"I tease my daughters that I want to get rid of my turkey neck," Mary Sanzone said.
Sanzone has always been self conscious of her neck and chin
"I just think it's one of those things that comes with age and it's one of those facts of life that you kind of have to live with," she said.
Not so, says Dr. Matthew Schulman.
We watched as he performed what he calls a /*laser neck lift*/ on Mary. It's a procedure he developed by combining existing technology. It costs about 5-thousand dollars.
Using local antithesis, Dr. Schulman first inserts a laser into a small incision in Mary's chin. The device heats up the underside of the skin, melting the fat. Then using liposuction, he removes the liquid, reinserts the laser to now tighten the skin and then finishes things off using an external laser.
"I'm not taking any skin away, I'm just really making the chin shrink wrap so there's still the skin there, it's just stimulating collagen, it's making that skin tighten and retract," Dr. Schulman said.
Patients do get better results with traditional neck lifts, but along with that procedure some scarring and recovery is tough. With this there is little bruising and the down time is minimal.
"My patients have been happy giving up a little of the cosmetic result in order to get a procedure that's minimally invasive," Schulman said.
Dr. Schulman says in a couple of years, patients will need touches ups, but not because the procedure stopped working. Rather, they simply continue to age.
As for Mary, who's never had /*plastic surgery*/, she see this as a way to ease into things.
"I'm hoping it will just tighten things up a little and maybe take a year or two off," Mary said, with a smile.
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