A well-proportioned neck is a thing of beauty. But, as we age, our neck starts to sag, and we get that turkey neck look.

Let us first discuss the platysma bands (turkey gobbler). This is the result of the underlying muscle of the neck drooping from its attachments to the underlying chin region.

To correct this problem requires an incision under the chin to tighten the platysma muscle. Sometimes this is all that is needed to correct the problem.
This procedure can address the loose excess skin of the neck as well by elevating all the neck skin from the underlying muscle and allowing it to redistribute itself through out the entire neck. In this case this is known as a Neck Lift.

I routinely perform neck lift with all facelift procedures. This technique is extremely aggressive for those people with thick and full necks. Many of my patients require only a minor amount of neck tightening and for them I am conservative, but there are those people with thick necks who are really trying to create a sculpted and defined neck. For those people I remove not only the subcutaneous fat layer which is the fat just beneath the skin but I also carve out the fat layer beneath the neck muscle. This fat layer called the subplatysmal fat sits just atop the windpipe cartilages, so when I am done the neck is as tight and sculpted as it can possibly be", says I.

This technique allows me to create good definition on those people who were previously thought to be untreatable in the past. I have had the honor of taking care of so many different types of people from all over the world with all different types of necks from short to long and thin to fat and the one consistent thing that I have found is that while many people require only conservative changes to the face, the neck usually looks better with aggressive tightening as it is impossible to make a neck look pulled or unnatural.

It’s true: Everybody likes a tight, nicely proportioned neck. Today, with our advances in surgical technique, you can have the attractive neck you desire.