Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean had always wanted to fix the “excess skin” around her neck, but she didn’t take into consideration the side effects that could come with it. In an op-ed published on Friday, April 21, Dean warned others that you should always read the fine print.
“Every time I would see my doctor I would ask if there was anything he could do with my neck,” she wrote. “I’ve had a bad relationship with my neck since I was little. There are weird lines around it like a tree trunk — they’ve been there since I was a baby. But now at age 46, I’ve started to notice excess skin gathering like an accordion in the middle. So now along with being able to count the rings around my neck to guess how old I am, there’s also some crepe paper attached to it.”
After consulting with her doctor, she decided to go with a procedure called Fractora, a laser procedure that promises to regenerate natural collagen and tighten skin in under an hour. Dean’s doctor advised her that it would take only five days to heal and that her results would last five years. Dean wrote that the actual procedure was no problem, but her recovery didn’t go as smoothly.
“The left side of my face was puffed out like a chipmunk,” she shared of the scary experience. “I followed the doctor’s instructions and elevated my head and took more Tylenol to minimize bruising. The next day I took off my bandages. The left side of my face was still very swollen, and I was finding it hard to talk out of that side of my mouth. I couldn’t chew properly. My bottom lip had looked like it had vanished. My smile was lopsided.”
Dean then read over the side effects on the paperwork she had happily signed off on and noticed some matched her symptoms, including “nerve injury, marginal mandibular nerve palsy, inability to depress lower lip, temporary change in smile or facial expression.”
“I was suddenly mad at myself. Why didn’t I read the fine print?” she wrote. “Why did I just gloss over these many side effects without asking questions? How many times do we glance through pages of paperwork without fully reading it and nonchalantly sign on the dotted line? This was on me.”
“If I could choose between having a smooth neck or getting my smile back to normal, there is no question,” she concluded. “My smile means everything to me … This is not what I signed up for.”
