Can Liposuction Give Me A More Defined Jawline?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I have had consultation with three other plastic surgeons and they all just say that chin/neck lipo, or submental lipo or whatever it’s called, is what I need, and 1 said chin lipo + buccal fat removal. I weight 183 lbs and I am 5’10 which put me in sort of the overweight part regarding BMI, but even when I was younger and I wasn’t particularly overweight, there still hasn’t been what I wanted.

Basically what I want is a stronger jawline and sort of make my face less round if you get what I mean.

A: Thank you for sending your pictures. While submental/neck/jawline liposuction has some merit you should expect those changes to produce a minimal to very modest improvement and I would guess that your description of a stronger jawline and a less round face is not going to be achieved. Fat removal alone can simply not produce any significant amount of facial defining change. That is offered to you because that is what almost all plastic surgeons know to do. But the change you ideally seeking will not be achieved by a reductive approach only even though you do not have a classic weak jawline per se. 

You are only gong to change your jawline in any significant way by total jawline skeletal expansion. (augmentation) It does not have to be a lot but some total jawline augmentation is needed with the fat removal to really take you to where you ideally want to go. I will send some computer imaging tomorrow morning to illustrate what I mean which is likely much more in line with your goals.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana