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One of the foremost notable changes of aging is that the accumulation of fat within the area under the chin or submental area; what we commonly call double chin . This causes the face to seem heavy and without an outlined shape. The agency for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Kybella (deoxycholic acid). A treatment that promises to be a non-surgical alternative to enhance the looks of the submental area of the face or double chin.
What is Kybella?
Kybella can be a solution that is injected directly into the adipose tissue (fat) of the neck to break down and dissolve the fat cells. Its use is indicated for people with a moderate accumulation of fat in the buttocks. This is a treatment that is performed in a doctor’s office and does not require anesthesia. It is injected into the area multiple times and takes up to six sessions to achieve optimal results. According to clinical studies of the drug, patients began to notice improvement after the fourth course of treatment.
Side effects
The most commonly reported adverse events were redness, bruising, swelling, mild pain, and some hardening in the area. It is important to mention that Kybella ™ is not approved for use on other areas of the body. The product should only be injected into the neck area where there is accumulated fat and not directly into the skin, as it would irreversibly affect it. Nerve damage is also possible. For this reason, every doctor who is going to administer the product must obtain adequate training before starting the practice.
What happens to the skin after removing the double chin?
The skin on the neck has a limited ability to gather once it is stretched. Changes and fluctuations in weight, genetic predisposition and age are the main factors for the neck to lose its elasticity and for fat to accumulate in it. Therefore, you have to keep two things in mind: a good management of your weight control and bear in mind that the younger the person undergoes the treatment, the greater the chances that the skin will be satisfactorily collected.
On the other hand, if the neck skin is too loose, then double chin fat removal would not be the right alternative. Removing double chin fat on a neck with very loose skin would only exacerbate the problem. If this were your case then you could consider other alternatives, such as neck lift surgery to also address the loose skin factor.
Are there other alternatives to improve the double chin?
Traditionally, the best way to eliminate the fat accumulated in the potato is liposculpture or neck liposuction. Basically, with liposuction, we suction the fat through a tube (cannula) to return the contour to the neck. It is an easy surgery that’s performed within the doctor’s office under local anaesthesia and requires approximately five days of rest. Similarly, the most common adverse events are redness, bruising, swelling, mild pain, and a little hardening in the treated area.
Liposuction is a more predictable procedure in terms of results, it has already been performed for many years with sufficient clinical evidence of favorable results.
How do I know which procedure I need?
To know which procedure is indicated for you, it is important that the specialist you select makes the correct diagnosis of the problem you are presenting. Both treatments (Kybella ™ and liposuction) are indicated to reduce or eliminate fat in the double chin area. However, neither of the two corrects the excess skin that could result from removing fat. The doctor must have vast experience in neck and double chin surgeries. In this way, you can anticipate any limitation that any of the aforementioned alternatives may offer. Your doctor will recommend the best alternative to correct the double chin problem based on your clinical evaluation. Remember that not all procedures are for everyone.
How much do these procedures cost?
A very important factor in deciding which procedure to select is cost. We often think that non-surgical procedures are cheaper. And in certain cases they are. However, the decision of which treatment or procedure we are going to select must be thought with a little more time and one of the reasons is because the results of non-surgical procedures are temporary. That is, in the long term, the treatment would have to be repeated to obtain the result again. Instead, surgical procedures offer you a permanent result with long-term effects.
You have the last word as to which option will be the most appropriate according to the diagnosis. My advice is that you educate yourself on each of the alternatives that exist in the market so that you can select the one that best suits your situation.
