The top photo is before surgery / the bottom one is after. My nasal bridge still hurts, so I haven’t been able to remove the sebum yet, so please look at it with blurry eyes...^_T
0. First surgery. I went in to correct a crooked nose and had silicone 1.5 mm + ear cartilage (that’s what they said, but when removing it, it turned out they had also used septal cartilage)
Reason I decided on removal. Less than 6 months after surgery, the ear cartilage started showing through at the nasal tip. The clinic recommended revision surgery at half the price of the first surgery. Back then, I was scared, so I left it alone. They said it would become comfortable within a year, but with no improvement, even after 7 or 8 years, sunglasses or masks pressed on my nose so much that I couldn’t wear them. As time passed, even when I was staying still, the silicone pressed down on my nose, and eventually the feeling that a stake had been driven into the middle of my face never went away. Even when I was just staying still, from about 4 or 5 years after surgery, I developed an itchy symptom that made me want to scratch the inner lining inside my left nostril. This was the most distressing and made me want to cry. Inside my nose, the bone was also deviated, and from above the silicone was crooked too. Since I also have rhinitis, one side of my nose was always blocked.
I was truly so sick of it, but I found out far too late that removal was possible, and since I was working at a company where I absolutely couldn’t attach annual leave to my days off, I really endured it for a long time.
1. Clinic consultations A community post link
2. Day of surgery Complete removal + open approach After changing clothes in the recovery room, I washed my face / disinfected inside my mouth / signed the consent form, then went into the operating room.
It was done with 15 minutes of sleep sedation + local anesthesia. When I asked why it wasn’t general anesthesia, they said general anesthesia has higher risks, and after opening it up, if there were any problems, there might be cases where they would need to talk to me before proceeding. While I was getting an IV medication to reduce runny nose and saliva, when they disinfected my whole face, I felt a stinging sensation like after laser treatment, so I worried for a moment that my skin might break out, but that was needless worry... I guess there was just a lot on my skin that needed disinfecting...ㅎ After removing nose hair and disinfecting inside the nose, they said that if I got sleepy, I could just sleep, so I think that’s when they did the sleep sedation. After that, I was hazy and then woke up. I smelled something burning, felt something like bone being pushed, and most decisively, I heard someone quietly whisper that it could have been a serious problem. What? What is it? I wanted to ask inside my head, but I couldn’t bring myself to move and was scared, then I heard about it right after surgery ended. During my first surgery, the clinic had said silicone + ear cartilage, but they had used septal cartilage, and if they had removed it through a closed approach, they might not have seen it. I had debated a bit between open and closed, but they said that since the original surgery was done open, removing it open would be safer, so that’s what I chose. I’m really glad I did. In the middle of all that, I got angry belatedly. Even if they proceeded during surgery because they said it was truly necessary, shouldn’t they have told me afterward? But when I look in this community, there are really many cases where clinics don’t say anything and operate however they wantㅠㅠ
3. After surgery Day of surgery to next-day visit On the day itself, I could feel blood flowing inside my nose, and the next morning it had flowed down to my cheeks, but after the cotton was removed the next morning, it was clean, and I received a laser treatment to reduce swelling.
One-week visit Splint removal, stitch removal at the front of the nose, the glabella area had risen slightly and they said there might be pooled blood, so they drew out about 0.01 cc of blood, put on a bandage, and again did a swelling-reduction laser... And finally, wow! I can finally bend my head down and wash my hair myself. Goodbye to the week when each hair wash cost 10,000 won! But the joy of finally being able to wash my face with water only halfway came back because of the bandage that couldn’t get wet. The swelling had gone down except for the nose, but bruising remained.
One-and-a-half-week visit. Dissolvable stitches removed. Bandage removed! Finally, water! Face! Washing!
One month. It still hurts if I touch the nasal tip, but if I divide my nose into upper and lower halves, the lower part feels so much lighter! My nasal bridge still hurts and the feeling of having a stake driven in is still there, but it has eased a lot compared with right after surgery. Because of that, it feels like only half my nose has been freed, but since it’s still only one month, I guess I need to wait and see.
As of now, the open-nose scar seems smaller than before the removal surgery. The old open-surgery scar was big enough that someone looking at me from the front asked if I had gotten hurt.. The degree of nostril asymmetry has improved, and the extent to which the shape of the nose itself differed between the right and left sides has also improved enough that it’s not very noticeable visually. Of course, the nose height itself has gone down, but for now I’m satisfied. I also still barely feel the itching inside my nose.
I think I’ll need to wait 6 months to 1 year for it to become comfortable, but still, thinking that it will improve if I wait makes my heart feel lighter. I hope everyone searching for reviews gets good results!
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