I'm sharing this as both a personal record of my recovery and a thank-you for the many helpful reviews I found here, so I’m posting my own as well. I hope this helps even a little for those of you considering surgery or who have already had it. Before surgery, I searched for clinics a lot, but after surgery I found myself looking up recovery reviews for 1 week, 3 months, 1 year, and so on. Even after having the implant removed, they say the shape keeps changing, so I still find myself staring at my nose every day.
* Immediate post-op care: cold compresses, pumpkin juice, Terramycin ointment Starting on day 3, the swelling gradually went down, and I kept applying the ointment well and doing cold compresses often, just as the clinic instructed. I was told pumpkin juice is good for swelling, so at one point I was drinking as many as 4 packs a day, but maybe because I overdid it, there were days I felt nauseated. From day 5 on, I only had 2 to 3 packs when I wanted them, like a snack. I thought if my routine got disrupted or I didn’t eat properly, recovery might be slower, so I kept a regular sleep schedule and made sure to eat all three meals on time. Taking my medication regularly helped with the swelling, but in the end what I gained was 3 kg of weight () To reduce swelling, I wore a mask and walked for about an hour each time, but it had absolutely no effect on my weight, and my breath made the mask damp, which was really hard. Still, I guess it helped with the swelling...?
* Care after stitch removal on day 6: Terramycin ointment, Fucidin, pumpkin juice By day 6, only yellow bruising remained beside my nose and the swelling had gone down a lot, so I stopped the cold compresses. Having the stitches removed didn’t hurt as much as I expected, and when they cleaned out all the foreign material inside my nose, it felt so refreshing. My nose had been crooked, so breathing was uncomfortable, but after removing the silicone and clearing out the foreign material that had accumulated after surgery, I could finally breathe through two nostrils again!! (It felt like I got a new nostril) From then on I felt more confident and could go out and eat meals outside.
* Changes in nose shape Please use the photos only as a reference, since the nose looks different depending on the angle.
Right after surgery, there was no swelling and I was surprised because I looked more normal than I expected, but then my nose gradually started to swell, and the tip became shorter and slightly upturned. My surgeon also told me that right after surgery the nose looks lifted, but that it’s because of swelling, so not to be alarmed. If I hadn’t heard that, I think I would have fallen asleep crying every night. Thanks to that, I was able to stay calm and wait for time to solve it, kept doing cold compresses regularly, and also took lots of pumpkin juice early on.
Starting from day 3, the swelling began to go down, and since I’m not someone who normally swells easily, I think it may have been less than for others. Right after the stitches were removed on day 6, the swelling at the tip of my nose started to go down. My nose tip looked like a small cherry tomato, so even when I looked in the mirror it bothered me, but after a week it gradually became slimmer, and from the front or the side, the previously upturned nose came down a lot. By the 2-week mark, I was going out without a mask, and a friend I met after a while was shocked and said it was like magic. Without the silicone, it looks much more natural, and since all the artificial-looking parts are gone, I was encouraged that it’s much better now, so I felt reassured and relieved that my choice wasn’t wrong.
* Scar care: Noscarna, Dermatix Since this was an open procedure, my biggest concern was scarring. I had searched in advance and bought DuoDERM, Steri-Strips, Noscarna, and Dermatix beforehand, but the clinic told me that for the scar area, I could just apply the Terramycin or Fucidin I already had for 2 to 3 days, so I did wonder whether that alone would really be okay, but trusting the clinic to be the most accurate, I only used Fucidin. And since I needed to care for the scar so its color would fade at least a little, starting on day 10 I spread Noscarna on first and applied Dermatix on top of it. There are so many brands of scar ointment that I was deliberation about which one to use, and when I searched blogs there were so many posts;; The two-product combination I wrote above seemed the most effective to me, so I’ve kept using it, but since it has to be applied consistently for several months, I still don’t know the effect yet ()
However, ever since the stitches were removed, the inside of the left side of my nose would sometimes throb and swell, and when I later asked about it at the clinic, they said it was scar tissue. It’s scar tissue caused by the open procedure, and they said that if it forms at the tip or inside the nose, they can give a scar tissue injection after a month, so for now I’m watching the progress, and if it doesn’t get better, I’ll go get the injection.. They also said the scar tissue will go down over time, so not to rush, but I can’t help feeling anxious.
- They say the surgery ultimately depends on the condition of each person’s nose. In my case, I had 10-year-old Medpor, silicone, and cartilage inside, and it took over half a year before I made the decision to have surgery. I kept debating whether to do it or not, but as the skin sagged with age, the silicone was visible and crooked, so I couldn’t breathe properly, and once I found out there was Medpor in the columellar support, I became psychologically uneasy too and didn’t want to keep aging like this forever ()
As I wrote in my first review after surgery, once I had chosen the clinic, it felt like I could only move forward believing my choice was right. I searched obsessively for removal reviews, visited multiple clinics, and it took a long time before I made my final decision, but in the end, seeing myself return to a sagging nose closer to my original nose, I think it went better than I expected, so I’m relieved. Looking back now, I think I spent each day worrying too much and feeling anxious over things that hadn’t even happened yet, constantly searching for information. I was the same way, and because I received so much information and good energy from the reviews here, I’m leaving my own thanks through this review.
For everyone who has decided on surgery, and for everyone enduring the swelling together, let’s all keep going!!