Video Transcription
So I’m Dr. Jeffrey Popp, and I’m a plastic and cosmetic surgeon here in Omaha. I’ve been doing this for a long time, think about over 20 years, and I think today we’re going to talk about neck liposuction. One of the questions that come up frequently is liposuction of the neck a surgical procedure? The answer is yes. You can think of surgeries in the simplest terms, is if you penetrate below the skin to whatever depth, that’s probably surgery. Now, somebody might say, “Well, what if I inject you with the needle? Is that surgery?” Not technically, but if you’re putting a device, a scalpel, a scissor or something like that, that’s considered surgery. So neck liposuction is surgery.
Procedure
So in the procedure that we call neck liposuction, this is actually a very quick surgery from start to finish. It may last just a half an hour. There are different ways in which it can be done. By ways, I mean levels of anesthesia. You can be wide awake, you can be in twilight, or you can be completely out. Now, because it’s a quick procedure, most people opt not to be put out. It’s also less expensive and less risky. And one of the things that we can do is we can relax a person through, we’ll call twilight anesthesia, and then we can actually numb this area up that we’re going to liposuction. So wouldn’t be that much different than say, going to the dentist, having him put some Novocaine in a tooth, numbing it up and working on it, so you can actually numb up the neck that way.
So in neck liposuction, there are three standard little puncture holes. There’s one below the chin, one below each ear lobe, and they are literally quarter of an inch. They’re so small, we don’t even put stitches in them. So we numb these three spots up, we make a little puncture hole, and then we basically fill the neck up with the Novocaine-like solution. So there’s a little bit of stinging initially, but it deadens very quick. So it takes five minutes to numb it up. And then through these same three little holes, we use these little metal cannulas that are hooked up to a vacuum tube and we stick them in there and we suck the fat out until there’s no fat. And then we’re done. And we put elastic band around the head. It’s called a compression garment. And that stays on pretty much 24 hours a day for about three days.
Cost of Neck Liposuction
Another question that’s asked frequently is cost, and I will give you the answer, it will be a range. The cost in this part of the country, the Midwest, which is going to be less expensive than say New York City or Los Angeles, runs usually between two and $4,000. Now, one of the reasons there’s a range is because when you have surgery, you’re actually paying for multiple things. You got to pay the surgeon, you have to pay the surgery center, you may have to pay anesthesia, you’re going to pay for the nurses that work there, the equipment and the visits. So some doctor’s offices will take and split those out and they’ll say, “Well, we only charge $1,500 for neck liposuction.” Well, that’s just maybe the surgeon’s fee. It doesn’t include the anesthesia and all that. So this $2,000 to $4,000 range really depends on how it’s divided up and that’s dictated by the individual surgeon.
We lump it all together. We don’t see any point saying, “Well, you’re going to pay for this and then you’re going to have to pay for that.” We just put it all in one package and then you don’t pay a penny more. And our fees are typically kind of in between those. Now, if you were to go to New York City, you’re probably going to double that range. You’re going to be $4000 to 8,000 and maybe even $10,000. We will get asked whether health savings accounts will pay for these. And what we found is it depends on the plan that they’re in.
Some businesses, they strictly limit the use of a health savings account for true medical problems. They don’t let you pay for refractive eye surgery, LASIK surgery, or neck liposuction. So in that respect, you would have to contact the administrator of that, the business, and find out if it’s covered. That would be the only other financial thing that may kick in.
Alternatives to Neck Liposuction/Non-Surgical Options
What are the alternatives to neck liposuction? Are there any non-surgical options? The answer is yes. There’s basically two non-surgical options. One is called Kybella, and these are a series of injections in the neck. It’s a chemical that literally dissolves fat. The other option uses noninvasive devices, lasers, another one uses radio frequency waves, that are transmitted through the skin into the fat, and they basically heat up the fat cells and they die and go away. Neither one is as accurate as true neck liposuction. The problems with the non-surgical options, the injections or the radiofrequency devices is, first of all, they may or may not work. There’s about 15 to 20% of people that you can do these things, these non-surgical options, and they do nothing at all. Zero. Number two, you have to do a series of them. And for example, when you do the Kybella injections, some people will get horrible swelling that can last for weeks, then you have to turn around and do it again in another month. And so you actually, if you add all that together, you have a much more prolonged recovery with that than you do with liposuction.
I have pictures that I show patients of individuals who had just neck liposuction three days out, and they really look pretty good. They may have a little bruising, but they’re not swollen. The necks look great. You’ve got about 95 to 98% of the final result at three days. So you actually are way ahead of things, but we’re all susceptible to that idea, “Oh, could I get this fixed without going under the knife?” That is tempting, but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for and sometimes you get less than what you pay for with these things. And curiously, well, I forgot a third device actually. So there’s the injections called Kybella. There’s radiofrequency device, but there’s also a thing called cool sculpting, which basically freezes the fat. It’s fat freezing. And recently there’s been an emergence of a side effect of cool sculpting where the fat actually goes crazy and instead of going away, it actually grows and gets bigger.
That’s an idiopathic hypertrophy or overgrowth of the fat. It’s rare, but that happens with that particular device. It doesn’t happen with liposuction, does not happen with the injections or the radiofrequency devices. So the world out there is always looking for new technology for ways to fix things with no downtime, no recovery, no risk, no complication. And usually when you have multiple no’s, you also have no results. That’s your final no or less results. So anyway, I think that if you look at all surgical procedures that are available, let’s just say all cosmetic surgical procedures, and you compare those all to neck liposuction, you couldn’t pick a faster, easier, quicker, I’m being a little redundant, than that. It’s 20 to 30 minutes, four day recovery, no stitches. It’s very fast, very easy, and great results.
