I Have Lips Again! - Clackamas, OR

I have scleroderma and my lips had all but disappeared which always made me very self conscious. This self-consciousness only got worse once I started my new job and I was in a lot of meetings and dealing with a lot of administrators and directors.

I decided that it was time to finally pursue lip augmentation. I did a lot of research on the different types of lip augmentation, especially for scleroderma patients and patients with autoimmune diseases. Permalip seemed like the better option since it was permanent and did not require re-doing every year or so. I also found various physicians who had performed this procedure on scleroderma patients in Europe as well as the East coast. Unfortunately, I live in Oregon and there is only one physician who performs this procedure. Luckily he is close by - I Found Dr. Chan and made a free (bonus!) consultation. I met with him and his assistant Yvonne and they went over the pros and cons of Juverderm as well as Permalip. He recommended Permalip.

After a month or so of thinking about this I decided to just do it and made the appointment! Lip augmentation has always been a dream for me to do so I never had any cold feet or doubts before the actual procedure.

Pre-procedure was easy - I just started to take antibiotics one day before. I worked a little the morning of, and went to my appointment at noon. I even ate lunch before (which I am glad I did since there was no way I was going to eat anything after the procedure). After filling out some paperwork and taking some pre-procedure pictures, they took me to the procedure room which was very bright and comfortable. Dr. Chan came in and explained exactly what was going to happen and what to expect before and after the procedure. Procedure itself wasn't bad - numbing injections weren't bad since he put a ton of lidocaine on my gums beforehand to numb the area. I know a lot of people complained about this but this part wasn't bad at all (dentist injections are 100x worse). Dr. Chan then injected me in various areas of my lips to get me numb.

I had made sure not to watch any of the youtube videos out there on the Permalip procedure.....just seeing a few pictures made me freak out. This helped although I had more or less an idea of what was going on. The incisions on the corner of my mouth didn't hurt, nor the tunneling through the lip and placement of the implant. When things did get uncomfortable I just told him and he numbed me more.

Whole process took about 45 minutes. I got all stitched up and they gave me a mirror - and I looked just like the other pictures out there with the giant upper lip like a duck. I was prepared for this, however. What I didn't realize was how much it hurt after!!! The numbing wore off very fast (not like the dentist) and by the time I was driving home (I had my mom drive me) I was in pain. The next few hours and into that evening was painful, I felt like someone had punched me in the face. I didn't use any narcotics, just Tylenol and ice packs. It was also hard to open my mouth super wide and my incisions hurt, so I ate Jamba Juice and soup for dinner.

The next day wasn't *as* painful but still painful enough. I thought this was going to be the worst day but I actually looked a lot better than the day before. Dr. Kim had given me a steroid dose pack so I had started taking it the day of the procedure. I think this helped immensely with the swelling. I was lucky and didn't have any bruising or peeling of lips that I've seen in photos.

I actually went back to work that Sunday (only 3 days after procedure!). While I was self conscious since I was still a little duck looking, I could talk ok and function. Pain had gone down, the only pain was from the incisions.

I can honestly say that yesterday, which was one week after the procedure, is when I woke up and realized that I looked normal and could talk normal. My incisions also seemed to heal completely and I could eat whatever.

I am very very happy with my new lips! I'm just hoping they don't settle and shrink too much since I like the size they are now. They look totally natural and it feels great to have some volume again :)

I'm going in for my 1-2 week check-up next Wednesday so we'll see what Dr. Chan says!