Chin Augmentation

Who does it?
Plastic Surgeon
Face Surgeon
Cosmetic Doctor (non surgical)

AKA Chin Implants, Genioplasty

What is Chin Augmentation?
A ‘weak’ chin can have a surprisingly big impact on your facial appearance – it affects the overall balance of your face and can make your nose seem disproportionately large in comparison.
In fact, often patients present at surgeons’ consulting rooms requesting a Rhinoplasty when in fact the problem is not with their nose, but their chin.

There are two main options to deal with the problem of a recessive chin – although if the problem is mild you may want to consider Dermal Fillers or Volumisers – either a chin implant or a technique called genioplasty.

Who is suitable for Chin Augmentation?
It is probably advisable to visit a maxillofacial or specialist facial cosmetic surgeon to assess whether this is the right procedure for you.
It is important to assess whether there is a problem with your teeth or jaw, because if there is, this will need to be addressed before it will be clear if chin augmentation surgery will benefit you.
Chin implants can only achieve a fairly small projection, so if you need a more pronounced change it may well be that genioplasty is the best option for you.
As these are both surgical procedures, it is also important to have a full medical assessment to ensure that you are fit to undergo surgery.

What’s a Chin Augmentation like?
Both types of surgery are usually performed under a general anaesthetic.
For chin implant surgery, an incision is made either inside the mouth, in front of the bottom teeth, or underneath the chin, and the implant is inserted and adjusted into the correct position.
Genioplasty involves the surgeon cutting into the bone of the chin itself and moving it into a more prominent position.
Again, this can be performed either from inside the mouth or from underneath the chin, and the great advantage of genioplasty is that the surgeon can control the height, width and projection of the chin to give a tailored result.

If the problem is with the jaw, a procedure called a ‘sliding genioplasty’ allows the surgeon to move your jaw forward, or indeed backwards – for more information on this, see Chin Reduction Surgery.

What happens after Chin Augmentation?
You will usually be kept in hospital for one night, to allow the anaesthetic to wear off, although if you’ve only had a very minor augmentation you may be sent home on the same day.
There will be some bruising and swelling for the first few days post surgery, whichever technique has been used, but you should be able to go back to your normal daily activities after about a week to ten days.

Will I have a scar?
If the incision was made inside the mouth you won’t have a visible scar. Otherwise, there will be a small scar under your chin, but this won’t be very visible – unless you want to show it off.