**I underwent three surgeries over 20 years, and this is a very long account of my recent revision with costal cartilage. **There are people asking in the comments to tell them the hospital name, but this post is not written to recommend a hospital. I wrote this to share the good and disappointing points, because I thought it would have helped if I had read someone else’s experience before my surgery. Above all, every case is different, so I deleted comments that could hint at which hospital it was, and I will not tell you the hospital even if you ask in the future. ** Among the complications from harvesting costal cartilage described in the main post, the pain centered around the harvest site has improved a lot, but three and a half months after surgery I still sometimes feel a sense that the rib cage is sinking in and becoming vulnerable, and I also sometimes get an uncontrollable idiopathic cough during low exhalation when talking, which is different from the symptoms of a cold or asthma. Recently I also found a review on another forum saying that someone had a lingering cough starting two months after costal cartilage harvest. In my case, too, because I have these symptoms, I think there may be a connection even if it is temporary. I plan to write again at the seven-month mark. ** I had planned to go to the outpatient clinic at six months, but my schedule did not match, so I still have not been able to write the seven-month follow-up. Because I also had reconstruction up to the septum, even though the appearance looks better, I feel a lot of discomfort inside my nose. (There are also special circumstances in my case, and there are characteristics of costal cartilage itself.) I am currently preparing to move overseas, so I do not have much free time, but I will post an update as soon as I can. ** The costal cartilage was not ground up and doubly grafted. It was minced with a scalpel, then hardened into a gel form with platelets and placed on the bridge of the nose. People keep misreading it as if it had been ground up and grafted, but the body text also says that it is different. Autologous cartilage cannot be freely shaped like silicone and then inserted or removed at will. Also, because it is trimmed into a single block and grafted, harvesting enough cartilage means a lot of costal cartilage has to be removed. So, to compensate for this drawback, relatively small amounts of autologous cartilage are minced with a scalpel, then wrapped in pleura or put into a syringe, made into a long implant-like shape, and placed on the nasal bridge. I do not think this grafting method is one that has been followed long enough in clinical practice to observe its long-term prognosis. It may be a decent method in its own way because ear cartilage or leftover pieces of costal cartilage can also be used, but compared with silicone I think there may be problems such as a greater chance that the shape will be less refined, and if one changes one’s mind later, a single-block implant can be pulled out easily, whereas complete removal may be difficult.
The point of my post is to say that, except for surgeries that do not separate or cut your own nasal cartilage and instead simply place a graft on the bridge of the nose or lightly tie up the nasal tip, you should avoid nose surgery that touches the bony framework as much as possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I plan to write another follow-up after some time has passed. (Because the results of rhinoplasty change over the course of several months to a few years.)
The current state is that I can carry things and live my daily life without major difficulty, but the site where the costal cartilage was harvested still feels tingly, and when I talk a lot and then breathe hard, I feel as if the pleura is being sucked in a little, or rather that the area once supported by the costal cartilage is sinking in. I also sometimes get idiopathic coughing in a situation I had never experienced before, so I joined to read other people’s aftercare experiences.
Only when I got older did I realize, by reading many medical accident reports and complication stories, that plastic surgery is very dangerous. That is why having operating principles in place to prevent medical accidents became an important criterion for choosing the hospital where I would entrust my surgery. After my revision rhinoplasty, my nose warped more and more year by year, and because of that one side of my breathing was often blocked, but I was afraid that having another surgery would only make things worse, so I lived with it for nearly seven years before making up my mind and finding an authoritative ENT specialist with long experience in both functional and cosmetic surgery, and having the operation. I chose the medical team based on this standard because I believed there must never be a major accident such as inflammation or worsening functional impairment caused by a careless surgical environment or careless surgical attitude. I underwent surgery using autologous costal cartilage and did not use any artificial implant at all. (Being an ENT specialist does not mean one cannot cause functional problems, so we should also be very careful with surgeries for rhinitis or sinusitis. We need to meet a doctor with credible experience and a long track record of cases, and carefully gather enough reputation information through multiple channels. Also remember that online anonymity makes promotional fake reviews and coordinated comment reactions extremely common.)
