Patients paying $10K for plastic surgery to fix sagging 'Ozempic face'

Ozempic users are noticing a change in their face — and it’s costing them an arm and a leg.

Patients injecting the antidiabetic medication to lose weight have found themselves with “Ozempic face” — gaunt, deflated cheeks and loose, sagging skin around their jowls.

Trying to avoid a plastic surgery fix for their newly droopy faces, the afflicted are instead undergoing repeated medical procedures — paying up to $10,000 a pop.

“It’s really hard to say for sure exactly when I noticed my face changing,” Ozempic user Quenby Erickson, who lost 45 pounds in seven months on the drug, told The Post.

“It was gradual. You just think it’s weight loss, and then you start to look in your mirror like, ‘Wait a minute, my skin is saggy now and it wasn’t before. I’ve aged a lot in a few months.'”

Erickson, 51, a Chicago resident who also happens to be a dermatologist, started taking Ozempic in August 2022 for post-pregnancy weight loss.

Quenby Erickson before Ozempic, after it, and then after the Sofwave procedure.Courtesy of Quenby Erickson

In May, she had her staff at Erickson Cosmetic Dermatology & Lifestyle Medicine treat her with Sofwave, a $2,000 to $3,000 ultrasound treatment which reduces lines and wrinkles by heating up and remodeling collagen in the face.

Dermatologist Marina Peredo, who owns Skinfluence on the Upper East Side and Dix Hills, explained what causes the skin to sag.

“Because the weight loss happens in a very short period of time, the skin doesn’t have time to catch up, hence you have a lot of people looking gaunt,” she said.   

Besides Sofwave, which needs to be repeated once or twice a year, Peredo also treats her Ozempic patients with Morpheus8, a micro-needling procedure that stimulates collagen to tighten and smooth wrinkles.

“Think of it as hot needles,” she said. “It costs anywhere from $800 to $1,000 per treatment, and normally you need a series of three.”

Those “who are not quite ready for a face lift” after Ozempic opt for three procedures: AccuTite, which focuses on the upper face; FaceTite, which works on the jawline and neck; and liposuction, a trio which logs a whopping $10,000 price tag.

AccuTite and FaceTite use a metal probe that “goes underneath the skin and tightens it from within,” Peredo said.

Patients are also combining these procedures with $3,500 to $9,000 hyaluronic fillers. “We have to inflate that sagginess by putting filler in the cheek, temples and jawline,” she said.

Kathleen before using Ozempic, after it, and then after getting procedures.

She advises her patients to begin the corrective work at the same time they start Ozempic.

“Otherwise, if there is a lot of weight loss, they may have to go under the knife,” she said.

Peredo’s longtime patient Kathleen, who started on Ozempic in July 2021 after a rapid weight gain due to menopause, has gotten Sofwave, Morpheus8 and AccuTite.

Kathleen, 57, of Long Island, was worried about how her face would change, so started to get procedures just a few months after she started on Ozempic.

“I’m very sensitive about my lower face,” said Kathleen, who lost 45 pounds over a two-year period. “When you lose weight, it does tend to age you, so I was concerned about that.”

Kathleen will likely have to repeat the pricey procedures since she is still on Ozempic — with another weight loss goal in mind.

“I have about 20 pounds that I’d like to lose,” she said. “My daughter’s wedding is coming up, and I bought my dress in Paris.”