30 y/o female with overdeveloped jaw muscles and significant submental fat - Am I a candidate for chin liposuction? (photos)

Question

I have significant submental fat; however, I also have overdeveloped muscles under my jaw, as my dentist put it. Perhaps as a result of TMJ? If I stretch my chin up to the sky, the muscle pokes out and is firm to the touch. That is why I am asking if chin lipo alone would help my case or if I need a more in-depth procedure. For reference I'm a 30-year-old Eurasian female. Thank you!

Anna Chacon, MD, FAAD · Answer

Thank you for your thoughtful question — it’s a very relevant concern, especially for patients dealing with both submental fullness (fat beneath the chin) and overdeveloped jaw muscles, often linked to TMJ or bruxism (jaw clenching).

From what you’ve described, you may indeed have two separate anatomical contributors to your jawline appearance:

Submental fat, which can be addressed through chin liposuction, and

Overdeveloped masseter or digastric muscles, which may require a different or additional approach.

Chin liposuction is effective at removing excess fat and can dramatically improve jawline definition in the right candidates. However, if your bulkiness under the jaw is partly due to muscular hypertrophy — especially if it becomes prominent when you tilt your head back — liposuction alone may not yield your desired results.

In cases where muscle is significantly contributing to the fullness or contour:

Botox or other neuromodulators may be used off-label to reduce the size of overdeveloped masseter muscles. This is a common non-surgical treatment for TMJ-related muscle hypertrophy and jaw slimming.

If the muscle under the chin is more related to digastric or platysma muscles, some patients may benefit from platysmaplasty or other surgical tightening procedures — often performed by facial plastic surgeons.

You may be a candidate for chin liposuction, but to determine the best approach, I recommend a thorough in-person evaluation that includes an assessment of fat, muscle tone, and skin laxity. A combination treatment plan might offer the best aesthetic outcome.

Mohamed Elmaraghy, MD, FRCS(C) · Answer

I think you are a great candidate for neck liposuction. You have very minor laxity of the skin and this should contract nicey after liposuction of the submental fat.Another alternative could be radio frequency assisted liposuction such as facetite or necktite. This may help get further contraction of the skin and define the jawline further.

Lucian Ion, FRCS · Answer

Thank you for your question and for sharing your photographs.

The prominence of the digastric muscles can sometimes be due to hereditary characteristics, but more commonly, it is associated with weight training in the gym. Straining during weightlifting, often accompanied by pushing the tongue against the roof of the mouth, can strengthen the muscles in the floor of the mouth, including the digastric muscles, contributing to their prominence.

In addition, there is a degree of volume excess in the subplatysma fatty tissue, which contributes to the appearance. This can be addressed effectively through an anterior neck lift intervention, which targets deeper layers, including fatty tissue beneath the platysma, digastric muscles and lower part of the supplement glands, and can provide a more defined neck contour, both in neutral position and in neck neck flexion or elevation. It does however leave a 3 cm has gone under the chin.

Liposuction, by contrast, primarily treats the fatty tissue situated under the skin and does not address the deeper layers or the digastric muscle prominence. As a result, it may not produce the degree of change you desire.

Eric M. Joseph, MD · Answer

The extent of somebody's subcutaneous fat in the neck is pretty straightforward to examine. Rather than extending the neck back, we ask people to bring their chin to their chest. That tends to cause the subcutaneous fat to accumulate into a roll that can be palpated before considering surgery. I hope this helps. Sincerely, Dr Joseph

Tek Przylecki, MD, FACS · Answer

Hello,Although it's not possible to make a decision for surgery with 100% certainty without performing a physical exam, from the photos you provided it appears that you would be a candidate for sub mental (under chin) liposuction. I would recommend evaluation by a board certified plastic surgeon. Best of luck on your journey!

William Portuese, MD · Answer

From the limited photographs, you have significant fat deposits, located both above and below the platysma muscle in your neck. Liposuction alone will be ineffective, because it cannot remove the deep fat underneath your platysma muscle. You are going to need a deep neck lift procedure to remove both compartments of fat, which also includes a platysma plasty to significantly improve the jawline. At age 30, you do not need any skin removal, just three small access incisions.

Mats Hagstrom, MD (license on probation) · Answer

I’m not sure what makes you think. You have overdeveloped muscles of your jaw.
Unless you’ve been doing excessive jaw exercises I don’t think your muscles are abnormal.
I also don’t think you have an abnormal fat distribution.
What you do have and what the underlying problem for ideology is is an underdeveloped mandible in relationship to your maxilla. When there’s an insufficient, skeletal structure to support the soft tissues the soft tissues will sag.
When this affects the lower third of the face based on the size and shape of the mandible, the patient will experience a loss of jawline definition, a double chin, and development of premature jowls. 
To make a good assessment, we always need to see the problem area in relationship to the surrounding areas.
Your pictures do not include the shape and size of midface, but on the profile picture, we can see that your upper lip has significant more forward projection than the lower lip telling us that your mandible is small compared to your Maxilla. To get a quality assessment, I suggest you consider consulting with both plastic surgeons and oral surgeons.
Oral surgeons tend to see things from more skeletal perspective while plastic surgeons are more soft tissue oriented.
It may be difficult to get a bigger mandible.
It is however, important to recognize that soft tissue solutions to treat problems that are primarily based on skeletal structure are going to give partial improvements at best.
For this reason don’t expect procedures like Liposuction to give you the ideal results.
Chin and neck Liposuction can get good improvements, but this is based on a number of variables. 
First off younger people get much better potential outcomes than older people.
The amount of fat there is to remove will determine the potential impact of Liposuction.
Finally, the ability to deliver consistent quality Liposuction results is more difficult than most people realize.
 The number of plastic surgeons who approach mastery of this kind of work is in reality quite small.
Poorly done Liposuction is not going to make that much improvement and can potentially leave disfigurement. 
Finding a plastic surgeon who is excelled at this kind of work may be difficult.
As a general statement, patients are not good at provider selection.
To find the right provider, I recommend The following 
Get a set of standard facial pictures the way plastic surgeons take before and after pictures and always bring those to your consultation to use as reference.
Make a list of providers seem to have a lot of experience with whatever procedure you’re interested in in your area.
Next schedule in person consultations with each of those providers.
Like I mentioned, it’s not a bad idea to consult with both plastic surgeons and oral surgeons in your area.
During each Consultation ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show their collection before and after pictures of previous patients who had similar facial characteristics to your own.
This is where having pictures of yourself comes in handy.
highly experienced providers should have access 100s of before, and after pictures to choose from it.
A lack of before, and after pictures, especially if patients don’t have the same facial characteristics that you do in the examples is probably a good reason to continue looking.
Finally, the biggest mistake I see patients make is having only one consultation and then scheduling surgery.
 Having only one consultation, more or less eliminates the ability to choose a better provider.
There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the best provider for your needs.
The more consultations you scheduled the more likely you are to find the better provider for your needs.
 Even if consultations are charged for this is a solid investment in helping you find the right provider.
A Quality consultation should take a significant amount of time and there are a lot of information to review.
Many People do not have a lot of experience consulting with plastic surgeons.
The more consultations you have the better you’ll be at the process.
Remember that any procedure done poorly can cause permanent irreversible disfigurement.
The majority of before, and after pictures available for patients to see represent only the best results.
Most plastic surgeons are apprehensive to show average results or those that didn’t turn out well.
Good luck,
Mats Hagstrom MD
This response was dictated.
My apologies for any potential grammatical errors.

30 y/o female with overdeveloped jaw muscles and significant submental fat - Am I a candidate for chin liposuction? (photos)

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