This was my first surgery, and I had rhinoplasty without an implant. They used ear cartilage for the tip. It has been 7 months since surgery, and at some point I started noticing the cartilage at the tip showing through. When I smile, I can see the area where the tip cartilage is visible turn white.
I contacted the hospital where I had the surgery and am waiting for a consultation, but if it turns white from pressure when I smile, doesn’t that mean it could break through soon? I feel like there may be no other treatment, and that they may have to remove the cartilage. It really hurts to think about removing everything from such an expensive surgery after only 7 months.
At the same time, I’m scared to live with this kind of time bomb, so I feel like it would be better to remove it before any inflammation happens. If anyone here has had the entire nasal tip removed, or had only the visible cartilage removed, could you share your experience? I also need to do more research on my own, so I’d really appreciate hospital recommendations too.
I’ve also heard that removing just a little cartilage from the tip and lowering it can help, but if the cartilage is removed, won’t the tip sink? Since the support that was there is gone, I’m worried it won’t just get lower, but collapse like a balloon losing air... Then I’d need something like dermis to fill it in, but if I already removed one piece of ear cartilage and then have to remove more... sigh... it feels like it would be no different from the first surgery, so maybe it’s better to ask for full removal?
My original nose was extremely low, so I can accept it being lower, but I’m also scared it might end up worse than my original nose. It’s only been 7 months and this happened, so I don’t know if I can trust the hospital that did my first surgery. I’m so scared...