Mid Forties Make in Need of a Tweak. Belgium, BE

Passport photos, 2014 (before) V 2015 (6 weeks after)

For years I’ve not been exactly delighted by my appearance, it could be worse, but could be better was my philosophy. I could tolerate it, sometimes actually quite content, but as I got older, my attitude changed, in that things were only going to get even worse; but not necessarily...! I found out there was a procedure to address one of the features that bothered me, my longish top lip. An scientific article I found online implied the philtrum elongates with age, with average philtrum for a 40 year old male being 1.5mm longer than a 30 year old. So chances are , it gets worse as we get older. Measurement gave approx 21-22mm, slightly over average for a 40 something, and made facial ratios looked worse because my nose points upwards slightly. I then did a crude simulation by pulling my top lip upwards, taking a pic, and superimposing the pulled-up mouth section over a normal picture. Wow, big improvement. So I started considering lip lift surgery.
I had consultation in London in June for lip lift with Dr Noorman van der Dussen at Singleberg clinic (Belgium), and a operation was booked for October. The Dr, who has done the procedure many times, (between 1-3 per month) informed me that muscle tissue would be removed, as well as skin, for a better look. This made me nervous about potential nerve damage, but made sense that the idea is to remove muscle to lift the whole of the lip and avoid a feminine look, which I guess might be too much of the pink upper lip relative to the lower lip. I also had some asymmetry of the upper lip that the doctor would try to address.
I got the ferry to France with my partner and drove to the local area in Belgium the night before the operation. Prior to the op, while wearing my operating garb, the Dr informed me his concerns about removing too much lip tissue, with potential pushing up and creation of nasolabial fold issues. This was slightly disappointing as I had hopes of shortening the upper lip by 3-4mm, but sounded like I wasn’t going to get this. The procedure was done under some sort of sedation (I forget), and was of course painless. When I came round, I looked like a miniature Frankenstein monster, but wrong shade of green, and opted to spend the night and the next in Belgium in case of complications. My initial thoughts were disappointment in that it appeared that insufficient skin/muscle had been removed. I wasn’t sure about changing the dressing over my stitches, so I paid a visit to the clinic the next day to be told by my doctor’s colleague Dr Oelbrandt (Dr van der Dussen was away), that I needed no further dressing and the area could be kept clean by showering. Over next 24 hours my face swelled like a chipmunk and had some bruising under one eye. Eating wasn’t too bad, and we even had a McSh*t burger. For the trip home, I wore a scarf wrapped around my lower face (like a bank robber) on the return ferry to hide the mess, and got a few odd looks. It was slightly embarrassing showing my face to the passport officer at immigration in France. There was only very mild pain kept in check by painkillers and I took antibiotics. No infection occurred. The incision seemed to be healing nicely. Facial Swelling of hamster jowls reduced after about 4 days, and the stitches were starting to be dissolved naturally by the skin. I was using arnica gel on the bruising and icing jowls twice daily and the swelling under my nose. I got to catch up on loads of movies, as I had booked the week off work. After about 9 days I plucked out the last surface strands of stitching with tweezers, which caused some small scabs. I went to work on 10th day and I’m not sure too many people noticed, although I was self extremely self conscious, especially when talking to colleagues. The tissue under my nasal sill was solid and raised up with swelling, and I had no feeling to my nostrils or upper lip. Although the scar was not practically unnoticeable, my nose looked huge, far more upturned and wider with significantly more flaring of my nostrils. There was a groove in the skin at the base of my nose on the left and right sides where the ends of the doctors scalpel had started the incision, and this groove didn’t want to ‘seal’, but thankfully was hidden. Measurement of the upper lift with a ruler gave extreme disappointment; although tooth show was marginally better the lip still looked long like before the operation. I was unable to say words with letter ‘P’, and smiling was strange as it felt my lip did not want to pull up over my teeth and remained pointed downwards. Over weeks the sensation started to improve in my top lip, then one nostril got feeling back in late November (4 weeks), and then two weeks later the other nostril. Over the weeks my nose started to shrink back to normal without the flared nostrils. At 12 weeks (now) there is still hard tissue under the nasal sill and some semi-resolvable internal stitches seem to be still there in place, but there is improvement every day, and I think my smile is normal. The surface scarring is non-existent. At a follow-up, the Doctor informed me that healing from this procedure is longer than for a facelift! All-in-all, I am quite happy, definitely ‘worth it’ – and while one or two extra mm removal would have been great, the change as it is now is minimal enough to not been obvious to work colleagues, family etc, but sufficient to make a pleasing improvement (to me at least, and my partner), and the lip asymmetry I’ve always had is slightly reduced. When I am clean shaven I am more disappointed than with a stubble/beard. The side-by-side passport photos do show a difference (improvement), which was taken at 6 weeks and shows the larger nostrils (which has now gone). Although the improvement is less evident in the other pics, I see it in the mirror every day.
The cost was reasonable when comparing against what other people have paid globally, even factoring in travel and hotels. I am considering a revision, but there are probably other facial aspects that are now worse and would take a priority should I opt for more procedures. And the long healing is putting me off in the short term. Measurement now of philtrum is about 19.5mm with mouth open, and 17mm mouth closed. So perhaps 2.5mm improvement. Who knows, perhaps it may well improve further which is what the doctor has suggested.
In conclusion, good value for money, reasonably pleased with the outcome, but extremely slow healing.