GMommy Lip Lift

A Drooping Upper Lip and Lost Incisor Show

The GMommy lip lift was created to address drooping of the upper lip. The clients described here have that droop from advanced aging. Grandmas typically complain of a less prominent lip that is sagging and covering the upper teeth. Coverage of the upper teeth has been termed loss of incisor show. They also complain that the upper lip looks too long and is no longer aesthetically proportionate. The problem named here is length and coverage, not a request for a different operation on the cheeks or the neck.

A less prominent lip, in this description, is a lip that has dropped enough to hide the upper teeth and to look long between the nose and the red of the lip. Sagging is the same change seen from the outside: the lip no longer sits where it did before years of aging. Loss of incisor show is the dental side of that complaint. When the upper teeth stay covered, the lip is doing the covering, and the tuck is meant to take away the extra skin that lets it hang.

Proportion is the other complaint. An upper lip that looks too long throws off the balance these clients are describing, even when the rest of the face is not the subject of this operation. The GMommy lip lift answers that length by removing redundant skin, rather than by asking the lip to look shorter while the extra skin stays in place.

The Gull Wing Under the Nose

The operation is an upper lip tuck placed to eliminate skin redundancy in the upper lip. What makes the excision unusual is where it sits. It is hidden along the lower aspect of the natural junction between the nose and the upper lip. The incision is shaped like a gull wing, or the shape of a flying bird. It travels just under the contour of the lower nose prominence, where that contour meets the upper lip skin.

The gull wing follows the lower nose instead of crossing the middle of the lip. Because it tracks that junction, the line can sit in the shadow under the nose rather than on the lip itself. The skin taken is the redundant upper lip skin. Removing it is what shortens the long lip and what is meant to restore incisor show, which is the upper teeth the sagging lip had been covering.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons describes a lip lift as removal of skin between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose, with the incision often hidden along the lower nose. That is the same neighborhood as this gull wing. This description is more specific about the shape and about the closure. It does not add a measurement of how many millimeters to remove, and it does not replace the tuck with another treatment.

How the GMommy Lip Lift Is Closed

Repair of this incision uses plastic surgery closure meant to minimize scarring. The closure named here is interrupted subdermal stitches with 5-0 PDS, plus a running simple skin stitch with 5-0 Prolene. The deeper stitches take tension under the skin. The Prolene is the stitch in the skin itself, run as a simple continuous line along the gull wing.

Those sutures have to come out at one week. The reason given is railroad tracking. Leaving the skin stitch past that week is what this description says will mark the line. One week is the removal time. No other removal day is stated. The line is in the center of the face, so a track left by a stitch that stayed too long would be seen by anyone looking at the lip and the nose.

Prompt topical silicone cream and scar management are critical for the GMommy lip lift for that same reason. The incision is noticeable to observers because it is central, even though it is planned under the nose. Silicone cream is the topical step named here, and it is meant to start promptly, not after the line has already been left untended. Scar management is part of the closure plan, not an optional extra after the shape has been judged.

Recovery of a Central Facial Incision

Recovery from this tuck is the healing of that central incision. The only timetable stated is the one already given: skin sutures come out at one week so railroad tracking is avoided, and silicone cream plus scar care start promptly because observers can see the center of the face. No garment, no activity calendar, and no later laser plan are part of this description.

The result the operation is built for is a shorter looking upper lip, a lip that is no longer sagging over the upper teeth, and the return of incisor show. That change comes from the skin that was excised under the nose. It does not come from tightening a different part of the face and hoping the lip rises with it.

Railroad tracking is the mark this closure is written to prevent. The skin stitch is a running simple stitch of 5-0 Prolene, and it is supposed to be gone at one week. The subdermal layer, interrupted 5-0 PDS, is the stitch that stays under the skin and holds the gull wing while the surface stitch is removed. Splitting those jobs is the plastic surgery closure named here for a line that observers can see, because the junction of the nose and the upper lip is in the center of the face. Silicone cream is then applied to that same line, promptly, as scar management rather than as a substitute for taking the Prolene out on time.

Why the Extra Skin Has to Come Out

Simply telling a long upper lip to look shorter does not remove the skin that is hanging. The droop described here is redundant skin of the upper lip, produced by advanced aging, and that skin is what covers the upper teeth. The GMommy lip lift takes that redundancy away at the junction under the nose. Once the extra length is gone, the lip is no longer being asked to hold a fold of skin over the incisors.

The complaints travel together. A less prominent lip, a sagging lip, coverage of the upper teeth, and a lip that looks too long are one finding described four ways. Loss of incisor show is the name for the covered teeth. The proportionate lip, in this account, is the lip after that extra skin has been excised, not a lip left long and merely described as shorter.

The gull wing is the pattern that lets the excision follow the lower nose prominence instead of a straight line across the lip. A flying-bird shape can rise and fall with the contour where the nose meets the lip, so the closure stays on that junction. A straight cut would not track the same lower nose edge. The shape is for concealment along that natural junction, and the excision is for the redundant upper lip skin.

Where This Tuck Sits Among Other Facial Operations

This upper lip tuck is one facial operation gathered with the GMommy makeover. It is not the facelift and neck lift, not an upper eyelid operation, and not a lower eyelid operation or a brow lift. Those are separate incisions. The lip incision stays the gull wing under the nose, closed with 5-0 PDS and 5-0 Prolene, with the skin stitch out at one week.

The photographs show a 64-year-old woman who underwent surgery to improve the facial effects of aging, including the front right view named in the caption. The caption records that facial surgery. The operation in this text is the upper lip tuck for droop, loss of incisor show, and a lip that looks too long. The views are not relabeled as a diagram of the gull wing.