Over the past year, Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon Gregory Mueller has emerged as the man to see when you feel bad about your neck. Mueller—who is also an inventor of medical devices that aid docs in minimally invasive surgeries—is the originator of the Trampoline technique, a procedure that alleviates the dreaded “turkey neck.” During just one hour in a surgery center, with the patient under local anesthesia, he employs his patented LED-lit, knitting needle–like tool to thread nylon sutures in a crisscross pattern through the soft tissue under the chin. Once the strands are woven into place, he cinches them like shoelaces to lift and tighten. Unlike a traditional necklift, there are no incisions and no cutting of the ligaments that attach the muscle to the skin. Instead, the device enters via three to five punctures on either side of the jaw. According to Mueller, leaving the structure of the neck intact reduces the chance of bumpiness, a common complaint among those who’ve undergone lifts. “And scar tissue is less of a problem, because we do much less destruction with this approach,” he says. (That also means a shorter recovery time: three days versus the usual 10.) The technology gained FDA clearance in 2009 for use in elevating skin anywhere on the body; currently, Mueller is also using the instrument to perform facelifts and envisions branching out to other areas in the future. “Just imagine,” he enthuses, “a nipple lift with no scars.”
