After<9~10>After<November>After<November>After<November>After<January>After<January>Before<February>Before<February> I can say that from week 6 to week 8 after surgery was such a mentally rough period that I was taking selfies, checking the swelling, thinking it seemed to have gone down a bit but also seemed swollen, and obsessively examining changes in my face (Did it get longer? Did it sag? etc.) while worrying a lot. Recently, the clinic where I had surgery sent me a notice asking me to write a 3-month review, and I thought, oh, it has already been 3 months. Looking back on the process, all of those worries were only for that moment. My biggest concerns were headache, intraocular pressure, high fever, swelling, cheek hollowing, and sagging, and I think my most recent concern was suddenly developing a tingling nerve abnormality while just sitting still.
First of all, nerve abnormalities, headaches, intraocular pressure, high fever, and so on are not things I can say will absolutely disappear (they disappeared for me). Depending on the situation, it could be an inflammatory response, or it could be part of the healing process, and I don’t think the cause and result can be clearly judged. I think I covered the details in a previous post, but because of headaches of unknown cause and intraocular pressure, I had to take Tylenol about two days a week, and I also had a persistent low-grade fever. At that time, while seeing posts saying that if you have cheekbone surgery, you should take sinusitis into account, I thought, ah, it finally happened to me too, and I looked up a lot about sinusitis, but it did not lead to sinusitis, and now I barely even remember that there was a time like that. The tingling nerve abnormality while sitting still was also one part of the recovery process, and I think the migraine was also a passing recovery process. The scar tissue inside my mouth has now reduced a lot, to the point where I have to stretch my tongue tremendously inside my mouth and lift it upward just to barely touch the bumpy end. With a-e-i-o-u stretching, I don’t feel the scar tissue pulling at all, and I only barely feel it pulling when I rotate my lips extremely far left and right. The bulldog-like jowls have almost gone down, so when I look in the mirror, my nasolabial folds don’t bother me. The cheek hollowing caused by swelling completely disappeared.
The swelling really follows the exact same course as other reviews. I once saw a post somewhere that said, ‘At month 3, I looked at photos from month 1, and the photos I took thinking the swelling had gone down quite a lot looked like some kind of soccer ball.’ Hahahahahahahahaha I relate to that so much. At month 2, I thought the swelling was almost gone, so I went out drinking and took a lot of photos. When I look at my month-2 photos now, my face is swollen like a steamed bun, but I’m posing like I look pretty. For today’s review, I’m going to focus on comparing photos from months 1~2 with current photos a little. If you compare them with the photos from my previous post where I lay down and took pictures of my swollen face flowing to the side, you can really see hahahaha total opposites.
I did not hear feedback from people around me about the surgery until month 3. At month 1, I was so swollen that I couldn’t go outside unless I wore a hat, at month 2 I looked like a bulldog, and only when month 3 came did people gradually give feedback about my face, saying my face had definitely gotten smaller, the surgery was worth it, the overall vibe of my face had changed, I had become prettier, my face was the size of a fist, and so on. Before, when I asked, “How do I look?” most reactions were like, “So shaving bone doesn’t necessarily make you look like a plastic surgery monster~ I can’t really tell you had it done,” or “If you don’t say anything, I wouldn’t know,” basically responses like, “Are you sure you got prettier?” These days, even when I don’t ask, I hear exclamations that start with “Wow, but seriously...”
Personally, because my cheekbones that used to be wide from side to side became narrower, there are times when I look in the mirror and think that a face I never thought was long now looks long. But it’s not to the point of stressing me out, and I just laugh it off like, ah, I originally had a big face, so now that it’s narrower side to side, the up-and-down length looks long lol. Also, my nose looks bigger than before, and I find myself thinking, somehow my nose..? Did it get bigger? Me..? But I think my nose looks bigger because the overall area of my face got smaller, even though I had never thought my nose was big in my life. When I wear a mask, there is extra room and it moves around, so I’m very satisfied. **I thought my face would dramatically become goddess-like, but the law that your original base does not change exists, and photos taken by others from bad camera angles or photos where I didn’t pay attention to the angle still come out horribly ugly.** I briefly think about whether I need to set my protruding eyes back in or where else I should get surgery, but originally, other than my cheekbones, there was nowhere else on my face I wanted to fix, so I don’t want to take on risks and go through surgery elsewhere. I wouldn’t do it even if someone paid me. But I am considering lifting or under-eye fat repositioning.. Though I’ll probably keep thinking about it and not do it.
Around month 5, I started forgetting that I even had surgery. When I think of the terrible memory of waking up from general anesthesia, I don’t think I could do this twice in my life. I think from now on, the only thing left is for me to become prettier. And honestly, I’m curious whether the reviews saying that the face collapses downward after cheekbone reduction will apply to me too, but I took that into account before surgery, so I’m ready to accept it, and if my face starts sagging, I’ll come back and write again for everyone here like “@@ months post-op, I think my face is starting to sag~”.
Also, I don’t want to put a knife to my face again, recover, swell up, and deal with that crap again, so I’m thinking of not removing the pins ㅠㅠ I really hope the fixation pins stay inside my body without causing any problems. Everyone, after cheekbone surgery, because of the swelling right afterward, your face looks awful and for about a month or two you may feel like the face surgery made you look even worse, like you’ll never recover, and a mentally rough period comes, but it all passes, so hang in there.
- ps. Personally, anti-swelling medication didn’t help even 1%. A radiofrequency massager seems effective. I think I only wore my compression band properly for about a week, I really didn’t wear it much haha. But I still don’t really know about sagging and things like that yet.
- PS2. There are photos that aren’t mosaicked too, but I was too lazy so I’m just uploading them.. In the photos, when I was swollen, I looked swollen and ugly like a grandma, and I thought it was understandable that I had a mentally rough period thinking, “This ugly phase, when will it go away?” These days, I’m gradually living without paying much attention to my face.
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This review is for surgery that pursues a natural look.