Introduction: Chin and Neck Contouring
Chin and neck contouring procedures utilize plastic surgery techniques to improve the appearance of the chin, jawline, and neck areas. They aim to address aesthetic concerns like excess fat under the chin, loose neck skin, and poorly defined jawlines that can develop over time. When non-surgical options like weight loss, muscle toning, or injection of deoxycholic acid fail to adequately refine the lower face and neck, plastic surgery neck contouring can successfully rejuvenate these areas.
How is Chin and Neck Contouring Performed?
Chin and neck contouring is performed surgically by a cosmetic or plastic surgeon. The specific approach depends on each patient’s anatomical needs and cosmetic goals. Typically it involves injection of deoxycholic acid or liposuction to remove excess fat. When minimal to moderate skin redundancy is observed then liposuction may be combined with a radiofrequency procedure to tighten or resuspend loose, sagging skin.
Small incisions are used during liposuction to allow access for reshaping tissues and redraping the overlying skin into a smoother, more youthful profile. When minimal to moderate skin redundancy is present, then Renuvion skin tightening is a great adjunct to your liposuction surgery. When skin redundancy is more extensive or when the neck muscles have loosened, then a traditional necklift may be necessary.
Non-Invasive Chin and Neck Contouring Alternative
Deoxycholic Acid
A Nonsurgical Alternative to Double Chin Surgery Deoxycholic acid is an FDA-approved injectable that gradually destroys some fat cells in the double chin area when skillfully administered. Multiple treatments a few weeks apart create subtle fat reduction without actual liposuction surgery. Mild side effects include swelling, bruising, and numbness. Results won’t be as dramatic as surgical chin contouring but make a noticeable improvement.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Deoxycholic Acid Treatment
Benefits include avoiding surgery, little to no downtime, natural look if properly performed. Drawbacks include the need for multiple incremental treatments and only moderate fat reduction compared to traditional double chin surgery. Side effects are usually mild but rare risks include nerve injury or uneven results from incorrectly placed injections.
How Do I Know If I Am a Candidate for Chin and Neck Contouring Surgery?
You may be a good candidate if you have fat deposits, loose skin, or poorly defined muscles in your chin, jawline, or neck resistant to diet, exercise, or other non-invasive measures. An experienced cosmetic or plastic surgeon can evaluate your trouble spots and discuss which surgical contouring techniques could likely enhance these areas. Patients need to be in overall good health to undergo neck contouring procedures.
How Long is the Recovery for Chin and Neck Contouring Surgery?
Recovery surgery for chin and neck contouring is dependent on the scope of work required. Patients who undergo liposuction return to non-strenuous work or school in about 5-7 days after chin and neck contouring surgery. More physically demanding activities may require 2-4 weeks. Swelling persists for 2-3 months. Numbness, tingling, and tightness improve over several weeks but can occasionally last many months.
Patients undergoing more invasive face and neck lift surgery will require 2 weeks to return to daily activities and 4 weeks to return to strenuous physical activities. Patients typically experience only minimal, easily concealed scarring.
Double Chin Surgery: What You Need to Know
What is double chin surgery? Double chin surgery refers to plastic surgery maneuvers intended to remove all excess tissues including both the fat deposits beneath the chin, as well as the skin redundancy, and even muscle looseness along the upper neck to eliminate the appearance of a double chin. First, tiny incisions allow a small tube called a cannula to tunnel under the skin and vacuum out unwanted fat pockets.
In some cases, it might be necessary to tighten loosened skin with Renuvion J plasma. For clients with more generous soft tissue excess or muscle looseness, a neck lift may be considered to achieve a more sculpted, contoured profile from the jawline to the neck and chin area.
How to Perform Double Chin Surgery?
Double chin surgery takes one to two hours depending on the extent of treatment. It can be performed under local anesthesia with sedation or general anesthesia as an outpatient procedure. The plastic surgeon uses tiny incisions underneath the chin or inside the mouth to insert the liposuction cannula. Back-and-forth movements break up and loosen excess fat before suctioning it out.
Renuvion Skin Tightening
Renuvion skin tightening uses helium plasma energy delivered through a small probe placed under the skin. This uniquely heats the deeper skin layers causing an immediate tightening and lifting effect. The stimulation of underlying tissues triggers continuing skin contraction over subsequent months too. Tiny incisions allow the probe to treat even the delicate neck area.
Necklift (Lower Facelift)
A necklift, sometimes called a lower facelift, smooths loose, sagging neck skin by surgically tightening the overlapping and deeper tissue layers. Incisions around the earlobes and behind the ears allow access to redrape and lift muscle, membranes and skin into a more taut position before closing the incisions. Necklifts beautifully recontour aging necks.
