Before<Before removal (bruising)>Before<Before removal (tip drooping)>After<After removal>After<Side view after removal>1. First surgery method In November 2017, because I was worried about a low nose, I had rhinoplasty with 4 mm silicone, ear cartilage, and donated rib cartilage. Back then I wanted nose surgery so badly that I went ahead without even looking up the side effects... That is the part I regret the most.
2. After the first surgery Not long after the surgery, the tip of my nose started to droop. The doctor at the time told me that my smiling expression itself puts a strong downward force on the tip of the nose, so it couldn’t be helped, and that the surgery was generally done well. He treated me like I was being overly sensitive, I guess. I felt there was no point talking about it more, so I just put it out of my mind for the time being. Why did I do that? Because at that time it was too early to remove it, and when enough time had passed that it could be removed, the whole process of having nose surgery had already been so hard on me that I did not want to go through it again. So, just because I was dissatisfied with the shape, I did not want removal or revision surgery.
Then more than 3 years passed, and the tip drooping gradually got worse. I didn’t like the shape, but I thought there wasn’t a real complication, so I couldn’t bring myself to think I needed surgery. Then I started to feel that the silicone end was becoming visible, and I even felt like the tip of my nose had gotten shorter. I got scared that maybe this was contracture, and I made up my mind to have it removed.
3. Starting removal consultations Before starting removal consultations, I called the original hospital and asked in detail about the surgery process at that time. That was when I found out that donated rib cartilage had been used. There was absolutely no mention of it when I had the surgery, so I was shocked that they suddenly said donated rib cartilage had been used. And the reason I had not thought about donated rib cartilage all this time was that my tip was so soft that I never imagined donated rib cartilage had been used. Anyway, if you are planning revision or removal, definitely call the original hospital and ask... You may learn something new...
From here on, these are my removal consultation reviews. They are all in Apgujeong, and except for the first one, they are places known for removal. I think most of you have probably heard of them at least once.
The first hospital told me very firmly that if I removed it, I would absolutely never be able to return to my original nose. They immediately talked about revision surgery instead.
The second hospital explained the possible risks and how they would solve them. That made me trust them. I saw somewhere that this doctor explains things like a sloth,,, and that is totally true. At first I was like, huh?, but he explained everything carefully one by one, and especially the communication was the best.
The third place seemed a bit busy and flustered, and told me that if I removed it, I could go right back to my previous nose. (They seemed too confident, which made it feel a little less trustworthy.)
The fourth... I cried a lot during the consultation, and honestly that doctor seemed to have taken some sort of pleasure in making people cry during consultations. When I started crying, he said to me, "Why are you already crying? We haven’t even started yet." Looking back now, I think there really were quite a few patients who cried there. It’s not that there was a personality problem; he was telling me the worst-case scenario and saying that even if I accepted those risks, he would remove it. I think that attitude is very good. The problem was that I wanted full removal, and even if I had to give up some of the nose shape, I did not want to use any extra cartilage. Especially not the septum. The reason was that it was hard, I disliked the foreign-body feeling, and I hated the idea of taking out my own healthy cartilage. I had heard that if too much is removed, the nose could collapse. But when I said I did not want to use all the cartilage for the tip of my nose, he acted like that made no sense and said then I should be prepared for the whole nose to collapse, and kept asking why I was worrying about the shape of my nose, as if I were being greedy(?). I mean, it’s not that I wanted my nose to become pretty; I just wanted at least a nose that looked like a normal nose. Was I really that wrong? It felt unfair. So I asked whether it would be possible to do it with only ear cartilage rather than septal cartilage, since I didn’t want to use the septum. Then he told me, "If patients start deciding what doctors can and can’t do like this, what are we supposed to do?"...He did take X-rays and seemed careful, but it felt like he had no consideration for the patient.
I went with the hospital from those consultations that I trusted, and while I had made the reservation and was waiting, I suddenly got bruising on the bridge of my nose. If it had just been bruising, I wouldn’t have said anything, but it was swollen too, so I got scared that it might be inflammation and called them. They said it was okay as long as I had taken antibiotics, and told me not to do cold compresses.
4. On the day of surgery They said the bruising was because the bridge of the nose had been eroded by the silicone, exposing blood vessels in the bone and causing bleeding... sob sob. This had happened before too, but I thought it had just been from bumping it. The surgery method was full removal, and the capsule was not removed. (The bruising was not inflammation, and when they touched the skin of the nose, it was not hard but soft, so they said it was not contracture. Because the skin had become thin from the silicone, removing the capsule would make it even thinner.) It was done closed. I actually debated a lot over closed versus open, but up to that point my nose tip had been so soft that I expected only a little donated rib cartilage had been inserted. So I thought it had probably been absorbed and broken into pieces. That made me think open surgery would be necessary if I wanted everything removed. Still, they said it would be very upsetting to get a scar from removal, so since the cartilage itself was not inflamed, I just had it done closed.
5. After removal As a result of the surgery, the rib cartilage was very large and completely unbroken... haha. Doing it closed was truly a stroke of genius. I had all of the rib cartilage removed, and the bridge of my nose was not sunken, but it is flat. Well, it does resemble my original nose a lot after the major swelling went down. It feels a little different and the bridge is slightly flat, but this is good enough for me.
6. Something I really want to say!! First of all, once you have surgery, it is true that you can never go back to the way things were before. So if you are thinking about surgery, please be careful. And personally, I think it is impossible for surgery to have absolutely no side effects. I think the real question is whether those side effects are at a tolerable level or not. (Apart from the shape-related issues, there were times after nose surgery when breathing was difficult, about as bad as allergic rhinitis.) And to those of you considering removal!! Of course it varies from person to person, and if you really remove it, you might end up very dissatisfied with your nose. But personally, I think my low nose is so cute now. It is a little disappointing that it is flat, but I am much happier than I was with the worry and anxiety about side effects. So please think carefully and do removal well. Silicone dissolves bone... really. So if bruising appears for no reason, go to the hospital right away. And if you keep leaving the tip drooping, silicone show-through will happen. Just like me....
I hope everyone stays happy and healthy. Hang in there a little, everyone. There are probably many people around you who worry about you.