Chin Implant - real level of pain/discomfort seems different views from surgeons versus patients. What's realistic expectation?

Hello,
Thanks for your question. Chin implants are a common procedure in my facial surgery practice. Patients typically complain about pain for 7-10 days after surgery. The pain is not intense for long, but the chin remains sore for a bit. The biggest complaint comes in the form of lower lip stiffness with talking, due to swelling in the chin. Aggressive icing after surgery helps control this swelling and actually helps decrease the pain. The biggest risks from surgery involve lower lip numbness, infection, malposition, change in lower lip mobility, and anesthesia risk. As inflammation after surgery resolves over 2 months in most situations, patients may be aware of this recovery during that time. Also, final results take up to 6 months as the tissues get used to the foreign body and try to accept its permanence in your face. 
I hope this helps.
Good luck,
Dr. Shah

The best thing to do is to take those two very discrepant views (surgeons and patients ) and split the difference between the two perspectives. Patient stories are more reliable than surgeons since they have actually had the operation. Most surgeons are theorists.

Placement of a chin implant in our practice is performed under local anesthesia as an outpatient surgical procedure which takes approximately 30 minutes. The implant is placed directly over the bone and underneath the periosteum. In our practice, most patients take a few medium strength Vicodin pain pills the first few days after the procedure. While the actual pain from placement of the chin implant itself is not that bad, the chin will be very tender to touch and bumping it for the first 2 to 3 months after the procedure. For more information  and many before-and-after chin  implant examples, please see the link and video below

 Hi, I'm sorry that you feel stressed about the discomfort following your planned chin implant surgery.  I have performed many chin implant surgeries (chin augmentation) using silastic chin implants that I place through a small curved incision under the chin.  The surgery is performed in 30 minutes or less and most often only a local anesthetic is used.  I do use both a short acting (about 2 hours duration) as well as a longer acting (12 plus hours duration) local anesthetic to block and number the surgical area.  When performed in this manner, my patients experience a mild, dull ache the day after surgery and are not in significant discomfort. I believe the variations on pain and discomfort that you are reading about arise form the various methods that can be used to place the chin implant (submental skin incision described above or the much more invasive intra-oral approach).  It's important to understand that an approach that is more invasive, requires more tissue dissection and goes through the sensitive mucosa lining of the mouth would likely create a greater degree of post op swelling, bruising and discomfort.  In addition anything that increases the amount of tissue dissection or length of time that the tissue is being dissected will exponentially increase the chance of swelling, bruising and discomfort post op.  This would explain the wide variation in comments regarding the post op course associated with chin implant surgery.  It simply depends on how it's performed and how long it takes to perform.Hope this clears things up a bit.