Last winter, a lump suddenly appeared on my nose, and it feels like a past life now that I joined this community crying.
I had rhinoplasty about 15 years ago. I had silicone placed in my nose, and auricular cartilage placed in the nasal tip. For 15 years, I really had no problems at all. But rhinitis suddenly developed... Since a lot of people say rhinitis and rhinoplasty are unrelated, I lived without thinking the rhinitis was because of the rhinoplasty. (But I do think it got worse to some extent because of the rhinoplasty.. Before rhinoplasty, I lived without even knowing what rhinitis was.)
It wasn’t like other people, where I had inflammation in my nose and removed it. Because of a lump with a completely unknown cause, I went to literally dozens of hospitals.
There was almost no famous general hospital I didn’t visit to find out the diagnosis. I went to private plastic surgery clinics, ENT clinics, dermatology clinics, and even a surgery clinic famous for lipomas. After the surgery, I was bored and roughly calculated it, and I think I spent over 700,000 won.. lol I just wanted to know why a lump had appeared on my nose. Because many hospitals said it didn’t seem like a silicone side effect. I had to know the cause before deciding whether to have surgery or not, and I was seriously going crazy.
I uploaded photos here too, and posted photos of my nose in all kinds of rhinoplasty-related Naver cafes, but of course I’ve deleted them all now. I don’t want to upload photos again, so I won’t include photos in this review.
I spent almost a month like a wreck, only going around hospitals, and there was something two general hospitals both said. I thought that cause seemed likely, so I tried to have surgery at one of those general hospitals, but I had to wait too long. (The cause of the lump seemed to be that a piece of nasal silicone had broken off. They said removing it should be enough.) If I had waited, I probably still wouldn’t have had surgery by now.
When getting rhinoplasty, you can’t do anything for almost a week, and I couldn’t wait around 3 months, so I went around to a few more private general hospitals again. Of course, I also visited all the top three removal clinics, and searched all removal-related posts on the clinic review app and went everywhere.
Among them, the director at the hospital where I had surgery looked at my nose and immediately said with certainty, “Oh? It looks like a silicone piece. For this, we can just first remove the silicone piece, and remove the silicone.” That’s what he said. Honestly, when I first went for the consultation, it felt like I was only hearing exactly what I wanted to hear, so I didn’t trust it. He said it really wasn’t a difficult surgery at all, that they could just remove the silicone piece and remove the silicone, and if I didn’t like my nose, I could have revision surgery later. He said if the silicone piece couldn’t be removed with a closed approach, they would switch to an open approach, but they would proceed with a closed approach first. He said it would of course become lower, but that was simply my choice, and things like that.
Other hospitals said that if I removed the silicone, my nose would collapse, that my nose absolutely needed revision surgery... What was it? I don’t even remember the term. Dermis?? They said something had to be inserted. I heard a lot of things like that, but no hospital said as calmly as that one that only the silicone needed to be removed. And there was no other hospital that said they would remove the piece with a closed approach either. Almost 99% of hospitals said they would do the removal itself with an open approach.
My rhinoplasty itself was done with a closed approach, and my skin type tends to scar badly or leave surgical marks, so an open approach was one option I really wanted to avoid.
After thinking about it for about 3 days, I eventually had the surgery, and I’ve been doing well so far. I think it’s really important to visit hospitals in person and research thoroughly online, and there really is a hospital that just feels right. That was really fascinating.
At every other hospital, I thought I would never come back there again, but with the hospital where I had the removal surgery, I thought I might come here a few more times.
And thanks to everyone here who wrote posts, left comments, and recommended hospitals, saying that hospitals famous for revision rhinoplasty are naturally good at removal too and that I shouldn’t only look at the top three, I think I found a hospital that was exactly right for me.
After surgery, I went back to the hospital about twice, and each time they told me that having the silicone removed suited my face better and looked much better. It’s a hospital specializing in revision rhinoplasty, so I don’t think saying something like that is easy, and I felt like they were thinking from the patient’s perspective.
Ah! Also, the hospital said that if I still had pain 3 months after removal, or if pain appeared after 3 months, that would mean something was wrong, and told me to come back to the hospital if pain developed after 3 months. I’m going to keep watching carefully until the 3-month mark.
I don’t think I’ll come into this community much anymore, and although it’s a site with a lot of brokers... I think it’s also a site with many desperate people and many kind-hearted people who want to help others. Out of gratitude, I’m leaving this review here.
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