You don't have to be born with full lips to have them. Fuller, more sensuous lips are now easily attainable. Aging can cause the lips to thin and flatten out. The aging process often results in excess thinning of the red portion of the upper lip where women wear lipstick along with a visible lengthening of the distance from the base of the nose to the lip border.

There are a variety of techniques available to address this ranging from injectable fillers to surgical placement of acellular sheets of collagen. Each modality has its own advantages and disadvantages. None of the currently available inectable fillers are permanent. The acellular sheets may be at least partially permanent in some patients. Although injectable fillers are a less costly approach with a very short recovery time they have a tendency to gather into lumps when placed in the lipstick bearing area of the lip. That is because this area of the lip does not have actual skin architecture. In fact the FDA has not approved injectables for this area so injections here are considered off label use.

This patient had Alloderm acellular sheets of collagen placed in both upper and lower lips. At more than a year after surgery the augmentaion was still visible.

Read Dr. Stone's blog about lip augmentation surgery
• Lip Augmentation - How to make the lips fuller or bigger

Lip augmentation can enhance your appearance and your self confidence. Realistic expectations are important to be happy with any surgery. As each patient is an individual, different results can be expected in each patient.