47 Year Old, Day 1 of Kybella - Saint Charles, MO

I am 47, about 40 lbs. overweight, and have a rather severe double chin. As in, so pronounced that I can feel it kinda resting on my neck when I look down. Even when I was young and not overweight I had a moderate double chin. I have never had anything close to a defined jaw line and have always hated my profile. My always-slender mother has always had a turkey gobbler and since her 60's or so her face seems to practically melt right into her neck. My sisters (one in particular) and my dad all have double chins too, regardless of weight. I don't generally pick myself apart but ever since my early 20's the one plastic surgery I would strongly consider has always been having that double chin taken care of. One sister went to a plastic surgeon in her 30's and he said she was not a good candidate for lipo because it wasn't just fat but muscle too. Since our chins looked a lot alike, I just resigned myself to living with it after that. With age and weight gain it has become such an issue that I never really feel good about how I look because of that "gobbler." Profile pictures of me don't exist if I can help it. And every time I take a normal picture I'm doing everything I can to minimize that neck. 80% of pictures I have control over still end up being deleted almost always because of my chin/neck. And of course I am well aware that in my day-to-day life everyone is constantly seeing the same chin that horrifies me in those pictures that get deleted so it's not like I'm fooling anyone, but I still can't bear to see it.

So today I was in the med spa for my quarterly Botox treatments, and I saw a poster for Kybella. I hadn't heard of it before. I decided after chatting with my esthetician to get it. So since the procedure was completely unplanned, unfortunately I don't have any accurate before pictures showing the extent of my double chin, but I can share my experience with the procedure.

She told me to hold an ice pack on my chin for several minutes while she did my Botox. I asked her couldn't I get some topical numbing cream or something and she said I wouldn't need it. I didn't believe her but didn't press the issue. Eventually I removed the ice pack and she did the chin/neck tattoo thing with all the dots and drew some lines. By then my neck didn't feel very cold and I was really worried about how much it would hurt. I remember my kids talking about the dreaded "burning shots" of some immunizations. She assured me that the needle itself wouldn't hurt much, it was just the size of the Botox needles, but there would be some burning and of course swelling afterward.

I don't know how many shots I got in my neck, at least a dozen. They didn't hurt any more than Botox shots. There was minimal burning. To me it felt more like Novocaine coupled with a moderate bruise. Not a Novocaine shot; a Novocaine shot is a lot more painful. More like how you feel once the shot is taking effect coupled with the pricking of a Botox needle and a bruised feeling. My neck did swell up quite a bit and has the bullfrog look but because my chin was pretty bad to begin with I don't think it is that noticeable. I had the procedure done around 11:00 am and at 3:00 I went in for "desk duty" (answering phones at the front desk, I am a Realtor and we take turns at that) for a few hours and no one said anything. I could have easily gone back to work right after the procedure. Before I went in I just reapplied some foundation to cover up the redness. No injection marks or bruising were readily visible.

When I got home from work neither of my teenaged sons noticed anything (no surprise there) and my daughter and husband haven't seen me yet. I can tell a difference with the swelling but can easily see how others wouldn't. Like I said though, my chin was quite bad to begin with so proportionately it's not as big of a difference as some might experience. I feel fine, my chin feels somewhat sore but not too bad. I don't like to touch it or to look up too high. It feels hard and numb and much more sore if I touch it.

I was very pleased with how relatively pain-free the procedure and afterwards was. I commented to my esthetician that it was less painful than Juvederm and she said, "Oh, definitely." She is in her 40s and also does Botox, Juvederm, and has had two or three rounds of Kybella. She said that subsequent rounds tend to be less painful and have less related swelling. I haven't taken any medications nor used any wraps. I don't anticipate any issues sleeping but will update tomorrow or in a few days. She did also say that people experience varying levels of discomfort/pain with the procedure and that it seemed to be completely random. Guess I am one of the lucky ones. On a discomfort scale of 1-10 I give it a 3 or 4. I can feel it but it's not bad enough to interfere with sleep or daily activities.

I didn't have any troubles sleeping last night. This morning my chin was significantly less sore and less "weird" feeling. It didn't feel too strange putting my foundation on the lump. I noticed it is a lot more jiggly than it was prior to the Kybella. Any slight, almost imperceptible movement has my bullfrog neck jiggling like a bowl full of Jell-O! Then this evening I noticed two lumps, one on either side of my chin, that look pretty weird. That's probably the Kybella too. She gave me a shot for my slight jowls. Anyway, it's barely sore and when my teenaged daughter eventually saw me she didn't comment on anything. Hubby is on a business trip so he still has no idea about my impulsive decision! Only minimal soreness now, still some numbness/weird feeling but not too bad. Discomfort is like a 2/10. Sometimes I forget about it all together.

I can't really tell any difference from yesterday. I am not terribly surprised by that as Anne told me it would take about 4 weeks for the swelling to go down. Almost zero discomfort today. To the touch it still is tender. Still jiggly, still can see the little jowly lumps. Hubby came home from his business trip today and didn't notice my bullfrog neck. Or maybe he did, who knows? What is he going to say, "Your face is looking particularly fat today"? "Why is your chin extra droopy and jiggly?" Well I am sure there are men out there who would, but thankfully I am not married to one. I told him about my impulsive decision and that I would probably need two more treatments and he was politely supportive. He didn't look surprised or look more closely when I told him about my chin being extra swollen, so maybe he did notice earlier. I'll bet he was really worried there for awhile as I explained the procedure, before I told him about the swelling and that he wasn't seeing the final result. The wheels were probably spinning trying to wrap his head around the fact that we paid $1,000+ just for my chin to look *worse*, and to figure out what in the world to say when I inevitably asked him what he thinks! LOL