HOUSTON – In the age of selfies, knowing your angles is everything, but hiding a double chin is anything but easy.
“For me, when I started noticing there was a little bit of extra skin here and I was constantly doing a head lift, it was time,” Kristi Cain said.
Cain, 47, said when it was time to do something about the double chin, she went to Advanced Dermatology for a Kybella treatment.
Kybella is lots of little injections into the fat around the neck. The procedure promises to make fat disappear in a way that Dr. Sherry Ingraham said is usually not possible without plastic surgery.
Ingraham said a double chin is genetic. Whether you lose weight or watch your diet, she said it's almost impossible to get rid of.
“So that’s driving some of the business towards the submental treatments like a Cool Sculpting or a Kybella treatment, and the nice thing, now, is we can offer these treatments with minimal downtime," Ingraham said.
Patients will be swollen for several hours but most can return to work. The downside, Cain said, is that Kybella burns while it's going in. After a few minutes of feeling the burn, it’s all over and, Ingraham said, patients can lose 80 percent of the fat cells in the treated area but it typically takes two treatments.
"Some patients, after one treatment, are one and done. Other patients, we can do a series of four to six treatments," Ingraham said.
This will cost thousands of dollars. The exact cost would depend on how many treatments you do. Health insurance does not cover cosmetic procedures, so you will pay out of pocket.