Losing weight quickly might be great for your waistline, but it’s not always great for your face lines.
Thanks to the rise of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, there’s now a new wrinkle in the weight-loss conversation—literally. It’s called “Ozempic face,” and according to some doctors, it’s driving a fresh wave of plastic surgery procedures.
While it might sound like a joke, the trend is all too real. The gist? People are dropping pounds fast on these GLP-1 medications, but their skin isn’t keeping up. The result is sagging, wrinkles, and an overall “sunken” or “aged” look that has some users sprinting from the pharmacy to the med spa.
Who coined the term “Ozempic face”?
New York-based dermatologist Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank claims credit for coming up with it. (Yeah, Paul?? We want receipts!!) But whether he actually coined the term or not, he’s definitely an expert on this stuff.
According to Dr. Frank, rapid weight loss can make facial fat disappear before the skin has time to bounce back. It’s especially true for people over 40. By the time you hit your fourth decade, your skin has lost some of its elasticity… or potentially gone full catcher’s mitt.
In other words, your body gets smaller, but your face suddenly starts doing a spot-on impression of a prune. And the solution for more and more Ozempic patients seems to be a follow-up appointment with a plastic surgeon.
Not everyone needs the scalpel.
Fillers can help restore some volume, and they’re often the first option newly skinny folks opt for. But Dr. Frank says more patients are now opting for full-on facelifts or skin-tightening procedures.
“You can only refill a deflated balloon so much.“
Yeah, Dr. Frank doesn’t mince words. Though he does admit sometimes fillers can be enough.
“You can only refill a deflated balloon so much, and often surgical intervention is necessary. [But sometimes], just upping the dosage of their volume replacement is more than enough. Someone who may have used one syringe of filler in the past is now using two or three.”
“Ozempic face” is just a trendy term.
To be clear, this isn’t just an Ozempic issue. Any rapid weight loss can do this, whether it’s from dieting, surgery, or a different medication.
But with drugs like Ozempic exploding in popularity, doctors say they’re seeing a noticeable uptick in patients seeking cosmetic fixes to go along with their slimmer bodies.
The Ozempic / facelift link is just a theory… for now.
There’s no conclusive data yet tying the rise in plastic surgery procedures directly to these weight-loss drugs, but anecdotally, experts say it tracks.
For now, it’s another example of how the path to looking better sometimes comes with unexpected detours—and in this case, sometimes a knife.