Dr. Shervin Naderi explains why cheek volume matters more than chasing lines, and why lip fillers work best when paired with mid-face work. He warns against over-treating nasolabial folds alone and says thinning lips are a normal part of aging.
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Hi, I want to talk about lip injections a little bit. This is a topic that's very dear and near to my heart. I do a ton of lip injections. I get patients that fly in from all over the country for lip injections. I do two things. As many of you know, I only do rhinoplasties surgically and I do advanced facial injections in the office. That's the only two things that I do. Now when people come in for injections, Botox, dysport, that's kind of an easier decision. It's typically in the forehead, it's around the frown lines, it's around the eyes. It could be other areas, for example, for gummy smiles, for vertical neck bands, for downturned lips, for other issues. And again, the diagnosis is simpler. And the injection, when done properly, you can get a really nice result. A lot of people go get Botox that's not injected into the right place and. And then they think Botox is bad. Now, again, with all injections, it's the injector, the material and the patient and the expectations. When you go to fillers, most people that come from fillers are wanting their nasolabial folds filled. The point is, most people get this done elsewhere. Most plastic surgeons, dermatologists, family doctors like to inject these things. The companies advertise the nasolabial folds, but the nasolabial folds don't make you look younger, especially if you come in your 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. Just injecting the nasal fold doesn't make you look younger. You have to concentrate on the mid face and cheeks. For women, it's about cheekbones and this area. For men it's about the mid face area, but it's all concentrated here. That scares people because they think they're going to look fatter. It's the opposite. It actually sculpts you because as you inject this area, it slims down the lower face. That's number one. The second place, when you get this zone filled, it's the lips. What happens to every single one of us? Our lips thin with age. No matter how big they start out or how small they start out, they always thin with age. So trying to get more rejuvenated, trying to get more refreshed, younger. It's not about these. Yes, sometimes you have to inject these, and I do plenty of it. But you gotta concentrate on the beautiful three dimensional aspect of the face, not chase lines. I don't like to chase lines. It's about beauty. 3D, that youthful look and youth Comes from mid face volume. If there's depressions in this area, you can fill it, create a better contour from the jowls and the lips. The entire lip, the entire mid part of the face, bone gum, bone, skin, muscle, fat. Everything shrinks with age as we get older. So you have to replenish that. Now, When a younger girl, 18, 19, 20 comes in, they want fuller lips. They may want Kylie Jenner type lips, they may want fuller lips. They love it. When you come in into your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. Every single patient is always, always a little bit freaked out right after the injection. My injections are extremely natural. If you're young and you want to go extremely exotic, we can do that. But most of the time my patients want to be natural. So the result is extremely natural. But despite that, regardless of that, as soon as the filler goes into the lips, the lips are more numb. They feel ginormous just because of the numbing. Just like when you go to the dentist and you get a dental block, lips go numb. You're not used to that look. That look has basically not been there for a while. So you're not used to it. But listen, the fact is you need to focus on the lips. We've all had friends, family, relatives that have had bad lip injections. We've seen people with duck lips and fish lips. You don't want that. But you have to understand that for a day or two or three or four after the injection, you're going to feel self conscious about it. You can walk into a supermarket, into a movie theater, into a shopping center, into work, and nobody would even notice that anything was done. But you're going to be self conscious about it. You're going to walk out of here looking like this because you're very self conscious about it. You just have to trust a good surgeon. Again, we've all had bad lip injection patients walking here looking like duck lips and sausage lips. But a good lip injector will give you a nice result. You just have to know that for a few days you're going to be self conscious about it. And about four or five days, maximum a week later, you're going to love it. And you have to concentrate on that. You cannot have a more rested, youthful face, especially into the 40s and beyond, without replenishing some volume into the lips. So find a good surgeon, Trust that surgeon. Understand the perfect symmetry, perfect smoothness is just impossible. Most of us don't have perfect symmetry anywhere on our face. But you want beauty, and beauty is about three dimensional aspect of the face. It's not about perfect symmetry. It's not about chasing lines and filling every single line on the face. You have to understand what makes people beautiful, what makes them look rested. Thank you.