High Definition Chin and Neck Contouring
High Definition Chin and Neck Contouring Trend is shifting from traditional neck lifts requiring incisions to minimally invasive modalities with VASER liposuction and Radiofrequency skin tightening to contour your neck. Until recently, the only option for neck contouring, i.e. elimination of a turkey neck, was a face and neck lift.
However, two patient populations have entered the cosmetic neck arena, demanding to avoid more invasive neck contouring surgeries. They desire less invasive neck contouring options, one that avoids an excisional contouring procedure. The first subset includes older patients who want to avoid general anesthesia due to health reasons. A second population includes the younger patient population who wish to avoid surgical intervention that will require visible incisions. These younger patients specifically do not want the stigma of surgical incision lines.
Fortunately, combining VASER liposuction with Renuvion® skin tightening has revolutionized the rejuvenation industry by providing a minimally invasive option to neck and jawline contouring for these two patient populations. First, VASER liposuction is used strategically by your surgeon to remove any excess fat in the submental region and undermine the entire neck and chin region. Then, Renuvion® is used to tighten the redundant skin and the fascia overlying the neck muscles using subdermal coagulation of the overlying neck skin. Contouring surgery of the chin and neck with neck liposuction is achieved not only through accurate removal of the fat but also through tightening of the skin with the contraction of collagen fibers.
Chin and neck contouring can now be definitively performed using minimally invasive techniques. We can now routinely achieve 80% of the results of a traditional neck lift without having to put patients under general anesthesia or having to perform invasive surgeries with the stigma of surgical incision lines. In addition, this procedure is minimally invasive and much quicker than a traditional neck lift since the neck rejuvenation procedure can be performed in less than half an hour. Finally, when indicated, Renuvion facial ablative technology can be used to improve sun-damaged and aging changes in the facial skin texture.
Cosmetic and plastic surgeons alike have to adapt their traditional cosmetic neck surgeries to please their clients. Cosmetic surgeons alike have moved from surgery of deep tissues to maneuvers in the more superficial planes thereby minimizing risks and maximizing patient safety. This much akin to natural breast augmentation, which utilizes fat transfer, as an alternative to traditional breast augmentation using an implant. Plastic surgery is evolving in front of our eyes.
Benefits of VASER Liposuction for Chin and Neck Contouring
VASER liposuction provides several advantages to traditional liposuction when it comes to neck contouring. VASER liposuction utilizes ultrasound energy which is able to comprehensively and uniformly remove the fat. This advantage to traditional liposuction allows our surgeons to create a smooth contour that is void of any irregularities associated with traditional contouring techniques.
The improved capacity for VASER liposuction is achieved by a process called cavitation which describes the ability to separate solid fat clusters into semiliquid adipose cells that can be siphoned out in a more uniform and controlled manner. Cavitation occurs when ultrasound creates micro air bubbles that pop in between fat cells literally tickling them off of each other!
Renuvion J plasma Chin and Neck Contouring with Skin Tightening
Renvuion J plasma treatment of the chin and neck soft tissues involves the introduction of a sleek wand through the same port sites used to tighten redundant skin. The Renuvion energy delivers a combination of radiofrequency combined with Helium plasma energies that literally contract collagen molecules with thermal energy. The thermal energy results in the immediate contraction of collagen molecules that are present along the undersurface of the skin, called the dermis, and structural cables, called the fibroseptal network. Contraction of these molecules results in an immediate and palpable reduction in skin elasticity.
Reduction of skin laxity equates to skin tightening that is desirable for all clients desiring aesthetic improvements of the chin and neck. This case has been an enigma for the cosmetic surgeon who is presented with a patient who refuses an incision routinely used during a necklift.
Chin and Neck Contouring with Neck Evolution
The patients provided demonstrate aesthetically pleasing chin and neck contour improvements without the need for general anesthesia or an invasive surgical incision line. With the advent of newer technologies, such as laser or ultrasound energy systems, alternatives to traditional procedures are available.
Cosmetic surgery of the neck is evolving faster than ever. New plastic surgery procedures for the chin are being introduced weekly, such as CoolSculpting, and then shortly after falling out of favor. As an example, Coolsculpting which was introduced only a few years ago, is now falling out of favor with cosmetic and plastic surgeons who associate it with paradoxical overgrowth of deep fat resulting in chin and neck deformity.
Renuvion J plasma subdermal technology has proven to reduce skin elasticity through a clinical study conducted at our center. Skin distraction was performed by pulling the skin 1/2 inch, 1 inch, and 1 1/2 inch away from the body using a trigger meter. Measurements were performed following each pass of Renuvion demonstrating a parabolic increase in force required up to 6 passes. The findings of this study were published as a peer-reviewed manuscript in BioMedical Journal of Scientific and Technical Research.
