I’m 3 months out from revision rhinoplasty. Around August, I’m scheduled to have another revision surgery again at the same hospital where I had the previous one. It feels like it’s already been 3 years, but they said I need to wait at least 6 months for the tissue quality to soften before I can have surgery again, so I’m waiting. I know this is surgery I’m doing so it can turn out better again, and that it’s better to let the wounds heal a lot and do it as late as possible.
I had my first surgery about 3 years ago at a clinic, and the shape came out well, so I was very satisfied and living fine, but my rhinitis became unbelievably severe, so I ended up having revision surgery. As time passed, it felt like my nose had gotten a bit lower, and I also had some desire to improve it a little more. After doing a lot of research, I had revision surgery at an ENT-specialized hospital that was mentioned a lot on several plastic surgery cafes and apps. I had bulbous nose surgery + structural/form improvement + rhinitis surgery. I had surgery using autologous costal cartilage. I knew the director’s style was to compromise with the patient’s opinions and create a shape that wasn’t excessive, and I liked that, which is why I went there, but the result was so subtle that people wouldn’t know unless I said something ㅋㅋㅋㅋ My original nose line was pretty, so I kept thinking a lot, “Did I really remove rib cartilage, pay that much money, go through all this hardship, and recover just to get this result?”
Maybe because it was revision surgery, recovery was extremely slow. There were some inflammation-like symptoms here and there, and as time passed, they all turned out to be part of the recovery process. Maybe because my nose was originally small, my nose couldn’t tolerate the firm autologous costal cartilage well, and symptoms like nasal valve stenosis occurred. The inner wall of the nasal septum swelled up. I live outside Seoul, so I went to an ENT and asked, and they said that because of swelling, the nose may not handle the costal cartilage well, so breathing can feel stuffy? They said firm costal cartilage is good for creating a high shape, but cases like this do sometimes happen.
The rhinitis-related part improved, but I felt a bit stuffy when breathing, and because of that, yellow nasal discharge? Something like an inflamed-nose discharge came out a lot when rinsing my nose. It’s still the same now, and it does improve if I take sinusitis medication, but I developed sinusitis that I didn’t have before. During recovery, since I had rhinitis surgery at the same time, the nasal congestion was extremely severe, so I touched my nose quite a lot. I also picked my nose often, and I think I was negligent with personal aftercare too. As a result, I developed an unbelievable amount of scar tissue. Even externally, I could see unevenness next to the nasal columella/bridge area. The hospital often managed it with scar-tissue injections, and I bought and took every medication said to soften tissue quality, so although the difference is subtle, as time passes it is loosening little by little, very slowly. But there’s still scar tissue, and maybe because it’s autologous costal cartilage, the swelling at the nasal tip is also going down extremely slowly. Honestly, I can’t tell whether this is a nose that had bulbous nose surgery or what; the blunt feeling just won’t go away.
Even taking into account that there is scar tissue and swelling at the nasal tip, overall I feel like the nasal tip is too spread out. We decided that at least 6 months later, once the tissue quality has softened, I’ll have another revision to remove scar tissue and improve the spread-out nasal tip. Looking at cafes, people usually don’t get another revision at the same hospital, but I trust the doctor himself a lot, and above all, he’s honest. He is a bit curt though ㅋㅋ I also think that even if you go to an expensive hospital where everyone else succeeded, people who are going to have a bad result will still have a bad result, and people who will do well will get it right in one go... things like that. Maybe because his style is not to operate excessively, there don’t seem to be major severe complication cases either.
Even after two surgeries, I didn’t have situations like inflammatory symptoms or contracture, but the more I searched plastic surgery cases, the more I found so many complication cases... Above all, I suffered so much emotionally during recovery ㅜㅜ I’m so scared. When I didn’t know much, I touched this and that without thinking, but now that I know, why is it so scary... Since they’ll reopen it and operate again, I’m really torn about whether I should also raise the nasal silicone implant height a little and improve through the nasal tip, or leave the silicone as it is and only do the nasal tip (bulbous nose correction + nasal tip shape correction). What would be better? ㅠㅠ When I searched, I saw that some people still develop contracture even after surgery with autologous costal cartilageㅠㅠ
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