Please read this.. zygomatic nonunion, step deformity, severe cheek sag...

I’ll attach photos later if needed. I’m 8 months out from cheekbone reduction surgery. Before the surgery, the surgeon seemed annoyed and mostly brushed off or cut short the questions I had prepared, but he was very confident, saying there would be no worries about nonunion or cheek sag and that I’d be told I looked pretty after the surgery. They advertised that he had a long career and zero accidents, so I was drawn in by the price too. (When I asked why it was cheap during the consultation, they said something about lower marketing costs, but didn’t really answer in detail.) I trusted them because he was from Asan Medical Center. But the result is utterly disastrous. First of all, I’m young, so this is when my skin elasticity should be good. But after the surgery, an Indian fold that I never had before appeared very badly. Because of that, even my boyfriend suddenly says I look older. He keeps pinching the bulldog fat every day. Still, he says he loves even that, and teases me with “old lady~ old lady~” every day Should I even laugh at this or not? I can see for myself that everything is sagging horribly, and the flesh has dropped downward visibly. Even right after surgery, when swelling was still plentiful and cheek sagging shouldn’t usually have been obvious yet, I already had a long, distinctive Indian fold below the cheekbone from the start (I did not have this before surgery), so no matter what anyone says, it seems like it was caused by release of the retaining ligament during surgery. At the post-op consultation with the surgeon, I asked whether the retaining ligament had been released, and he said, “We did minimal dissection~,” but looking at the result, that makes no sense. What convinced me was that around 5 days after surgery, I tried puffing out my cheeks with air, and every time I held air in my mouth, the cheek area would suddenly swell. I was worried and asked the hospital about it, and they said air was getting into the dissected area. That means they dissected so much that air was entering not even the cheekbone area but the front cheek area, so it definitely was not minimal dissection. People around me said I’d become pretty, but that’s nonsense. Everyone who saw my face a few months after surgery reacted with, “Why does your face look like that?!” and “Why do you look so gaunt?” It hasn’t even been a year yet, so if it already looks like this at my age, I can’t imagine how it will be in the future... Cheek sagging does vary a bit depending on how much the retaining ligament is dissected, but I think it’s an inevitable result rather than a side effect because of the nature of the surgery, so even if I accept that since I chose the surgery, the other side effects are unbearable and infuriating. The side effects I got after cheekbone reduction are nonunion, a sound when pressing near the cheekbone, a step deformity at the temples and back of the cheekbone, recurrence and no effect at all (the side cheekbone is still sticking out; it has gotten bigger as time has passed since the surgery), frontal nerve damage (my forehead did not move at all for 2 months. Thanks to that, my double eyelid crease loosened. Of course, it has recovered now, and the hospital had already told me this symptom could happen, but after reading a blog post by a contouring specialist doctor at another hospital saying that frontal nerve damage from cheekbone surgery is really rare and the probability is low, I’m becoming even more suspicious of the surgical method), severe headaches for 5 months after surgery, sudden loss of smell at 7 months post-op that I’m not sure was due to the cheekbone reduction or not (not COVID), and even considering that this was expected, excessive cheek sagging for my age and the amount of time that passed, causing bulldog fat and an Indian fold, plus a weakened lower face and smaller-looking eyes (after surgery, as the swelling went down, the out-line double eyelid I had done 9 months before the cheekbone surgery suddenly became much thinner, the left side was completely gone, and the outer lower canthus area on both sides became fully attached suddenly after surgery). Wouldn’t anyone be furious over side effects like this? At the 1-month follow-up, when I said there was no frontal effect and the side cheekbone was unchanged, the surgeon brushed it off as swelling. But I’m not stupid, and it’s my own face. Wouldn’t I carefully feel whether it’s swelling or not before going to the hospital and speaking up? The side cheekbone bone sticks out in a weird stepped shape and feels hard to the touch, and they say that’s swelling. I can only laugh in disbelief. I felt that doctors are really irresponsible, more than I expected. Even with swelling, the cheek sagging was so visible that I asked the surgeon whether the Indian fold and bulldog fat that seem like cheek sagging after the swelling goes down could lessen, and the doctor said that when people have severe cheek sagging after surgery, the sagging pulls the eyes downward and makes them droop, but since I’m still young, it’ll be fine.........????????? Shouldn’t he have said that before surgery, when I asked whether it would be okay even though I was worried about cheek sagging? The 45-degree angle area definitely got smaller, and I had surprisingly little swelling or bruising after surgery. But isn’t the patient’s needs and the effect more important than the surgery time? The 45-degree area was a huge stress for me, but more than anything, because of the protruding side cheekbone and my peanut-shaped face, I used to hide only the side cheekbone with my hair. I was also very good at makeup, and aside from the cheekbones, there wasn’t anything particularly unattractive, so people often said I was pretty before the surgery, and I got asked for my number quite a bit. I went to consult at two more hospitals, and the doctors there all said my face shape was the kind that would turn out really well from surgery and that just reducing the cheekbones would make a huge difference. At one hospital, the manager and the surgeon even offered a discount beyond the app discount and said I should do it there because my face shape would give great results. This was my last consultation, and I got swayed by the surgeon’s consultation and the push to book right away (they strongly insisted that if I didn’t decide now, the discount they offered would no longer be available, and pressured me hard by saying only one time slot was left and I had to leave a deposit). That was my mistake. I was stupid to trust only the years of experience and choose this hospital. The price was only 100,000 to 300,000 won different from estimates I got at other hospitals. They advertised him as a doctor from Asan Medical Center with 20 years of zero-accident experience and specializing in facial contouring as a one-doctor clinic, yet the result is this. On top of that, after the surgery the manager didn’t even answer calls and didn’t contact me for the 6-month follow-up consultation. The sideburn scar is awful too~~~ I applied the expensive scar cream until I used three full tubes, but it’s still severe enough for anyone to notice. I’d accept all the side effects, but if I’m going to carry them, shouldn’t I at least get some effect????????? I’m really so angry I could burst into tears from rage.. Every time I look in the mirror I get stressed... When you search the surgeon’s name on Google, related searches show black-list and side effects, and before the surgery there were a couple of reviews on DC saying they got surgery from that surgeon and ruined their lives, but at some point they were deleted. For reference, before surgery they make you sign a consent form agreeing to legal action if you disclose surgery side effects or complaints online, in apps, or in communities, and a pledge not to speak about it. I should’ve run the moment they made me sign that, but I’m just furious at myself. This post might bring me some disadvantage too. But for the sake of public interest, and to keep people like me from becoming victims, I think I have to write it. The before-and-after photos are heavily photoshopped by the hospital’s marketing team~ I didn’t know that and believed them after seeing the review photos. I clearly sent the original photos taken with my iPhone’s default camera, but they sent me photos with the cheekbones further reduced by Photoshop and told me to upload those.