Question:
My chin and neck seem to just blend into one another with very little definition. I’m a slim female in her late 20′s and very conscious about this. It doesn’t really feel like excess fat, more like my neck? The appearance improves if I fold my tongue and open my mouth a little. I don’t have a small / receding chin so I don’t think it’s that. Any advice would be appreciated!

Dr A’s Answer:
In a young person, there are basically two ways to approach improving how the neck blends into the jaw and face. The one involves adding definition to the jaw bone with a chin implant or jaw implants along the side. The other is to remove fat from the neck. Both of these can be combined of course.

As I look at your photos, you appear to have a good jaw bone so you would probably not be a candidate for implants. You say you don’t think you have much fat in your neck, and that may be true. Sometimes you can be surprised at what 1/8 inch of fat removal can do though.

Finally, some people just aren’t put together in a way that allows for that classic neck line. The position of your voice box and base of tongue have a lot to do with your neck/jaw transition appearance. When you do that thing with your tongue, you are “sucking” your base of tongue up and back. Unfortunately, that is simply not something that can be achieved with surgery or any other treatment.

I have this discussion with all my patients considering surgery in this area. I show them two patient examples where one had what I would consider the most dramatic change possible and another showing the least dramatic to illustrate the point. Then I simulate what I believe is likely in their case based on my physical exam.