Chin Implant Procedure

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A Chin Implant is a relatively simply and quick procedure, the whole process taking between one and three hours if it is the only procedure being performed.  Generally it will take place during the day, and so the patient can leave the hospital and not stay overnight. 

• The patient is either placed under anaesthetic or a local anaesthetic is administered to the chin area.
• Incisions are made either inside the mouth between the bottom gum and lower lip or externally under the chin.
• The surgeon makes a small cavity to hold the implant on top of the bone.
• The implant is inserted and placed in the correct place.
• Dissolvable stitches are applied to hold the implant in place.
• The chin is bandaged to support the implant, (this will stay in place over the next couple of weeks).

There are pros and cons of both being under general or local anaesthetic and for the incisions being made internally or externally, (although these days most surgeons will advice that the incision is made inside the mouth for cosmetic reasons).  These are decisions that will have previously been discussed and agreed upon by you and your surgeon, thus ensuring that you have made the right decisions for your own situation.

Implant Materials in Chin Augmentation

You can choose to have your implants made from a variety of materials, ranging from those that are totally man made to having fat or bone inserted from donors or from another area of your body. 

Bone Grafts

These can either be from a deceased donor or from another site within your body.  The bone is inserted into the chin in place of a man made implant. This is a totally natural way to produce an implant and may be something that you would prefer to having a foreign material implant.  If the graft is taken from another site on your body then infection into this area needs to be seen as an additional risk within the surgery.  Sometimes the recovery time is longer, and the risk of resorption higher than with other implants.

Tissue Grafts

Not fat but tissue from somewhere else on the body is used as an implant.  This ensures that there will be no rejection of the implant, however alike to bone grafts secondary infections need to be taken into consideration and resorption is more common with this type of implant than with others.

Fat Grafts/Fat Transfers

Using fat from other areas within the chin. This is a relatively subtle procedure with great natural looking results, however this treatment does cause moderate swelling, more so than otherwise.

Silicone

Probably the oldest man made material to be used in facial transplants.  Often these implants are screwed to the bone but they are easily removed. Adverse reactions to silicone are quite rare thus making it a safe non-natural implant material, being both durable yet also natural looking.

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