See how a direct neck lift can be used to treat a Turkey Gobbler Neck without facelift surgery.

The most common method of tightening loose neck tissue is by using a facelift with the possible addition of neck liposuction to remove excess neck fat and a platysma-plasty to further tighten the neck muscles under the chin. But what if you are not interested in having this type of surgery.

The good news is that there are ways of focusing surgery on just removing excess submental skin from under the chin (submental region). This type of procedure is a direct neck lift, which involves placing an incision right over the midline neck region in order to remove excess skin. At the same time direct removal of fat and tightening of the neck muscles can also be done.

Who is a direct neck lift candidate?

Direct neck lifts are most commonly used in older patients and in those who want to avoid a full facelift procedure.  Given the incision placement right over the midline neck this technique is more often used in older men as their thicker skin more easily hides the scar.

Direct Neck Lift Incisions

There are a number of possible incision techniques that can be used to perform direct neck lift surgery. These include a simple elliptical excision, w-plasty, or z-plasty. My preferred technique is a Grecian Urn Direct Neck Lift technique.

As you can see, the name of the technique comes from the resemblance of the incisions to a Grecian Urn. The goal with designing the incisions this way is that the intervening skin can be excised along with any excess underlying fat. The neck muscles can also be tightened using sutures during the procedure. Here is a photo of one of my patient's showing his incision right after completing his procedure.

You can see how with careful suturing technique the newly tightened neck skin can be nicely redraped during surgery.

Before and After Direct Neck lift Case Study

Let's check out the patient above's before and after photos to get a better idea of what else surgery an achieve. Here is a profile photo of the patient before surgery:

The patient was only concerned with addressing his signficantly droopy neck skin (double chin).  He also preferred avoiding going to the operating room. We were able to perform the patient's Grecian Urn-style direct neck lift in our office procedure room using just an injection of numbing medication. Besides removing excess skin, I also performed direct removal of deep neck fat from under the skin, paying careful attention to sculpting the soft tissue to create a smooth contour. I also plicated the underlying neck muscle (platysma muscle) to create a tighter neckline.

Now here's a view of the patient shown before and 1 year after his direct neck lift surgery.

You can see how the patient now has a much more youthful, strong jawline. Here's a set of frontal photos:

You can see how the patient's neck banding is much more improved after surgery. Also, his scar has healed very well and is barely noticeable.

Want to learn more? See more facelift and neck lift before and after photos here.