Procedures to slim lower face/cheek area? (Photo)

Dear lileevee8,
I understand your concern. However, without a proper assessment, it would be difficult to determine what went wrong. It is best that you visit your plastic surgeon for further assessment or ask for a second opinion. Only after a thorough examination, you can get proper recommendations and advice.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Facial assessment based on photographs need to include complete quality pictures.
Each persons individual facial appearance is primarily based on bone structure. Soft tissue coverage tends to be very consistent from person to person and one allows each person to recognize others including seeing traits as masculine, feminine attractive or not so much is almost exclusively based on the fairly short skeletal structure. In order to make an assessment we need to see the relationship between the different bone structures in your face and skull. And a simplistic way we usually divide the face into the upper third mid third and lower third. The upper third it’s basically your for head and the bone structure there are the frontal bones. The mid phase goes from the base of your eyesocket to your upper teeth and this is generally referred to as the maxilla. lower part of the third is your mandible or jawbone.
In order to make the assessment accurately we need to see the relationship between these three segments of the face from proper angles which includes a frontal view and at minimum a lateral view or a profile picture.
Look at how plastic surgeons take before and after pictures to get an idea of how the pictures should be displayed.
Mug shots is another way to get an idea of how the pictures are taken since those are used for identification.
Avoid having facial expressions while taking the pictures. Frontal pictures should be taken with the camera aiming at the middle of the nose.
Profile pictures should be taken with the body standing straight looking forward and the camera pointing at the middle cheek coming in at right angles.
Most likely your issues stem from a mandible that is small in relationship to your maxilla.
It’s probably not your mid face that’s big but rather your mandible that small.I’m not a fan of buccal fat removal because facial aging typically involves loss of mid face volume and having that procedure can set up some individuals for premature facial aging.
Consider consulting with both oral surgeons and plastic surgeons to get different perspectives in regards to making an accurate assessment and having a clear understanding of what the dynamics are causing your face to look the way it does.
Recognize that soft tissue manipulation is going to be limited when the primary problem is based on bone structure.
Concerns regarding facial appearance especially individuals with a small or lacking mandible is one of the most common presentations on this website.
At least 95% of patients seeking chin and neck liposuction having as their primary underlying ideology a deficient mandible.
That doesn’t mean they can’t have liposuction but their fat distribution is usually normal and they wouldn’t have an issue if their mandible was more balanced and proportionate compared to the Maxilla.
Making accurate and quality facial assessments is not necessarily the easiest thing to do and you’ll find different plastic surgeons regardless of training and years of experience having different approaches and telling patients different things.
Because most plastic surgery procedures are based at manipulation of soft tissues and not facial skeletal structure they view the patient from a soft tissue perspective.
That makes a lot of sense but when the problem is truly based on bone structure soft tissue solutions are going to always be limited.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD