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For as much as women love the look of naturally full lips, the thought of having a needle come into contact with their lips can be enough to have some shy away from the idea of having their lips injected.
Sure, there are plenty of temporary lip-plumping products out there, and for the most part, they work to create short-lived fullness by safely irritating the lips to make them look bigger.
But for those who want longer-lasting fullness that can be customized (your dermatologist or plastic surgeon can add as little or as much filler as you like, within reason), an injectable filler, like Restylane Silk, Restylane, Juvéderm Ultra or Juvéderm Volbella, is probably your best bet. But again, they need to be injected with a needle, which doesn’t always sit well with everyone.
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A new study shows that there may be a new way to enhance the lips, called the “no-touch” technique. The author, Dr. Christopher C. Surek, told Cosmetic Surgery Times that the concept is rooted in avoiding any direct needle injection into the wet or dry mucosa. “All facets of the technique utilize cutaneous needle and cannula insertion ports. The reason for this is that the mucosa swells quickly if repeatedly violated with needle injection, and we feel that this can distort the anatomy, making it more challenging to determine appropriate volume and symmetry when performing lip injection.”
So what exactly does this mean for those who are thinking about, or currently get their lips injected? Troy, MI, plastic surgeon Anthony Youn, MD, says that the “no-touch” technique is quite possibly the safest, easiest, least painful and best way to enhance the lips with filler. “It appears that, in the study, they are putting the cannula through a small poke in the skin just outside of the lip. Then, the cannula is threaded through the lip, allowing the doctor to inject filler throughout the entire lip without having to make a separate poke into the lip, which is sensitive to trauma and bruises and swells easily.”
“I often perform a very similar technique, which is, quite simply lip enhancement with injectable fillers using cannulas instead of needles. This does create much less swelling and bruising, is easier to tolerate (having your lips injected hurts), and much safer because the risk of accidentally injecting the filler into a blood vessel is minimized.”
