary and mental nerves. These are injections in your mouth similar to what a dentist might perform.Hope this helps you.Dr. Joseph

Lips are exquisitely sensitive.  Due to the high degree of nerve endings here, lip injections can be somewhat uncomfortable.  There are several key steps in minimizing lip discomfort:
Ice- Ice can help vasoconstrict the lips and prevent excessive swellingNeedle size-  Smaller needles create less trauma and pain to the lipPrior filler placement- Patients with previous filler often have less discomfort than new patientsTopical anesthetic- Topical numbing cream can help decrease sensation to the lipsIn addition, local nerve blocks can be helpful in some cases.  Most of the time, with gentle application, most of our patients opt not to have local nerve blocks and tolerate injections well.

Topical anesthetics can be used to numb the lips prior to injection. The needle used is very small. Best of luck. 

Topical anesthetics help. If you are really sensitive, a nerve block can be performed, but it is another series of injections.

Most women tolerate the lip injection pretty well.  From 1 to 10 pain scale, most say it's a 4.  So, obviously something you don't want to do everyday, but if it's for improving the way you look most women want to make that trade.  The more important thing is the outcome of a lip injection.  You want to avoid looking weird with ducky lips. There is a new injectable filler called Restylane Silk that is a great filler for the lips.  It is so new that only a handful of doctors have them right now.  They will be more  readily available in the next few months.  One way to decrease some discomfort is to apply numbing cream or apply ice pack prior to injection.  It will not take away all the discomfort but make it more tolerable.  The product has a local anesthetic in it to reduce discomfort.  I would not medicate you orally for this type of injection.  I would advise you to find a board certified plastic surgeon for an expert opinion.  Good luck!