Before<Before surgery>After<After surgery, after the splint was removed!>After<One month has passed>After<This is the most recent photo lol>Hello~ My writing isn’t great, so it may feel a little awkward, but since I got a lot of help by lurking here hehe, I thought my review might help someone too, so I’m gathering the courage to write it
First, I.. don’t think my nose was that bad even before surgery. But my double eyelids are on the deep side, so should I say my low nasal bridge somehow felt not quite harmonious? Every time I looked in the mirror or took photos, I kept feeling slightly disappointed My friends tried to stop me, saying I didn’t have a hump either and that the shape itself wasn’t a nose that needed surgery.. But your own complex is something only you understand lol! Once my nose started looking disappointing, I also started worrying about my blunt and wide nasal alae.. yeah lol Then when I came to my senses, I was already looking up hospitals hehe
First, I was dissatisfied more with the height than the shape of my nose.. so naturally I wanted what people these days call a semi-natural to glamorous line Since I was getting surgery because I had no nasal bridge, I felt like if I made it unnoticeable and natural, I’d 100% regret it later. As I looked at reviews, I also felt that the style I liked was in that direction.. So while looking at review photos, I narrowed it down mainly to hospitals that do a lot of semi-natural to glamorous surgeries and are also often visited for revision surgery! It was my first surgery, but I’d heard a lot that hospitals good at revision surgery tend to be more meticulous hehe
So I picked a few places like that and started consultations. At one hospital that didn’t take a CT scan, they first decided on septal cartilage and other cartilage, and said that after opening the nose in the operating room, if the septal cartilage was insufficient, they would use rib cartilage then. They told me to sign a consent form before entering the operating room saying that if the septal cartilage was insufficient, donor rib cartilage would be used. That felt way too irresponsible,,? heh There were a few hospitals like that, saying they couldn’t know about the septal cartilage right now, that you only know after taking a CT scan, so they’d check in the operating room and, if it was insufficient, use donor rib cartilage on their own. I went because it was a hospital many people go to for revisions, but if they consult without even taking a CT scan.. I wondered, is this really a hospital that’s good at revision surgery..? (I don’t know how it is for revision consultation patients)
I was thinking, are all hospitals like this? I see.. and then my last consultation was at LBR. It was slightly hard to even get an appointment there, so I visited half exhausted and half expectant, and I definitely understood why it’s hard to book. A lot of people go there for both first surgeries and revisions, but the consultation itself was so systematic, meticulous, and detailed. Honestly, since it’s a busy hospital, I didn’t expect that much from the consultation, but they actually looked at me for much longer and in more detail than other hospitals that had been quiet, so I liked that
After filling out the chart and taking photos, they even took a CT scan. I actually first learned at this hospital that CT scans are taken before rhinoplasty lol (Other hospitals either only took photos before the consultation or didn’t even take photos.) After consulting with the consultant, I met the director. The director first checked my nose visually from different angles, then put up the photos and CT scan and explained step by step while drawing over them. He explained everything from the nose design and the needed silicone height to the types of rib cartilage, and I liked that he kept asking in between, “Do you understand~?”
Looking at the CT scan, he said I could use septal cartilage sufficiently, but because the nose style and height I wanted were somewhat tall and defined.. the director recommended using rib cartilage, considering that it could droop later. Wow, it felt so relieving lol It wasn’t an uncertain consultation; after hearing such a smooth, clear consultation for the first time in a while, I felt like all the stress I had gone through before was a waste lolol Naturally, I couldn’t help but be drawn to this hospital.. The consultant also worked passionately to coordinate the date and explained various things carefully, so I paid the deposit right away and set the surgery date!
After surgery, honestly, the biggest discomfort wasn’t nose pain, but the autologous costal cartilage harvesting site and the cotton packed in my nose lol Why did a fingernail-sized wound hurt that much..^^ I got through it with the humidifier turned up high and by taking painkillers, so it passed quickly.. Still, the first 3 days after surgery were a little hard lolol But the moment I removed the splint and faced my nose for the first time, all that hardship was completely forgotten lolol Compared to others, I didn’t bruise much, and I think the swelling was also mild.
At the time, at one week I thought I had no swelling at all and could put on makeup and go outside right away, but looking at it now, you can clearly see it was higher than now and had fine swelling lolol As expected, swelling is swelling heh After that, I diligently went for walks every night and consistently went to the hospital for care and progress checks, so the height settled quickly and the swelling went down fast. The autologous costal cartilage harvesting site was very small to begin with, and the director took care to stitch it nicely, so now it doesn’t really show and doesn’t bother me lol I guess time really is the medicine for swelling and recovery hehe This must be why everyone says to go to as many consultations as possible and compare,,, Everyone, I hope you don’t get too swayed by what directors say, and that you diligently visit consultations as much as possible and have surgery somewhere trustworthy!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment hehe