I had a total of three consultations (X-ray and consultation at the first visit, a follow-up consultation, and then a brief additional consultation with the director on the day of surgery while looking at the CT scan or preoperative photos). In this hospital’s treatment system, they usually do about three consultations including the day of surgery. Even so, I regret whether I consulted enough. Part of it was because I strongly disliked the idea of opening my nose again and I was psychologically quite depressed as someone who had no choice but to undergo surgery, and part of it was because I thought, since he was an authority, he would take care of it, so I did not question things very much. In any case, I regret that if I had studied more before surgery, I might have had a better consultation. Because before surgery, you need to understand sufficiently which surgical method will be used, what results and complication risks it may bring, and only then choose surgery; that way, you can clearly communicate what you do not want and what you do want, and you can also feel less anxiety during recovery. Also, no matter how much of an authority the surgeon is, if communication with the patient breaks down, they cannot properly achieve what is intended or avoid what is not wanted.
As an aside, during the final consultation right before surgery on the day of the operation, when I was asked what I wanted in terms of appearance, I said, "No... I do not really want much, mainly function..." and he frowned and said, "No, honestly~!!" Looking back, that was kind of funny. When he asked me to list any aesthetic wishes in order of priority, I immediately rattled them off: "The crooked bridge, the drooping tip, and the slight depression between one nostril and the side of the bridge would be nice to correct." He said he understood. Maybe he felt I wanted something more but was not saying what I really thought? Perhaps because I was not clearly saying how I wanted my appearance to be since I was already going in for surgery, he was trying to identify that part and bring the result closer to what I wanted.
In any case, to summarize, the goals of surgery were set as follows: (remove the existing silicone, correct the deviated septum, straighten the externally crooked nasal bridge, correct the nasal valve, and perform an appropriate cosmetic nose surgery that would suit my face)
When I obtained the operative record (the hospital has a policy of properly documenting the consent form and the operative record, and the operative record is issued immediately for only a few thousand won), it said that the harvested autologous costal cartilage was minced, hardened with what seems to have been platelets, then placed on the bridge of the nose, and covered with donated fascia (allogeneic fascia - fascia from the same human species). The use of fascia that was not my own tissue, that is, fascia processed from another person’s body after death, was something I had not expected before surgery. If the costal cartilage is carved as a single piece and used on the nasal bridge, there is a risk of warping, and if autologous fascia is used, temporal fascia has to be harvested separately. I had not studied enough beforehand, so at the time I did not know that there were many different methods for costal cartilage surgery, and I did not ask in detail during the consultation, but I think I would have felt much more reassured if the medical team had explained this first. Recently I have seen hospitals saying that instead of mincing costal cartilage with a surgical knife, they grind it up and place it on the bridge of the nose like filler; for reference, I think this method may be risky. Since mincing with a scalpel takes a lot of time and effort, they apparently use some kind of machine to grind it up instead. But what machine is it, and by what process? What about the risk of infection and hygiene? Even if it is ground into a powder and placed there to harden, if removal becomes necessary later, how would they find all those particles? The machine used for grinding is also unclear, and they would presumably repeat the grinding process for the cartilage of multiple patients with one machine; how is it sterilized every time, and is there any guarantee that those particles will not remain and travel to nerves or blood vessels? Honestly, I do not know...
