Kybella for Double Chin: Cost, Results and How Many Treatments

Kybella is the brand name for deoxycholic acid injection, 10 mg/mL — a prescription drug initially approved in the United States in 2015.

Its maker lineage runs Kythera, then Allergan — it now belongs to AbbVie.

The indication reads, word for word: improvement in the appearance of moderate to severe convexity or fullness associated with submental fat in adults. "Submental" means under the chin — the fullness people call a double chin.

And Kybella is a drug, not a device like the dermal fillers.

The approval is narrow.

Kybella is approved for fat under the chin and nothing else: the label states it is not approved for treatment of fat outside the submental region and that such use is not recommended.

Jawline, jowls, bra fat and body uses are off-label — they are not on any current US label for this product.

One naming caution: Allergan's official US consumer site for the drug is mykybella.com, per the label's patient information.

The site at kybella.com is an unrelated beauty-supply company and has nothing to do with the injectable.

The label calls deoxycholic acid a cytolytic: injected into submental fat, it physically destroys the membrane that holds a fat cell together, and the cell breaks apart — lysis, in the label's wording.

That is the mechanism in the label's own words.

A session is a series of small doses laid down in a pattern.

The labeled dose is 2 mg per square centimeter of skin, given as 0.2 mL (2 mg) injections spaced 1 cm apart, up to 50 injections per treatment session — 100 mg, or 10 mL, at most.

The drug is supplied in 2 mL single-patient-use vials holding 20 mg each, packed four vials per carton, so a maximum session uses up to 5 vials, and the trial-average first session of 6.4 mL is a little over 3.

Whatever is left in an opened vial is discarded, per the label.

The vials are ready to use as supplied.

For comfort, the label suggests ice or cold packs and topical and/or injectable local anesthesia such as lidocaine — options worth asking about before the first injection rather than after.

The labeled patient is an adult with moderate to severe fullness from submental fat.

In the pivotal trials behind the approval, that meant healthy adults aged 19 to 65 with a body mass index of 40 or less — the population the label's pivotal-trial figures come from.

The label names one contraindication: an infection in the injection area.

It directs providers to look for other causes of under-chin fullness — an enlarged thyroid (the gland at the base of the neck) or swollen lymph nodes are its examples — and to weigh whether Kybella makes sense in someone with excessive skin laxity or prominent platysmal bands.

The platysma is the flat neck muscle; the label's "prominent platysmal bands" are its front edges.

The label's concern is that reducing fat under loose skin or visible bands may result in an aesthetically undesirable outcome rather than the improvement the treatment is approved to produce.

Fullness under the chin, in other words, does not always come from fat alone.

If you are not yet sure what is causing yours, the problem-first route is treatments by concern.

Two populations have explicit limits.

Safety and effectiveness have not been established in anyone under 18, and the label says Kybella is not recommended for children or adolescents.

There are no adequate trials in pregnant women, and it is not known whether the drug passes into breast milk.

Whether Kybella fits your own anatomy and history is an in-person question for a licensed provider — this page can only tell you what the label says.

The label allows up to 6 treatments, no less than 1 month apart.

That is a ceiling, not a plan: how many sessions a person needs, and how much drug each session takes, is decided session by session.

The American Academy of Dermatology's guidance for chin-fat injections puts the typical course at 2 sessions spaced 6 to 8 weeks apart — the AAD's figure for this class of treatment, while the label's 6-session, month-apart schedule is the one written for Kybella itself.

The volume numbers come from the two pivotal trials behind the approval, which treated 514 people with Kybella against 508 on placebo.

What the course bought, in the trials' own measure: at 12 weeks after the final treatment, 70.0% (Trial 1) and 66.5% (Trial 2) of Kybella patients had at least a 1-grade improvement on both the clinician's rating and their own, versus 18.6% and 22.2% on placebo.

The bigger change — at least a 2-grade improvement — went to 13.4% and 18.6%, against less than 0.1% and 3.0% on placebo.

The response demonstrated for the largest share of patients was one grade, not the larger one.

