How to Get Rid of a Double Chin

Yes, where the fullness is fat sitting above the platysma muscle or skin that has lost its elasticity, because both of those can be reached from outside. Lipolysis treats the fat: a series of small injections into the fat layer breaks the fat down, and the body clears it over the following weeks, so the change builds between appointments rather than appearing on the day. HIFU and RF skin tightening treat the skin, delivering ultrasound or radiofrequency energy into the deeper layers to stimulate collagen, with the firming arriving over the weeks and months afterwards. Where fat and skin both contribute, the two are treated together, because reducing a pocket of fat under skin that has already lost its hold can leave the skin looser than it was. Fat that sits below the platysma is addressed surgically rather than by injection. Skin that is genuinely loose, rather than slack, is removed surgically too. A chin that projects less far forward than the lower lip is a matter of bone, and nothing injected or applied changes bone, although filler to the chin and jawline can rebuild the frame around it. Those are judgements made by examining and pinch-testing the area rather than from a description or a photograph, which is what the complimentary consultation at either Lucie Mé clinic is for.

Sometimes, and sometimes not at all, depending on how much of your chin is fat and whether your body gives that fat up there. Fat under the chin is ordinary subcutaneous fat, so it falls along with overall body fat in people who store it there in the way weight loss reaches, and a sharper jaw is part of what they notice. In other people the same pad resists diet and exercise, which is the reason people at a stable, healthy weight ask about treating it at all. The underlying arithmetic is that the number of fat cells you carry is settled by the end of adolescence, and gaining or losing weight afterwards mostly changes how much fat each cell holds rather than how many cells there are. Weight loss also brings a second effect that runs the other way. Skin that has been stretched over a fuller neck has to draw itself back in, and it does that only as far as its remaining collagen and elastin allow, so a neck can finish a period of weight loss looking slacker rather than tighter. Gradual loss gives the skin longer to adapt than rapid loss does. None of that is an argument against losing weight. In practice it means two things: look at your jawline a few months after the weight has settled rather than during the change, and if the fullness is still there at a weight you can hold, the answer is shaping rather than more dieting. Lipolysis shapes a defined pocket of fat and is not a weight-loss treatment.

At a slim weight the treatable causes are usually a pad of fat that has not answered to dieting and the position of the chin itself, so telling those two apart comes first. Submental fat can resist diet and exercise, and where that pad is what you have, lipolysis treats it directly with a series of small injections into the fat layer above the platysma muscle. Chin position is the other cause. A chin that projects less far forward than the lower lip, described clinically as microgenia or mandibular retrusion, leaves the jawline a weaker frame for the soft tissue under it, and that alone can produce the appearance of a double chin with very little fat present. Age adds to it, because the jaw loses bone height over decades. Where the frame is the problem, dermal filler to the chin and jawline is the treatment that changes it, and the aim is projection rather than fat reduction. A platysma that has lost tone can also produce it at a slim weight, showing as vertical bands on the neck rather than as fullness under the chin. Fat, bone and muscle look similar in a straight-on mirror and separate quickly when someone examines the area from the side, so a profile photograph of yourself is useful to bring to the complimentary consultation at either Lucie Mé clinic.

The fat cells broken down by lipolysis are cleared by the body over the weeks after each session, and what can change the result afterwards is your weight. The fat cells left in the treated area still enlarge when you gain weight, because the number of fat cells you carry is settled by the end of adolescence and weight change after that mostly alters how much fat each cell holds. So a significant gain can soften the contour again, and treatment at a weight you can hold is the version of this that keeps looking the way it did at the end of the course. Someone treated in the middle of losing or gaining weight gets a result that is hard to judge and harder to hold onto. Skin is the other half of it. Lipolysis does nothing for the condition of the skin, so a chin whose fullness was partly slack skin looks better once the fat has gone and then carries on ageing on the skin side at its own rate. Where skin is part of the picture, HIFU or RF skin tightening builds collagen, and collagen built that way does not switch off on a schedule the way an injectable muscle relaxant wears off; both are planned as a course with the result reviewed afterwards. Because the change is gradual either way, photographs taken at the consultation and between appointments show it far more clearly than memory does.

Cost depends on which treatment your chin needs and how many sessions it takes, so a figure quoted before anyone has examined the area would be a guess. Lipolysis is priced by the area treated and by the session, and the number of sessions follows the size of the fat pad, which a clinician estimates by examining and pinch-testing it. HIFU is priced by the area treated. RF skin tightening is priced by the session across a course. Dermal filler to the chin and jawline is priced by the product used. A chin that is mostly fat is a different plan from a chin that is mostly slack skin, and a chin that is both involves two treatments rather than one, so those three cases separate on cost more than any single price does. The schedules differ as well, which matters over a few years more than the price of one appointment: collagen built by energy-based treatment does not wear off the way an injectable does, and filler is maintained on its own cycle. The complimentary consultation at either Lucie Mé clinic is where the assessment is made and where the plan and its cost are set out for your own chin. Photographs of yourself from a few years ago are useful to bring, because they show what has changed and over what period, and that affects which part of the problem to treat first.