Permalip and mini facelift

Over the past few years, with stresses of kids and life, I noticed a big difference in my face structure. It became very flat looking, and saggy. My nasolabial folds had always even very pronounced, but even more so now. I tried fuller in my cheeks to create lift but it looked too masculine. My lips became very deflated with lines on the upper lip and the lips were down turned. I had some major resting bitch face. I had tried multiple fillers out there on my lips (Juvéderm, Juvederm Ultra, Vobella), but by body metabolizes it too quickly and the results were gone after a month.

So I met with my PS who doesn't filler and Botox to find out about lip implants and what m options were on a lift. He said he could do a mini face lift in office under local anesthesia, which made it way more affordable not having to pay an anesthesiologist or surgical room fees. For lips, he said since he was doing the minilift, I could use my own tissue, the fascia from the side of my face right by my ears, for lip implants, which would be more natural and less risk since it's my own tissue. However, I asked him if my body would just absorb it since it so quickly absorbs fillers, an he said I had a good point. So Permalip implants were the way to go. He went over the sizes and explained that the 3mm were too small to even notice. The 4mm only would make a slight difference. He said he mostly uses the 5mm. My motto is always "Go Big or Go Home". So I went with the 5mm, hoping it wouldn't look ridiculous.

Day of surgery, I took a 0.5 mg Xanax 45 mins before the procedure began. By the time he started injecting me, I was pretty loopy and just wanted to lay down and close my eyes. He started with the lips first: dental block with 3 injections in the upper gum area, 2 in the lower. Then the lidocaine...about 6 each in the upper and lower lips. The shots all stung horribly...the upper was worse than the lower and brought tears to my eyes. Below is a photo of how swollen my lips got just after the numbing.

The PS then started on the Permalip. He measured the length of my lips to be 62mm, so he went with the 60mm length, size 5mm for width. I heard the snipping of the scissors on each side. It sounded like cutting through raw chicken. But it didn't bother me at all because I was so relaxed and out of it. I felt alot of pulling and tugging as he placed the implants on the top and bottom. Then gave me 3 sutures on each side, on the inside corners. I can't remember how long the procedure lasted...maybe 1/2 hour by the time the sutures were done. Total time about 1 hour from prep to dental blocks and lidocaine, to sutures.

Then he started numbing me for the mini face lift. I can't remember much except for the shots stinging like hell behind my ears! It wasn't long before I was numb and he started on the left side first...snip snip snip, from the top of my ear down and under my ear lobe. I don't remember much and didn't feel anything, except when he started suturing. I could feel a ton of pulling and tugging on my skin, from my jawline, cheeks and up by my eyes. I remembering him pulling so tight on that upper suture I kept asking him if I was going to look asian. He assured me I wouldn't, and said that was the money stitch right there. While doing the left side, the numbing started wearing off on my lips and my lower lip was burning so badly, so he gave me another shot of novacaine. Next came the right side, basically same as the left except because there was more slag and droop on that side, he had to pull more and add more stitches behind my ears. I did feel a bit on that side, and he had to give me another shot of lidocaine. Both lips now started hurting again, so he numbed me some more on the upper and lower lips. He then cleaned me up, putting ointment on my incisions, and bandaged my face for compression, which was super tight under my jaw and felt like I was choking a bit. Total time for prep, numbing, procedures on both sides of face, suturing and cleanup, and bandaging, took 3 hours. Total time for everything was 4 hours. Began at 6am and was out of there about 10:30. I wished I had brought my pain meds with me, because I was in pain on the way home and it was an hour drive. My kind neighbor drove me since my husband was out of town. Thankfully she has Tylenol and I took 2 immediately to help until I got home to take the Norco.

The scariest thing was looking at myself in the mirror. I looked like Quasimodo. I was hideous and my lips looked so ridiculous and stretched so wide. What have I done!!!!! Wahhhhh!!!!!

I slept most of the day and took 2 Norco's every 4 hours, icing continually. I could hardly drink, and definitely could not eat. You can't use a straw since you can't purse your lips or suck. Easiest thing to do was use a solo cup and drink water that way. But even fitting the pills in between your lips hurt. Later that evening I was hungry but all I could eat was goldfish, one by one, just sucking on them until they disintegrated.

Day after is always the worst from my experience, so I wasn't surprised to wake up in pain and majorly swollen. Ice ice baby! I slept alot of the day again. Still couldn't eat except for sucking on goldfish one at a time and tiny spoonfuls of yogurt. Kept up with the Norco.