Before surgery, the anesthesiologist who would handle my anesthesia (I had general anesthesia) personally took the consent form and checklist questionnaire, and after the surgery, during recovery, also came by once more to check my condition, so that reassured me. They said they only do one surgery per day. The operation started at 9 a.m. and went past 1 p.m., taking more than four hours in total. The surgeon told my guardian that the surgery had gone well before leaving. Some people say that after waking from general anesthesia, their front teeth or lips hurt (maybe because the airway intubation is uncomfortable?), but I was glad I did not have that issue. Although it was included in the surgery fee, I liked that it was a private room, which made it convenient for my guardian to stay with me. Because it was an ENT clinic and I said I had asthma, they also gave me nebulizer treatment while I was waking up and recovering from anesthesia. A nurse came several times, and when I said I had a migraine, they added a Tylenol-based painkiller to the IV. I was discharged after 5 p.m. on the day of surgery. The day after surgery there was packing removal and cleaning, on day 4 or so another cleaning check, suture removal on day 7, and a follow-up check after one month, and so far the operating surgeon has personally seen me at every postoperative outpatient visit. When I obtained the operative record, it was in English, and although there were two typos in the surgical method, I liked that the complex procedure was documented in a complete sentence in detail. That should be normal, but how many private clinics in Korea properly record even the names of the staff who participated in surgery in the operative record? There was also a chart showing the structure of the nose from the front and side, with very simple diagram markings showing where what was done, and a record listing the materials and method, so getting that issued helped me understand it better.
I think it is good to obtain the operative record, remember what the surgery involved myself, and understand at least the basics of what treatment I received. In my case, quite a few surgical techniques were used, which personally surprised me. (Maybe I will write about that in more detail in the next follow-up...) If I had set a lower surgical goal, the operation would probably have been simpler. I wonder if I should have let go of the appearance side more. Even with this amount of surgical technique involved, what I feel about the nose itself, apart from the hardness of the costal cartilage, is that it feels somehow stable. There is almost no swelling, and I do not think I had much throbbing or heat either. I got the impression that it was done carefully and meticulously.
Postoperative course. (Costal cartilage, who says it stops hurting in 1-2 weeks? I will write about that next time. I will omit the general recovery process because many other reviews already cover it.)
Functionally, the deviated septum and the problem where one side of the nose stuck shut and blocked breathing were improved by septoplasty, and because I also have allergies and my nose often runs, the problem where fluid always pooled at the top of one nostril near the nasal vestibule was improved by nasal valve correction. However, now that the airway has been opened, the side that was corrected feels dry when breathing. It may be because winter has come, and because the airway had been blocked, the nasal mucosa inside had shrunk (apparently the turbinates are involved), so now that much more air enters, the humidity control of the airflow may not be sufficient. I only hope I can adapt over time. And after nasal valve surgery on this side, the runny nose now flows to the other side... so the path the runny nose takes has changed... what can you do? Unless it is producing more mucus than before, the runny mucus that used to come out simply flows to the other side, so I think there is nothing to be done. As expected, surgery produces results you did not anticipate afterward. (Of course, the surgical method may still be called "septal deviation correction," but within that there are various solutions depending on the case, and it is said that it is not easy to make it successful. Functional surgery is also quite risky; many people undergo resection to improve function only to suffer irreversible complications. ****For reference, if you do nasal surgery for rhinitis and easily trim or cut mucosa such as the turbinates, it can cause serious complications such as empty nose syndrome. Also, because blockage inside the nose can come and go as mucosa swells and shrinks, and because one side can get blocked depending on the nasal cycle, and because environmental factors and allergy factors also exist, do not rush into surgery just because your nose feels a little blocked.
I think diagnosis is easy because patients describe symptoms in great detail, but solving the problem is not something just anyone can do. A doctor who boldly moves toward surgery as if they can solve it may be more frightening. I think a conservative doctor is better. Surgical procedures always carry the risk of unexpected problems over time. The human body is not uniformly standardized according to a manual; every person is really different. Even if you choose skilled and sincere medical staff, that only reduces the probability of complications; variables always remain... science and medicine are still in a process of trial and error, and that will continue indefinitely.
In terms of appearance, I had given up on expecting much beyond straightening the crooked bridge, but it turned out beautifully and I think it was a truly unexpected result. It is not just because my expectations were low; objectively too, compared with before surgery, the nose has become straighter and my impression looks better. I personally really dislike people who have no such facial base trying to create an extravagant nose, and I understand that this doctor’s philosophy is similar. However, the bridge ended up a bit higher than I expected, and I thought the tip would only be lifted slightly enough to remove the drooping feeling, but instead it was lifted in a way that felt somewhat too feminine to me, to the point that I was puzzled... (I briefly wondered whether he intentionally overcorrected a little, since the height of the bridge can be absorbed by about 10 percent even with costal cartilage.) The crooked bridge was definitely corrected, and I asked for the tip not to be pointy but round, and that request was also accepted. What I, as the owner of the nose, feel is the artificial hardness of the costal cartilage, but the appearance of my nose in the mirror is surprisingly normal, with very little sign that it was operated on.
However, one nostril was pulled up more toward the tip, and the slight asymmetry of the nostrils became more pronounced, but because the tip was lifted and raised, it became more visible. This is only my current guess, but while doing nasal valve correction, that side of the tip became tense, and the cartilage graft lifted the tip further, so one nostril ended up like a long kidney bean pulled upward, while the other became a relatively smaller kidney bean. I do not want to examine my face under a microscope for the rest of my life, and no one else is likely to view my face from under the nose very often, and above all I do not want to keep undergoing invasive procedures on my face, so I did not ask about this immediately.
One thing I felt this time is that doing many options just because the attitude is "if we are doing it anyway, let us do everything" is absolutely not a good idea. The more variables you add in one surgery, the higher the chance that it will be difficult to figure out which factor caused a problem afterward, so too much ambition is dangerous. My previous surgeries made my nose a complicated case in various ways because of deformity. I was told I was a mid-level difficulty patient at this hospital, so there seem to be many people who have suffered severe complications after nose surgery.
<<From here on, these are the difficult points I currently feel in earnest>>
First, the fact that the nose is quite hard because of the costal cartilage also makes my mind harden in the same way. Among signs of postoperative complications, the firmness of scar tissue increases the most around one month, then gradually softens up to around seven months, and continues to change up to one to two years, so it seems I need to manage and watch it carefully during that time. But at least in places other than the columella and septum, the overall vertical stiffness caused by fixation seems unlikely to soften at all (meaning it is almost impossible to move). Side-to-side movement is possible, but if I push the nasal tip firmly upward toward my face or lift it upward in the direction of making a pig nose, it barely moves. Even when I make a grimacing expression like Kim Hye-soo does, it feels uncomfortable and I flinch for a moment because the columella does not follow upward. My nose feels tightly bound up.
Second, I keep asking myself whether it was really the right thing for my health to harvest costal cartilage. Of course I strongly dislike artificial implants, so the alternatives are basically ear cartilage or costal cartilage. (People who are years out from costal cartilage harvest, please share lots of reviews) When costal cartilage is also used for the nasal bridge, the harvested length seems to be about 4 to 6 cm. Is the amount removed really safe for life without any other complications? I was told during consultation that it was fine, but I wonder whether there are follow-up studies on this. I am not just talking about pain usually becoming almost unnoticeable after one or two months. I mean, from the perspective of whether it remains safe even in old age in terms of respiratory function or protective function against external impact. As part of the costal cartilage that wraps the thoracic cavity in an arc disappears, the skin and flesh (including the muscle underneath) seem to press directly against the pleura and other structures, so even when wearing a thin, soft sports bra, the pressure on the harvest site or above it feels suffocating, and sometimes the harvest site hurts. As I breathe and speak, I also sometimes get an uncontrollable idiopathic dry cough. What physical causal relationship could that have with the partial loss of costal cartilage? I honestly could not understand it. My guess is only that because there are cough receptors near the diaphragm, perhaps one supporting beam that used to lift and support the chest wall is gone, and so the cough receptors may be stimulated during chest breathing... just a guess on my own. It is not a normal coughing fit but a sudden hacking cough, something I had never experienced before, so it is unsettling because it is a cough that is neither a cold nor asthma. For now, I can only sincerely hope it is because it is winter right after surgery. (I plan to write another follow-up later.)
Also, about the silicone removal: My nose was not low, so the silicone insert was thin, but perhaps because there was a slight dorsal hump, it was not fixed straight and had slipped and rotated slightly to one side of the bridge, making my nose look even more crooked (so on the side X-ray there was supposedly silicone as thick as 6 mm toward the lower part near the nostril, but when it was removed, it was almost uniformly around 2 mm thick from the glabella to the tip. At the time I could not say that could not be right based on my natural nose height. Since I did not know exactly what had been done in the previous surgery...) Even if there was no contracture, inflammation, or silicone calcification, it still had to be removed. The clinic gave me the removed silicone, and because it had been crooked for several years, it was amazing that it was still crooked even after being taken out of the body, and I felt relieved to have it removed.
After surgery I studied a little about how septal deviation correction is done, and it seems there are several methods depending on the patient’s situation. Since this was my third surgery, the septum had already been used, and in the operative record I saw that only the large framework of the septum remained in an L shape and the septum was hollowed out... and even that had been deformed by two previous surgeries. So a method such as cutting or adjusting the cartilage probably would not have been enough, and they would have had to reinforce it with another cartilage and forcibly straighten it. I am not a doctor, and because I had not studied much about this before surgery, I did not even think to ask whether applying soft ear cartilage to my case would have been appropriate. It is said that costal cartilage is the most reliable material for stabilizing the septum. The problem is how skillfully the surgeon handles the costal cartilage and the burden of the complications from harvesting it...
At a little over one month after surgery, my overall conclusion is:
1. The medical system of the hospital I chose was safe and comfortable, just as I had researched in advance. 2. As a postoperative overall assessment of the surgeon’s ethics and technical expertise, at least in my case, I have no doubts. 3. Using costal cartilage is hard and causes discomfort that cannot be compared with ear cartilage, etc. (They say septal cartilage is also hard when used for extension, but in my case it had already been used up because this was a revision.) There are no symptoms of numbness, burning, or pain. (Because costal cartilage is hard, there seem to be cases where using it in the columella causes the tip of the nose to hurt, and I do not think that would ever be a sign of a truly skilled surgeon in costal cartilage use. In my case it is hard, but it does not hurt at all. Only the costal cartilage harvest site hurt.) In any case, that is the nature of the material.
So!! If you desperately want to raise a very low nose bridge, if you desperately want to lengthen a small nose, if you desperately want to hold the columella upright and high, or if you need reconstruction because of multiple surgeries, contracture, or severe inflammation, then despite the disadvantages of autologous costal cartilage below, I think many people will actually be satisfied because its rigidity and stability as autologous tissue are effective for those difficulties. But otherwise, I think there may be regret. (In my case, because I wear glasses and had already let go of a lot in my own mind - function improvement was the main point, and what mattered most was satisfaction with how my body felt - I was quite startled and regretted that another restrictive hardening of the nose had been added. My nose in the mirror has visually upgraded and looks normal, but when I touch it or when a mask presses on the tip, it is so hard that it feels like I have become a cyborg.)
4. As with all surgeries, autologous costal cartilage carries the burden of harvesting cartilage that protects the chest wall, and you also have to accept the discomfort of the hard material. If there is a problem or regret after surgery performed by a medical team lacking technical skill, once the used rib cartilage has been cut out and used, it cannot be restored, so the professionalism of the medical staff seems to be required to an extraordinary degree.
<<Next is my view on rhinoplasty itself>>
Nose surgery really seems difficult. If possible, do not do it the first time. My nose bridge was high and my nasal bones were spread out like a man’s nose, so when I was young I had my first surgery without thinking, trying to make it more feminine (by a plastic surgeon who only did rhinoplasty). I had no major problems for ten years (they put in a thin Gore-Tex implant at the time, but even after more time passed, there is no way to know what would have happened to it). Ten years later, wanting to upgrade the shape, I went to a director I knew who also only did nose surgery (not a surgeon I met through plastic surgery, but a school acquaintance) and had a quick, breezy revision, and that caused many problems. At first the shape was good, but from four to five years after surgery the silicone gradually bent, the bridge bent, one side of the nose became blocked... (Maybe after the first surgery, where septal cartilage had been used, it should have been left alone and not touched anymore, but during the revision something was disturbed, and the septum could not bear the force and gradually bent and collapsed.) And I think ear cartilage and AlloDerm were added to the tip, but the ear cartilage seems to have shrunk a bit and the AlloDerm was absorbed, so the volume of the nasal tip decreased and the columella lost strength and dropped downward... every year I would sigh. Even so, I did not keep going from hospital to hospital trying to fix it somehow. I thought that touching the nose repeatedly would likely make it worse. So I restrained myself from scrutinizing my face in photos or mirrors too closely and decided there would be no more cosmetic surgery, and lived with it. But eventually one airway became blocked and it got worse every winter, so in the end I had to undergo the third surgery. I dislike artificial implants so much that they were not even an option, but this time I also lost part of the rib cartilage that protects the chest, and I feel heavy-hearted.
The shape of the nose has three-dimensional, complex aesthetic elements from the front, at 45 degrees, from the side, and even from under the nostrils. In addition, there are complex harmonies with the contours of the face, the eyes and philtrum, the mouth line, and so on. Because of this, it is not easy to realize in surgery exactly what I imagine and want, and above all, the nose is a dynamic and complex organ related to survival, one that smells, breathes, can be pinched and released, is picked, and can sometimes get bumped as you walk by. Many people probably think the nose is just the visible three-dimensional triangular structure on the outside. But remember that inside the nose there are multiple layers of mucous membrane and many spaces connected toward the skull, eyes, and mouth, including the sinuses. In short, the face is not a trivial thing; it is critical for seeing, hearing, breathing, and living. Before analyzing the shell of the eyes, nose, mouth, and jaw, please first think of them as precious organs that let me breathe comfortably today, see with clear vision, hear well without tinnitus, chew deliciously without jaw or gum pain, and have a healthy and happy day.... You might not feel this in your 20s when nothing hurts anywhere. A lively, vibrant face is the most beautiful.
If you look at the blog of the surgeon who operated on me, even a world-class authority who is a Japanese-American doctor in the United States reportedly has a 10 percent revision rate. I remember seeing a statistic that the revision rate for rhinoplasty exceeded 50 percent. (Isn’t that frightening? If you have rhinoplasty, one out of two people ends up back on the operating table, and by the time revision surgery comes around, the easier-to-harvest and easier-to-adapt autologous tissues like ear cartilage or septal cartilage have already been used once, so it becomes hard to find other tissue and you have to move on to more difficult surgeries like costal cartilage. And if the septum or tip cartilage and mucosa are damaged, or the skin becomes very thin, it really becomes a brutal process...)
Whenever I see reviews praising a silicone bridge with a gorgeous line and doll-like shape, I sometimes feel not only surprise but even a sense of estrangement, and I get scared that I wonder whether it can really last for life. An artificial implant is not a matter of putting it in once and being done as long as there is no immediate inflammation; problems can arise at any time, and then you are put in the danger of having to keep opening the nose. Autologous tissues include ear cartilage, septal cartilage, costal cartilage, fascia, and dermis, but once they are taken out and used, that is the end of it and they cannot be put back. There is also the risk of damaging the harvest site.
Unless there is a serious shape problem, and unless appearance controls one’s livelihood, I think it is better to just keep living. (I really do not understand how people compare themselves to celebrities.... Even celebrities do not have their professional success determined simply by whether they are beautiful or handsome.)
Today on the subway I saw two people in their 20s with no double eyelids and a calm nose bridge talking back and forth, and they looked so pretty that I just watched them for a while. Even without double eyelids and even with a low nose bridge, they were very cute, attractive, and beautiful. I also do not understand the obsession of people who think a high nose bridge is necessary to be beautiful. Does Kim Hye-soo have a high bridge? Does Jeon Do-yeon have a high bridge? Does Tang Wei have a high bridge, and does her nose have that classic half-upturned or straight-upturned shape? Isn’t beauty harmony, and what people often call aura, meaning atmosphere? If anything, faces with stereotypical proportions feel a little cyborg-like and cartoonish to me, lacking liveliness rather than feeling attractive.
Aura does not come only from the shape of the eyes, nose, mouth, or the shell of the face. A person’s intellectual and social ability, presence, personality, manners, facial expressions, gestures, and fashion can create an even greater aura. And there is also refined, modest beauty, isn’t there? Or plump, gentle-looking beauty, or a slightly funky and lively kind of beauty, isn’t there? And does beauty always have to look perfect from the outside? I understand the feelings of people in their 20s, when the desire to express themselves is overflowing. But I am saying this because the culture of trying to express oneself through cosmetic surgery feels excessive. Instead of wanting to follow someone else’s nose bridge, or talking about what degree of nasolabial angle is ideal and then applying such theories to one’s own unique face, cutting up and analyzing one’s face and objectifying and evaluating one’s own body as if processing a product is not what we should be doing. What really needs to be cherished and developed is one’s own uniqueness. (Go to a restaurant or cafe and look around. Everyone is different. Look at the faces of the greatest actresses who were praised as beautiful; in fact, they are all different.)
Why is it that people in their 20s and 30s, the age when they are most beautiful and shine even without trying, get the most cosmetic surgery... it is really ironic. Well, I did the same, but looking back, I wonder why I did it. Maybe it was because I was at the age when I wanted to dress up a lot, and I thought of it as an event worth a few million won or as fashion. I did not seriously think of it as a medical procedure. The few million won spent at that age can later end up requiring revision surgery, and people who think their cosmetic surgery has worked to some degree often become hooked on plastic surgery, whether procedures or operations, and keep doing one thing after another, easily spending the price of a luxury midsize car on surgery. Do you know that if you invest that money at 7 percent compound interest over 20 years until your 40s, it becomes a sum in the hundreds of millions of won? It is a lot of money that could pay for travel, study abroad, and doing what you want. Even in your 40s, even as a middle-aged woman, the motivation to continue self-development with ease is enormous. What is happiness, and what kind of woman is a wonderful woman? - I am talking and ending up saying all sorts of things, lol. In any case, from what I have experienced, I have lived without financial hardship, and even though I never had plastic surgery while calculating every cost, I feel that it is a waste of time, attention, and money that could be used for many other experiences. Above all, my body and health can be depleted, and that value cannot be converted into money. When surgery goes wrong and you move on to reconstructive surgery, the cost multiplies several times, so I worry when I see people in their 20s who have barely saved part-time wages or salaries and casually jump into cosmetic surgery.
Surgery never gives results easily right away. The recovery and adjustment period is longer than expected, and all the hardship is borne by my own body. Not only is that period of hardship a waste of time, but most of the cosmetic procedures I have experienced changed in their results over the first few years and the years after that, and complications appeared years later. (The body, our flesh and bones, are living organisms that grow and then age. The body and mind change as we get older, and the standards of each era also change.) Therefore, do not judge only by the 2D photos of a review taken at a specific time after surgery, (especially when the person does not explain the surgical method in detail and there are no reviews of the discomfort felt inside the body during recovery), photos that have been edited, photos showing only that part without the rest of the face, or photos from only one angle.
And above all, do not look at a case from someone whose facial structure and body constitution are completely different from mine and decide to apply it to myself, rush to that hospital, or decide to have that surgery. That is foolish. (Even if the nose shape looks similar, the internal conditions of the nose can be completely different from person to person.) Cosmetic surgery is not makeup that you can apply and erase, and it is not clothing that you can put on and take off. It is an irreversible medical procedure performed on the body I love, on my life and health, something I must live with for the rest of my life and know better than anyone else. (Even hyaluronic acid filler, once injected into body tissue, is said not to dissolve completely.)
It may seem like a matter of the skin and bones, a physical question of appearance, but it is also very likely a matter of misconceptions about the definition of a beautiful face, overly internalized uniform standards of beauty from mass media or SNS, unnecessary appearance criticism from those around us, obsession with one’s own looks called body dysmorphic disorder, trends that change after 5 to 10 years, medical marketing under capitalism, competitive feelings toward others, and solving depression, in other words, psychology. The problem is that such psychology leads to making physical decisions about my own body that cannot be reversed once made.