Custom Jawline Implants: Are They Right for You?

A stock implant is manufactured in preset shapes and sizes meant to fit an average face; a custom implant is designed from your own 3D CT scan and built to your exact bone anatomy. That translates into more precise results and better symmetry — for everyone, and especially for patients with complex contours, asymmetric jaws, or prior jaw surgery or trauma.

Solid smooth-surface silicone (silastic) has one main advantage: it is easily revised. Because there is little tissue ingrowth compared with porous materials, it is straightforward to remove and replace if needed. Adding an ePTFE (Gore-Tex) coating encourages tissue ingrowth that stabilizes the implant long-term — at the cost of making any future revision more difficult.

Custom implants suit almost any facial volume deficiency, because they are precise, permanent, modifiable, and reversible. Chin and jawline implants address weak chin projection, jawline asymmetry, prior trauma or surgery, and congenital differences. They are most commonly placed alone, and can be combined with fillers or fat grafting to feather transitions.

Most chin implants are placed through a small submental (under-the-chin) incision under oral plus intravenous sedation. Custom wrap-around jawline implants are usually placed under general anesthesia, adding bilateral incisions at the back of the mouth; the implant is threaded from back to front, out the submental opening, and back on the other side so it wraps the full jawline as one piece.

Swelling that hides the final shape for weeks is an expected stage after a wrap-around jawline implant, and the real failure in your friend's case was that nobody named that stage before she booked. Ask any practice for two things: the recovery timeline in writing, and the name of the person who will judge whether yours is on track. Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas publishes that arc on this page and on the chin augmentation and facial implant pages it links to. Swelling peaks at two to three days, is roughly 80 percent improved by about ten days, and the final contour settles between three and six months, which is when the shape planned on your CT scan can fairly be judged. Because a custom wrap-around implant is passed through two incisions at the back of the mouth, the timeline includes a soft diet for ten to fourteen days; a chin implant placed through the small incision under the chin alone carries no diet restriction. Any activity that could take a hit to the jaw waits a month to six weeks. If one side of the jaw reads fuller than the other while the swelling settles, that question belongs with the surgeon who placed the implant. At Troell Cosmetic Surgery that surgeon is Dr. Robert J. Troell, who placed your implant and knows its design, and who examines you at each follow-up visit in the same South Fort Apache Road office where the surgery took place, so whether what you see at week two is the normal stage or something to address is answered by the person who knows exactly where the implant sits. Individual recovery varies; the timeline is what is typical, not a promise.

That is directly related to your stated goals — the customization process, the 3D CAD planning, and your surgeon’s judgment together aim at facial harmony, whether the target is a more feminine or a more masculine outcome. Subtle and dramatic are both achievable; the design sessions are where that dial gets set.

The informed-consent process reviews all side effects and possible complications. The most common medical issue is a degree of incision opening; infection is rare. The most common problems are actually aesthetic — an implant placed asymmetrically, or a fabricated contour or size that reads too small or too large in a specific area. Silastic’s easy revisability is the safety net for exactly those cases.

They are designed to be permanent. Reoperation is only needed for a complication or to address a cosmetic concern — and because smooth silastic develops minimal tissue ingrowth, removal or replacement remains straightforward years later.

At Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS treats this as a design question first, and he teaches other surgeons how to prevent and manage it. Dehiscence means the back edge of a jaw-angle implant working free of the chewing muscle, so it can be seen or felt. It is the problem men who already have jaw implants talk about most. It is more likely with a wide, sharply angled implant in a lean face. Here the width and the taper of that back edge are set in the design sessions, on your own CT scan, and reviewed with you from the front as well as in profile before the implant is made. Dr. Troell plans and places every implant himself. He is also Distinguished Faculty for Implantech’s hands-on cadaver workshops, where custom implant design, placement and complications management are taught. If an edge does show later, smooth silastic is the safety net: it can be trimmed, repositioned or replaced. He examines his own patients at every follow-up visit in the same office on South Fort Apache Road. Whether a revision is needed, and on what terms, is decided there case by case, never promised in advance.

At Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS designs each jawline implant on your own CT scan and places it himself, so position is decided in the design, before surgery. The worry is fair: men who have had jaw implants elsewhere say placement, not the implant itself, is what goes wrong, and one side sitting higher is the complaint they describe most. A custom implant fits your bone one way, and the design is reviewed with you from the front and in profile before it is made. After surgery, swelling hides the final shape for weeks, so an early difference between the two sides is not yet a verdict. It is judged at follow-up, by Dr. Troell, in the same office on South Fort Apache Road, against the shape planned on your scan. If an implant has truly shifted, smooth silastic can be repositioned, and he holds hospital privileges at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center should a problem ever need hospital care. Whether a revision is needed, and on what terms, is decided case by case at those visits, never promised in advance.

