How Can I Improve My Jaw Angle Implant Result?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I recently had genioplasty, cheek and jawline implant (non-custom) surgery earlier this year.. I am happy with the chin result, but I do not love the result of the jawline implants particularly. I think they flare out too much and have too steep an angle, finishing well short of where my chin actually is. This is the product that was used:

Overall, my face currently looks wide, fat, and swollen, although I am now 5 months post op. I’m leaning towards the removal of the jawline implants altogether or replacing them with a different product to achieve what I am looking for. I was planning on a buccal fat reduction and neck lipo procedure as a final phase, but I need to make a decision as I’d prefer to only have one more surgery.

A: Thank you for your inquiry and sending your pictures. It is fair to say at five months after surgery you were looking at the final results of the impact of your jaw angle implants.

One of the issues to be aware is that in the patient with loose neck/jowl skin and naturally thick tissues it takes a powerful implant augmentation procedure to overcome these soft tissue issues. Isolated augmentations at the three corners of the jaw in a standard fashion are never going to overcome these issues. The chin implant is always effective because it is a solitary projecting structure and the chin is not associated with loose tissues. But back at the jaw angles, it is a completely different story.  Isolated jaw angle implants, regardless of their size, are not going to create definition and we usually just end up with a bloated effect.

In essence, you were never a great candidate for isolated jaw angle implants. You have to either go all the way and replace them with a custom wraparound jawline implant which will expand the soft tissues, have a lower facelift to pull back and reposition the jowl/neck tissues so what lies underneath it can be more fully seen or remove your jaw angle implants completely.

The following statements were said with the assumption that your jaw and implants are in the proper anatomic position. That is an assumption, quite frankly, which one should never make. It is very possible that your jaw amngle implants are positioned high and an interior to their desired anatomic position and this could be causing some of the adverse effects that you see.

As a result before I would do anything, I would get a 3-D CT face scan to see exactly where all three of your implants are positioned. Then you can make an informed decision about how to proceed.

Dr Barry Eppley

Plastic Surgeon