Allergan, the maker, frames the timeline by session count: it says many patients see visible results in 2 to 4 treatments, and it publishes composite improvement rates of 8% after 1 treatment, 28% after 2, 43% after 3, 55% after 4, 66% after 5 and 72% after 6, against 2 to 22% with placebo.

Those are the manufacturer's own figures from its consumer site — useful as a shape, not a promise.

For what those results look like, see Kybella before and after.

We found no Kybella-specific national average in the sources we checked.

What the label and trials do give you is the structure a Kybella quote rests on: the drug comes in 2 mL vials, a session uses up to 5 of them, a course can run to 6 treatments a month or more apart, and in the trials the average first session was 6.4 mL, while those who received all six averaged 4.4 mL at the sixth.

However a quote is structured — per session, per vial or as a package — the useful questions are the price per session, how many sessions are planned, and what the total becomes if one more is needed.

For a fuller breakdown, see how much Kybella costs.

The one national figure in our vault is broader than Kybella: ASPS reports an average cost of $1,157 for nonsurgical fat reduction — the category that holds Kybella alongside cryolipolysis (CoolSculpting), radiofrequency and laser lipolysis.

That is the average fee reported by ASPS member plastic surgeons, not a med spa price; ASPS says the average covers only part of the total price, and its page does not state the data year (it was read in October 2026).

Allergan's Allē rewards program takes some of the edge off a multi-session course: Kybella earns 200 points per treatment at Allē's published base rates (read October 2026), and 100 points equals $10 toward qualifying treatments, Kybella included.

Program terms change, so check them before you book.

Kybella's trial side effects are dominated by injection-site reactions.

In the pooled data from those two trials, injection-site swelling occurred in 87% versus 43% on placebo, bruising in 72% versus 70%, pain in 70% versus 32%, numbness in 66% versus 6%, redness in 27%, hardness in 23%, tingling in 14%, nodules in 13% and itching in 12%.

The label's own duration table is the one to plan around: adverse reactions lasting more than 30 days and affecting more than 10% of patients were injection-site numbness (42%), swelling (20%), pain (16%) and hardness (13%).

Separately — a different source and a different measure — the American Academy of Dermatology says some people are extremely swollen for as long as 2 weeks after chin-fat injections, though they can return to normal activities, and full results show an estimated 3 to 4 months after the last treatment.

For the full picture, see how long Kybella swelling lasts.

Two nerve-and-function effects have their own entries.

Marginal mandibular nerve injury — an uneven smile or facial muscle weakness — occurred in 4% of Kybella patients versus under 1% on placebo; every case in the trials resolved without treatment, though recovery ranged from 1 to 298 days with a median of 44.

Difficulty swallowing occurred in 2% versus under 1% on placebo, in the setting of swelling, pain and hardness; cases resolved without treatment with a median of 3 days (range 1 to 81).

The label says people with current or prior difficulty swallowing should avoid Kybella.

The label does not say.

It makes no permanence claim, and the trials followed subjects 4, 12 and 24 weeks after their last treatment — months, not years.

Allergan's consumer site goes further than the label does: it says that once fat cells are destroyed they "cannot store or accumulate fat," and that "further treatment is not expected" once you reach your desired aesthetic.

That is the maker's statement, not a labeled one, and it is as far as the evidence in our research goes.

A consultation that promises permanent, FDA-approved results is promising more than the label contains.

For more on the evidence, see does Kybella work.

Worth separating, too, what the drug is measured against: Kybella's one indication is the appearance of under-chin fullness, and the trials scored clinician and patient ratings of that fullness — not weight, and not body fat anywhere else.

Kybella is a prescription drug injected into the fat directly under the jaw — an area where the trials measured nerve injury and swallowing effects in a small share of patients.

That is the practical case for doing your comparison work before the first injection rather than after.

The questions below come straight from the label's own numbers.

The maker's consumer material is the other place to check specifics: Allergan's official US site for the drug is mykybella.com, per the label's patient information — a different site entirely from kybella.com, the unrelated beauty-supply company.

And if the fullness under your chin turns out to be loose skin or bands rather than fat, the label's own screening advice points to a different conversation with your provider.