When a custom wrap-around jawline implant is placed under general anesthesia, as most are, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS of Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas performs it at an AAAASF-accredited surgical facility. The worry is fair. The two incisions at the back of the mouth sit in a place that is never sterile, and men who had this done elsewhere describe infections that surfaced weeks later. So the plan has two parts: where the operation happens, an accredited surgical facility with the facility’s anesthesia team, and what you watch for at home. Swelling on one side that grows after it had begun to settle, new warmth or redness along the jaw, a bad taste or drainage inside the mouth, or pain that worsens instead of easing all mean you call the office, not wait for your next visit, and you are examined by Dr. Troell himself, in his office on South Fort Apache Road. If an implant ever had to come out to clear an infection, smooth silastic can be removed and later replaced, and he holds hospital privileges at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center.

Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas is a cash-pay practice, and the price Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS gives you is put in writing only after he has examined you in person, at a free consultation in his office on South Fort Apache Road. You are right to pin that down, because a custom jawline implant has more pieces than most operations: the CT scan, the design sessions, the implant itself, the anesthesia and the facility, and a published price often leaves that unclear. The written quote states what it covers, so you can see what is inside the number and what is not before you commit. Most custom wrap-around jawline implants are placed under general anesthesia, so the facility and the anesthesia appear as their own lines beside the surgeon’s fee; a chin implant placed awake, under oral and intravenous sedation, is different, because the surgeon’s fee already covers that sedation and the procedure room. A revision, if ever needed, is its own operation, quoted as one after he examines you. Financing through CareCredit or Alphaeon is available if you would rather spread it out.

Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas has one surgeon, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS, and he practices here all year rather than visiting for operating days. That is a fair worry when you travel for surgery: if the surgeon who placed a custom jaw implant is in another state, a swollen or uneven jaw at week three can mean phone photos, a stranger’s opinion, or a second plane ticket. Dr. Troell has practiced in Las Vegas under a Nevada medical license for more than twenty years, he performs every consultation and every operation himself, and every follow-up visit happens in the same office on South Fort Apache Road where you were examined and had surgery. If a revision, meaning a second operation to adjust or exchange the implant, were ever needed, he is the surgeon who would examine you and plan it. For patients coming from out of town, the first consultation can be done virtually before you book travel. What that means for you is one address and one surgeon to come back to, not a hand-off to whoever is in the building that week.

At Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS reviews every custom jaw implant design with you from the front as well as in profile before it goes to fabrication. That is the right worry: a side view only shows projection, and the regret men describe most often after a jaw implant is width, a jaw that looked right in profile and heavy face-on. A custom implant is built on a CT scan of your own jaw, and its thickness at the outer corners of the chin and both jaw angles is a design decision rather than a stock shape. Those decisions are shown to you over your own scan, in the front view as well as the profile, before fabrication, meaning the step where the implant is actually manufactured. The consultation where this starts is with Dr. Troell at the office on South Fort Apache Road, or virtually to begin, is free, and can be held in English or in Spanish. What that means for you: front-view width is settled on screen, with you looking at it, not discovered in a mirror months later.

At Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS places custom chin and jawline implants manufactured by Implantech, and the make, material and model of the implant are documented in your surgical record. Ask this before surgery, not after. The material matters years later. A porous implant, meaning one with tiny openings that tissue grows into, is the kind men call a hard removal once they learn its name. The smooth solid silicone this page calls silastic has little tissue ingrowth and is straightforward to remove or replace. So the material is stated here before you book. The implant is a patient-specific design fabricated by a named manufacturer whose hands-on course he teaches. What was placed is written into the record of your own operation at the office on South Fort Apache Road. The surgeon is as checkable as the implant: his Nevada medical license sits on the state board's public register, and each Diplomate certification is confirmable with the board that issued it. What that means for you: what is in your face exists on paper, not in anyone's memory.

At Troell Cosmetic Surgery in Las Vegas, Dr. Robert J. Troell, MD, FACS gives a plain answer: what the soft tissue does after a jaw-angle implant is removed depends on the patient, on anatomy, implant size and time in place, and he assesses it individually. Soft tissue means the skin, fat and chewing muscle that sat over the implant. A man who had one taken out and then warns that the skin dropped or the edge opened is describing his own anatomy and his own implant, not yours. The implant shape itself is designed per patient, on your own CT scan, and the smooth solid silicone he uses, called silastic, develops little tissue ingrowth, which is why removal or replacement stays straightforward. If you ever want one out, Dr. Troell looks at your tissue himself, at a follow-up visit in the same office on South Fort Apache Road, and whether removal alone, a replacement with a different design, or a revision makes sense is decided there, case by case, never promised in advance. What that means for you: a plan read from your own face, not from someone else's.