Masseter Reduction Surgery in Las Vegas

Clench and press the back corner of your jaw. What firms up and bulges under your fingers is the masseter, and that is what this operation reduces. Width that is identical at rest and on clenching is the mandibular angle — bone — and no muscle surgery narrows it. Soft fullness lower and further forward in the cheek is the buccal fat pad, which is buccal fat removal, a separate operation. The examination confirms which one you are before anything is proposed.

Yes, in both directions. The portion of muscle removed does not grow back, so the narrowing does not fade the way an injected result does — and it cannot be undone if you decide you preferred the fuller jawline. The 151-patient series that measured the result on CT three years later found masseter volume down by about 21 percent on each side.[1] That permanence is the reason many patients try the injectable route first and come to surgery already knowing how a narrower lower face looks on them.

No. The operation is performed through an incision inside the mouth, so there is nothing on the skin of the face or jaw. If liposuction of the jowl or neck is combined with it, a small skin port under the jaw is used for that part and is protected from the sun while it fades.

The masseter is a chewing muscle, so this is the right question. Restricted mouth opening, called trismus, is the complication specific to operating on it: a published case report documents trismus, altered sensation and a secondary angle deformity after partial masseter resection combined with angle reduction performed elsewhere, and its authors urge caution in deciding who needs the muscle resected at all.[4] Early tightness is expected and is worked through with mouth-opening exercises on instruction; the large series report swelling and lower-lip numbness rather than lasting loss of function.[1] Ask about it by name, and expect a straight answer.

An injection thins the muscle for a season and the muscle rebuilds when the effect wears off; surgery removes part of it permanently. The trial evidence for the injection is real but short-term — five randomised trials, 536 participants, a pooled relative risk of 5.25 for a lower masseter-prominence score at four weeks, with a wide confidence interval and no settled dose[6] — and the surgical evidence is mostly combined muscle-and-bone series from East Asia.[1][2] First-timers usually start with the injection; the patient who has lived with that result and wants it to stop being a repeating appointment is the one for whom surgery is a serious conversation. Dr. Troell performs both, and the long comparison is in our guide to masseter Botox versus surgery.

Only if the width is bone, and then the question runs the other way — whether the muscle needs reducing at all. A 56-patient series with three-dimensional CT four years after bone reduction alone found the masseter had shrunk by about 21 percent without being touched, and its authors concluded that most patients with a prominent angle should be treated without approaching the muscle.[3] A jaw that is wide because of bone is a different operation on the jaw itself, and the consultation says so plainly rather than proposing muscle surgery for a skeletal shape.

The honest structure to demand from any practice is who evaluates a concern, where, and what the escalation path is. At Troell Cosmetic Surgery, concerns after masseter reduction are evaluated by the operating surgeon himself — Dr. Robert J. Troell is the practice’s only surgeon and sees his own follow-up visits in the same Las Vegas office — and he holds hospital privileges at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center should a complication ever need hospital-level care. For this operation the follow-ups measure the things that matter: how wide the mouth opens, whether the two sides match, and how sensation along the lower lip is recovering, over the months it takes swelling over a chewing muscle to leave. Whether a revision is appropriate, and on what terms, is a case-by-case decision made at those follow-ups once healing has declared itself; the revision fee basis is discussed with you then, and no surgeon can honestly tell you in advance what a revision would cost you, or promise that one will not be needed. What you should leave a consultation knowing is who you will see if something is not right, and where.

Typically, a soft diet and mouth rinses in the first week while the intraoral incision heals, a return to sedentary work within one to two weeks, firmer food and normal exercise over the following month on instruction, and mouth-opening exercises throughout. Swelling over the jaw angle makes the face look wider before it looks narrower, and the contour worth judging is the one at three to six months. Individual recovery varies.

Frequently the request is for a narrower lower face rather than for one muscle, and narrowing the jaw angles can make a recessed chin read weaker. Whether a chin implant or liposuction of the jowl and neck belongs in the same plan is decided at the examination, from the profile view as much as the front one. Combining changes theatre time rather than adding separate operations on separate days.

It is quoted at consultation for the operation your examination calls for. One side or two, how much muscle each side needs removed, whether anything is combined with it, and the anesthesia and facility time that follow all move the figure. This is a cash-pay practice and financing options are available.