Overview
Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought that your mid to lower cheek area appeared too full and gave your face the appearance of being fat or too round?
Buccal fat are pads of fat located in the lower portion of the cheeks, in the area of the cheek hollows. The amount of buccal fat varies from person to person. This fat rarely is reduced with weight loss or exercising. For some, enlarged areas of buccal fat can create the look of chubby cheeks that may be out of place with the rest of your facial features. Buccal fat removal decreases fullness in the lower cheek through removal of the fat pads from between the muscle planes in the cheeks. As a result, this highlights the upper cheek for a more sculpted or full facial appearance.
Surgical Technique
Some patients can benefit from having the buccal fat removed from one area and then injected into another area that they would like to enhance, such as the lips or upper cheek bone areas.
This procedure can be done under local anesthesia in our AAAHC in office operating room or if you prefer, under general anesthesia at the outpatient surgical center. An intraoral incision is made and the fat is then teased out from between the facial muscles and removed. Because the incision is inside of the mouth, there is no visible scarring. The surgery takes approximately 1 hour and there is very little downtime other than some swelling in the face for a few days. Most patients can return to work the next day.
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