Nightline – Weight Loss: The Tongue Patch Diet – Dr. Chugay – Beverly Hills, Long Beach, California

Introduced in the U.S. in the early 1980s, liposuction, also called liposculpture, lipoplasty, or suction lipectomy, is a cosmetic surgery technique developed by cosmetic surgeons to reduce stubborn fat deposits that don’t respond to dieting and exercise. These fatty bulges are most commonly found in the thighs, hips, abdomen, buttocks, knees, ankles, calves and arms.

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A California plastic surgeon is performing what may well be the most bizarre, and punishing, weight-loss procedure short of an outright limb amputation: tongue patches.

Since 2009, Dr. Nikolas Chugay has been suturing stamp-size patches of Marlex mesh to patients’ tongues.

The patch makes it painful to eat anything solid. The patient leaves it in place for a month or so — or less, if it becomes unbearable — while subsisting on an 800-calorie-a-day protein shake diet provided by Chugay.

The doctor and his son, Paul, also a doctor, say on their website that they have done this procedure more than 150 times. Patients typically lose around 20 pounds, and have flown in from around the country for the $2,000 procedure.

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