Neck Lift
in Houston

Neck Lift in Houston

Our Houston clinic is at 2530 W Holcombe Blvd, Houston, TX 77030, and it is where your consultation, your procedure and your follow-ups all happen — you are not consulted in one place and operated on in another. Consultations are free, run in English or Spanish, and end with a written quote rather than a range. Patients travelling in for neck lift should plan to stay locally for the first night or two rather than fly home the same day, and to be back at the clinic for their early follow-up. Whichever clinic you choose, the surgeon is licensed in that state and the facility is accredited, and the practice responsible for your care is named in our terms rather than left vague.

What a neck lift is

A neck lift tightens the structures of the neck and removes the skin that is left over once they are back where they belong. There are three separate things that go wrong: fat accumulates under the chin, the platysma muscle separates down the middle into two visible cords, and the skin loses the elasticity to shrink back over either. A neck lift can address all three in one operation. Fat is removed or repositioned, the platysma is repaired in the midline and tightened toward the ears, and the excess skin is trimmed and redraped. The scars sit in a small crease under the chin and behind the ears.

Fat, muscle or skin — which is yours

This is the question that decides the operation, and it is answered by examining you rather than by looking at photographs. If the problem is purely fat and your skin still snaps back when you pinch it, awake liposuction under the chin may be all you need — a smaller procedure, local anesthesia, days of downtime rather than weeks. If there are visible bands when you clench, that is muscle and no amount of liposuction touches it. If the skin hangs loose when you tilt your head down, it has to be removed. Most patients over fifty have some of all three, which is why the full operation exists.

Who makes a good candidate

Good candidates have loose neck skin, visible platysmal banding, or a jaw-to-neck angle that has disappeared, and are healthy enough for general anesthesia. Weight should be stable — losing twenty pounds after a neck lift will loosen what was tightened. Smokers are asked to stop well in advance, because nicotine narrows the small vessels that supply skin that has just been lifted, and the neck is less forgiving than most places. Patients whose only concern is fullness under the chin, with good skin, are usually better served by the smaller procedure, and an honest surgeon will tell you so at the consultation rather than sell you the larger one.

How the operation is done

Under general anesthesia in an accredited facility. A small incision is made in the crease under the chin, and further incisions run behind and around the ears. Fat is addressed first, by liposuction or direct excision. The platysma is then exposed; the separated edges are sutured together down the midline — a platysmaplasty — and the muscle is tightened laterally toward the ear and secured. Skin is redraped over the corrected foundation, the excess is removed, and everything is closed. A drain is sometimes used for the first day. A neck lift is frequently combined with a facelift, because the two areas age together and correcting one alone can look inconsistent.

Recovery, honestly

You go home in a supportive chin strap, worn most of the day for the first week and at night for a few weeks after. The first three days involve swelling, bruising and a tight, stiff feeling when you turn your head. Sutures come out around day seven. By two weeks the bruising is coverable and most people are working; by three to four weeks you are out socially. Numbness under the chin and along the jaw is common and resolves over months. Swelling under the chin is the last thing to go — often three to six months — which is exactly the area you will be watching. Judge it at six months.

How long the results last

Because both the muscle and the skin are corrected, a neck lift holds well: most patients get a decade or more out of it. You continue to age, and the skin continues to lose elasticity, but from a better starting point. Weight stability matters more here than almost anywhere else on the body, since the neck stores and loses fat readily and each cycle costs elasticity. Sun protection helps. A second, smaller procedure years later is far more common than a repeat of the full operation.

Cost, safety and choosing a surgeon

Neck lift surgery at Goals starts at $14,000, with the final price confirmed at consultation and a $500 deposit to reserve your date. The cost changes depending on whether the platysma needs repair, whether liposuction is included, and whether it is combined with a facelift — combining is usually less expensive than two separate operations and involves one recovery instead of two. Risks include haematoma, temporary numbness, contour irregularity, injury to the nerve that moves the lower lip, and scarring. Ask your surgeon how many neck lifts they perform, and ask specifically to see profile photographs, because the front view can hide a mediocre result and the profile cannot.