How Can I Get Rid Of My Two Chins And Have A Better Jawline?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I just wanted to have a jawline. As you see from my pictures there really is no jawine. All I can see is that  big neck and I always wanted too be able to wear a hat but when I do put a hat on all you see is my turkey neck. Man I want to someday to comfortably put a hat on. There is nothing worse than two chins but it could be worseso I just  accepted it. I just finished working out after work, anything to try and prevent a third chin. I really am gratefulyou took the time to review my case.

A: Thank for sending the good profile pictures. I can clearly see your concerns and they are based on the issues of having some bony chin deficiency (with a ball of soft tissue on the end of it), a high hyoid bone and a relatively short neck. These three factors give you the jawline-neck appearance that you have and do make it a challenging problem.  Necks like yours are not easy to improve in males. There is not just one procedure that will correct all three contributing anatomic issues so a dual approach has to be used. I would advance the chin with a sliding genioplasty to lengthen the jawline, pull some of the neck muscles forward with it and increase the chin prominence. That would also stretch out the redundant soft tissues of the chin over the advanced bone. At the same time, I  would then perform a submentoplasty procedure designed to remove neck fat and tighten up the neck muscles from below to make a better neck angle. This combination (sliding genioplasty/submentoplasty) would make improvements as demonstrated in the attached computer imaging. This will not completely get rid of the neck skin roll that you are making when you tilt your head down but that would require a formal necklift which, may not only be  further than you want to go at this point, but I would await to see your level of satisfaction with these other more ‘simpler’ procedures first.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana