Before<<Before>>Before<<Before>>Before<<1 week after surgery>>After<<After>>After<<After>>After<<After>>After<<After>>About 3 years ago, I had my first surgery at a plastic surgery clinic near Sinsa Station. Two people I knew had surgery there, and their results were better than I expected, so at the time I thought I would probably be fine if I did it there too. I decided to have a consultation without shopping around, paid right away, and the surgery went ahead quickly. I had no idea that this choice would lead to enormous regret later.
Since I didn’t even know much about nasal lines, I just asked them to make it as glamorous as possible. Unlike the long consultation time with the consultant, I had less than 5 minutes of consultation with the doctor in charge. When I looked in the mirror after removing the splint, the bridge between my eyebrows was so high that I wondered if this was really a nose that had undergone rhinoplasty. The nasal tip was pointy because it had not been long since the surgery, but there was not a big before-and-after difference compared with before surgery. My nose was already long, but I wondered if it was just my imagination that it looked even longer. After the swelling went down, the columella descended and it started to look like an arrow-shaped nose.
When I went for follow-up after removing the splint, scar tissue that had not been there between the end point of the silicone implant and the nasal tip started filling in, and it began deforming like a hump. I completely believed them when they said it would get better once the swelling went down, but from the day the splint was removed until now, 3 years later, my nose stayed the same.
Only now was I able to take time off work, so I went back to the hospital where I had my previous surgery to look into revision surgery again, but I left without booking revision surgery. I realized late that this place was a factory-style hospital. It is also a hospital that people would recognize by name, but no matter how famous it is or how good they are said to be at noses, you really have to think carefully. Results vary that much case by case, so even if everyone you know turns out well, your own nose can still end up ruined like mine.
After lamenting about my situation, I was introduced to one hospital through a recommendation from an acquaintance of my boyfriend. But because this was a revision surgery, I was scared of having to go through another hard week, so this time I looked into 4 hospitals in total. After going to all of them, I ultimately chose the hospital that had been recommended.
Of course there were other good hospitals too, but from the consultation stage, I could tell whether it was a factory-style hospital now or not, and whether it was a hospital that could pour its full focus into each patient. At the hospital I chose, the consultant only explained the basic framework, listened to me as much as possible, and empathized with me. She did not mention anything about the approximate cost at all. Unlike other hospitals, she said I could discuss the rest with the doctor in charge and stepped out.
After consulting with the doctor, I thought, did I just study medicine? More than an hour had passed before I knew it. He firmly told me that he does not perform more than one surgery a day, and he explained step by step why I needed this surgical process, what needed to be corrected, and where and how it would be done. Because the donated costal cartilage from my first surgery had almost completely dissolved, he explained the difference between donated costal cartilage and autologous costal cartilage. After that consultation ended, when I discussed the cost with the consultant, other hospitals had only told me the total price, but this hospital broke it down in detail and explained that this amount came from this surgical method and process. That made me feel that it would be okay to have it done at this hospital.
When I visited thinking, let’s trust one more time, the half-doubtful feeling I had opened up a little. I paid the deposit and went home with lighter steps. About 10 days later, I had surgery using autologous costal cartilage to lower the nasal bridge between the eyebrows and raise the nasal tip. The case was more difficult than it looked externally, so the surgery took a little longer than expected.
As soon as I woke up from anesthesia, I looked in the mirror first, and it turned out so well that I thought, isn’t it too high? I think I understood why people call the doctor their second father after they have a satisfying surgery.
For 3 years, when I told people around me that my nose had been operated on, I heard things that cut into my heart, like “Why did you do it?”, “Are you sure you had it done?”, “What a waste of money,” and “If it were me, I wouldn’t have done my nose.” My confidence dropped so much that I had trouble going outside without colored contact lenses. But after revision surgery, I was so satisfied with my nose line that I even got LASIK, and I am now living a truly happy new life.
I have seen countless reviews and advertising/promotional posts, but I also felt that someday I really wanted my surgery to turn out well so I could upload post-op review photos and take photos like that too. So I wrote this!