About the treatment
Two technologies, one very small area
The pad of fat beneath the chin sits in a compartment of its own and takes very little notice of the rest of your body. People who have lost weight everywhere else routinely arrive with it unchanged, because where fat is stored and released is decided by genetics rather than by discipline.
Because the area is small, well defined and sitting on a curve, it is one of the few places where we can reasonably offer a choice of approach. Laser lipo cavitation uses ultrasound to destabilise the fat cells; cryolipolysis uses controlled cold to do the same thing. Either way your own lymphatic system then clears the contents over the following weeks.
Neither involves a needle, an incision or an anaesthetic. At our West Broadway clinic in Kitsilano we look at the area, decide which of the two suits it, and tell you if the honest answer is neither.
The choice
Which of the two for a chin?
This is the question the consultation is really for, and the answer depends on what your particular area does when we take hold of it.
If it lifts away cleanly
A soft pad you can pinch and draw forward suits a cooling applicator, because the tissue can be held. That route means very few appointments and then a wait of two to four months while the result develops.
If it is flatter and firmer
Fullness spread along the jaw that will not lift into a cup is better served by ultrasound worked over the surface. That means a course of weekly appointments and a result that builds steadily rather than arriving all at once.
If sensation matters to you
The cooling route leaves numbness and tingling under the chin for a week or two, which some people find unsettling in an area that close to the face. Ultrasound leaves warmth for an hour and nothing else.
If you have a date in mind
Count backwards honestly. Neither approach produces anything in a fortnight, and under a chin the temptation to keep checking in the mirror is stronger than anywhere else on the body.
Candidacy
Three things that predict a good outcome
We can usually tell within a few minutes of looking whether somebody is going to be pleased at the end of this.
Fat you can take hold of
Soft, pinchable and in the same place whether your chin is up or down. That is the tissue both technologies act on, and it is by a distance the most common finding.
Skin with some spring left
Once the volume underneath reduces, the skin has to take up the slack. Where elasticity is still reasonable it does; where it has largely gone, reducing what is beneath can make the looseness read more clearly, and we will say so first.
A weight that has settled
Steady for a few months in either direction. Treating an area while the rest of you is still changing makes the result impossible to read and occasionally unnecessary.
Indications
What is it good for?
Submental fullness with a clear edge to it, and the jaw line that fullness is currently softening.
The same two technologies treat the body as laser lipo cavitation and cryo fat freezing. Where the complaint is the quality of the skin rather than the volume under it, see the RF facial. Everything available in Kitsilano is on our Vancouver clinic page.
Being straight with you
Four things we will not promise
A jawline that is not yours
Underneath all of this is bone, and bone does not move. Where the chin itself sits further back, the angle between throat and jaw is shallow no matter what is or is not resting in it. What you can realistically end up with is your own profile, emptier.
Anything you can see next week
Your body does the clearing, at its own pace, over weeks. The mirror is the worst possible instrument for judging it, because you look at this area every day. Take a profile photograph at a fixed distance before you start.
A fix for loose skin or a muscle band
Tense your neck and look for a pair of standing cords: that is platysma, and it is untouched by anything aimed at fat. Drop your chin and look for gathering: that is elasticity. Spotting either one first saves you a course you did not need.
That it is independent of your weight
Cells destroyed do not regenerate, but the ones beside them can still enlarge. The shape you finish with stays while your weight does, and that is as strongly as anyone can honestly put it.
Getting ready
Pre & post treatment
Fluid is the line to pay attention to in both columns. Whatever the session releases has to travel somewhere before it leaves you.
Before each appointment
- Start two days out, not two hours out. Arriving well watered is worth more than anything else you can prepare.
- Something light to eat first. Arriving hungry is the usual reason anybody feels off afterwards.
- Nothing on the throat at all: skip the moisturiser and the foundation below the jawline, and leave chains and pendants at home.
- Tell us about thyroid conditions, swollen lymph nodes, implants or pregnancy when you book.
- An open collar helps — the applicator needs room to work under the jaw.
Over the following week
- Warmth and pinkness under the chin for an hour or so, and with the cooling route, numbness for a week or two.
- Stay on the fluids for the full seven days. Disposal begins as you walk out and carries on long afterwards.
- Two days clear of anything steamy or scalding — no spa, no sauna, no long hot soak.
- Light on the drink for the next day or so. It pulls against exactly what you have paid for.
- Leave the intervals where we set them. Pulling a date earlier buys you nothing at all.
Results
Double chin removal before and after
One of our clients, shot twice from the same position. Trace the edge between jaw and throat; the face above it is not the point of the comparison.
What any individual gets depends on how much fat was there, how elastic the skin is, which technology was used, how many appointments were completed and whether weight holds steady. Change appears gradually and keeps developing after the last session.
Also on West Broadway
Treatments that work well around this one
- Cryo Fat Freezing in Vancouver — the cooling route, and how it works on the body
- Laser Lipo Cavitation in Vancouver — the ultrasound route, on larger areas
- RF Facial in Vancouver — the quality of the skin covering the area, rather than its volume
- HydroFacial in Vancouver — a facial, and a common addition to the same appointment
- Double chin removal brand-wide — how the treatment works across all our clinics
