Finally … my Lip Lift Experience

When I researched this page, it made me really unhappy. A good share of those desiring a lip lift already had a lot of upper red lip showing – compared to me. I felt horrible, one more reason for my fairly quick decision. I had just posted a still unanswered question, when I called a specialist near me. During consultation it turned out that someone had just cancelled his appointment, so I jumped in, and two days layer my lip was done ;-)
Day two feels worse than directly after. All I can say right now is that I hope my lip will go up a little more after the swelling is gone. After the procedure it was higher, and there was almost no swelling. Now it is pretty swollen and the lip has gone down. Somehow I don't understand it, shouldn't it raise because of the swelling? I am a little worried …

Thank you so much for your comments, ladies! Yes, I love this page, it is pretty informative, and "alive", compared to others. I'm really happy to find some support here, as I'm pretty much alone at the moment (single with parents living far away and a best friend who just turned her back on me (I guess mainly out of jealousy, because I made some decisions recently that she's afraid to make for herself). Looking into the mirror in a right-after-surgery state can be quite depressing, even more when you have noone to share your feelings with.
I had my surgery done in Germany, 10 km from where I live. Being a few hundred km away from Czechia, I considered travelling at first – my nose tip was done in a hospital right behind the Czechian border a few years ago, and it was a lot cheaper than here. But then I discovered that prices in CZ are much higher than a few years ago — and I realized that this procedure is much more complicated than making a nose tip a little smaller and therefore demands a highly skilled practitioner.
Now I'm glad I went to a place so close to my home, because afterwards I felt totally down for a few days – desperate and weak, and close to tears all the time. Definitely not the best condition for a long and lonely car drive. (Btw, my feelings after that nose job were totally different, euphoric and full of self-esteem! But I guess what's coming out after such an extreme experience I just what we have buried deep down inside at this very moment of our lives, it doesn't necessarily have much to do with the procedure itself.)
No, I don't know how much skin my surgeon removed, and now I regret not having asked more detailled before it was done. I only said that I desired a rather full lip, almost as full as my other one, and then I explained my worries (please no rabbit look, and please no duck lips!). I added that I have an easy healing skin, scars tend to become pretty small with time, and with all the freckles in my face the new scar wouldn't be very outstanding anyway. So I totally get the reasons why he might not have taken out the maximum amount of skin possible. and there might be more reasons I don't even consider as a non-professional, like possible numbness, damaged muscles and more.
This pic on day 8 shows that swelling is getting better, but my nose looks much different (a permanent change?)
Nostrils are a little bigger and turned up (so they are more visible), but seriously, I'm not worried about that. somehow I like the change, because I feel like my nose looks less "done" now than before. My lip looks uneven, for the first day. I guess it's just the swelling. Last night I was sleeping on my face, so this might be the reason it has wandered. If this amount of white lip reduction is the final result I would be happy. (I should really stop reading all these googled up horror stories! one was claiming: "it will all come back down, after one year it will be just like before. for a long time improvement the surgeon must remove twice as much skin as considered.)

After four years my upper lip is pretty much what it was like before the lift. I tried fillers once, but the excessive skin above my top lip weighed the lip down, so there was no visible difference. Except for a duck face in profile. My dermatologist said the same. She tried to fill the philtral columns to lift it a little, but there is so much extra skin that it didn‘t look much different.
So finally I went to a good plastic surgeon in the capital. Waiting was almost two months, but it was worth it. He looked at me carefully and discussed several options, the whole consultation took almost two hours. (Remember: The first surgery was done after a three-minute-look at my face – ah, I see, long philtrum, no problem, I will give you nice lips.)
Now I know that the previous bullhorn was cut way too conservative, in length and width – he removed skin from below the nose only, although a longer cut into the nasolabial folds would have been advised. That’s why I ended up with a bit of lip red in the middle, but no visible lip red at the sides. Cutting a bit into the nose could have given an extra 3 mm shortening of the philtrum, but this wasn‘t done either. Unfortunately this was not the only problem. On top of it my philtrum has a tendency to come down quickly back to its old length, and all these factors created the sad outcome.
The revision cannot be done as progressive as the surgeon could do it on virgin skin. But I still want to do it, even if it is only a small improvement. We found a strategy that will finally give me a top lip, but it is a three-step-plan. After bullhorn surgery I will probably need to have another stripe of skin removed, two stripes in detail, directly at the border of the lip red. Maybe this helps, if it’s still not enough he will inject fat from my body into the lip. A part of this fat usually grows into the lip tissue and will stay there, so that I won’t need the endless procedure of fillers that needs to be repeated every few months. With artificial fillers the whole lip tissue would be a hard bulky scar after a few years, because they need to be redone so often.
Hoping the best for tomorrow... everyone here is calling me crazy, putting so much effort into an issue that’s not even one from their point of view. Yeah, my lips are okay, noone will stare at me or talk behind my back, but ever since I left the hospital so very disappointed I wanted this to be fixed