Lip Enhancement - Aftercare instructions and recovery period

Hello my name is Adrian Richards and I'm the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics and today I'm going to be talking about aftercare instructions following the Permalip procedure. As we mentioned before, Permalip is a tapered silicone tube, very thin and supple, which is placed in the lips under the wet/dry border to create a subtle slightly fully appearance to the lips. So following treatment, which is normally performed under local anaesthetic, or can be performed under general anaesthetic if you’re having other procedures which require general anaesthetic, your lips will become slightly swollen and this is because there’s a lot of blood supply to the lips and they do tend to be an area that does swell relatively quickly. So what we like to do is sit you up, so it's very important that your head is above your heart because that reduces swelling, so if you are going to sort of bend down bend with your knees rather than your back. Sitting down is fine, if you’re going to lie down we like you slightly up with your head on pillows, and that reduces swelling. The other important thing is we like you to apply cold packs to the lips and the best way of doing this often, funnily enough, is either with an ice pack with a flannel, so we don’t want the ice pack directly onto the lips, we want a layer in between, so an ice pack. Some people use frozen peas, just to really reduce that swelling like if you’d sprained your ankle, obviously rest, elevation and ice. Cooling reduces the swelling really in those first couple of hours. The other important thing to do is check that the implant is central. Because the Permalip is placed in a tunnel underneath the wet/try border of the lip, so what I will do at the end of the procedure is check that the Permalip is central, and you do that just by holding the corner of your lips here and you will actually be able to feel the tail of the implant. So if you put your fingers on exactly the same position you will feel it and in the first couple of days you will actually be able to move it a little but until it bends in, and it's just important just to keep it central, so every couple of hours just check it's central, and if it isn’t just massage it into place. And then eventually the body will sort of contract around the implant and hold it in place so it will remain central. Typically the swelling will last a few days. You will feel a bit swollen, so if you’ve got any sort of social activities or work activities we really ask you to defer those for three or four days after the treatment. You will have absorbable stitches in the corner of your mouth which will for out of their own accord or sometimes if they’re aggravating you we will remove them when we see you in clinic, normally a week afterwards. So we’d anticipate that the swelling would go down over a week, 10 days, and the lips would feel normal within two to three weeks. You normally don’t lose any sensation or movement in the lips so the sensation is normal, the movement in the lips is normal, they wont look big and rubbery, they will look just slightly fuller and they will feel normal externally. So really people wont know that you’ve had the implant. I also want to say that it's going to take two or three months before they sort of become a part of your body and you’ve forgotten, rather like breast augmentation, it takes a few months just to feel natural and you’ve forgotten you ever had it done. So I hope that’s been helpful. If you would like any more information about Permalip or any of the other subjects and topics we cover here at Aurora Clinics, please visit the website which is aurora-clinics.co.uk, or alternatively give us a ring on 01844 214 362 and we’ll be happy to discuss this or any other aspects with you. Thank you.