Juvederm is now being made with the local anesthetic mixed right in with the hyaluronic acid filler.

I recently received my first shipment and was playing with it last week. It makes the whole process of having your lips filled much easier.

Here’s what I didn’t like about my old technique for freezing:

I used to do dental nerve blocks, upper and lower, to inject the lips. The blocks could make the whole face numb from the bridge of the nose to below the mouth.

Sometimes, the muscle action in this area would be unevenly frozen so the lips could be pulled to one side or the other. When I would show some clients the results of their lip augmentation while they were still frozen, all they would see was the way the uneven pull of the muscles was distorting the mouth.

The nerve blocks are not always 100% effective at the corners of the mouth or the midline of the lips so I’d have to do extra injections of anesthetic for those areas.

Not to mention that many people don’t like the feel of the nerve blocks. You can’t talk properly or drink until the freezing has worn off. (I have personally tried having my lips done without freezing and it really hurts so I don’t recommend it.)

My clients would often feel that their mouths were swollen and huge before I had even started injecting the filler.

Here’s why I recommend Juvederm with Lidocaine for lips:

I can start injecting without using any creams or injections for anesthetic. The needle for Juvederm Ultra is 30 gauge which is really fine. You barely feel the first injection and then you are frozen.

You quickly become numb in the area that I have injected so you’re comfortable. I can work from the numb area to the not-numb so you remain comfortable.

The numbness is just in the area injected so freezing doesn’t spread outside of the lips and you don’t see the uneven muscle pull.

You feel normal after the injections. You don’t feel as swollen. You aren’t having trouble talking.

It is possible to do a lip filler procedure very quickly. This makes it very convenient as a lunchtime procedure.

Here’s my caveat about Juvederm with Lidocaine:

It takes 15 – 30 seconds for the Lidocaine to numb the area. If you go to an injector who is very quick, you won’t get the benefit of the Lidocaine before the injector has moved on to a new area so you’ll feel each shot as if you had no freezing. You would be better off with conventional anesthetic, that is, nerve blocks.

For my style of injecting, Juvederm with Lidocaine is an ideal product. If you’ve had your lips done before, I think you will find that this product makes the whole experience much better.