I had my first rhinoplasty in 2019 - Implant-free rhinoplasty (septal cartilage and donated costal cartilage were used for an extension strut, osteotomy, and alar reduction)
At 10 months after my first rhinoplasty, I had removal and alar reduction done together
The reason for removal was that I had really, really ambiguous symptoms of inflammation, so there were a lot of differing opinions on whether it was serious or not. On the outside, nothing looked wrong, but there was a possibility that inflammation was spreading inside. In the end, some of the hospitals I went to for consultations said they would only know after opening up the nose, so I was almost living in panic and fear and couldn’t function in daily life, so I decided to have it removed.
Today I went to get the splint removed and asked the doctor who did the removal whether, after opening it up, it really was inflammation. He said something along the lines of there being almost none.
Because it was a septal extension strut, I was really worried my nose would turn up, but thankfully it didn’t. Before I went into the removal surgery, I asked him to please just make sure it didn’t turn up. After taking the splint off today, it looks almost the same as my nose before removal. It seems almost the same as when I had the splint removed after my first rhinoplasty. The upper left is before surgery, the lower left is my nose after rhinoplasty, and the right is my nose after removal. Before surgery, I kept imagining the worst possible nose shape and was really worried, but if it’s like this, it turned out well, right? Right now my nose looks thick because of swelling, so I just hope the swelling goes down from this state
For those who had a septal strut or septal extension like me, please don’t worry too much. Among the removal consultations I went to, there were so many places that said my nose would turn up, but at this clinic they said it would become similar to my original nose, so I decided on the removal. The director here said that even noses that had undergone more surgery than mine returned to their original nose, and even noses with worse inflammation returned to their original nose... He told me not to worry, and he was right. Just from this, I feel like the director here is really good at surgery. I think the alar reduction was done well too. Because I had alar reduction, it doesn’t look very spread out either. Rather, my nostrils are smaller than before the removal, so I think it looks a bit prettier. I had the removal thinking I would have no regrets as long as it just looked like a real human nose, but it turned out so much better than expected. Even though I paid for the surgery myself, I’m so, so grateful to the doctor. I even thought I might not be able to leave the house anymore, but now it feels like I’ve come out of the swamp of despair.
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