Hello~ It’s been a few weeks since I last came into this community.
For a while, because of the side effects after my nose surgery, I was practically living in this community, but it’s been some time since I stopped coming by.. Now just thinking about the nose part of nose surgery makes me grimace, so I have no reason to come here anymore, but because there are people who are going through the same mental strain and having a hard time like I did, I’m writing this post to share even a little information~ When I was here 24/7, there were so few cases like mine that I was truly at a loss.. I hope this can help even a little.. and for people thinking about nose surgery, I want to say again that nose surgery is really not something easy and I feel like packing lunch and going around trying to stop people from doing it..
First, I had surgery on February 14. I had a closed approach~ (an incision inside the nose, not a columellar incision..) For the hump, they shaved it down, corrected my nose that was crooked to the right, fixed the drooping tip, and removed tissue because there was too much tissue inside the nose and the airway was narrow. For the bridge, they used an artificial dermis called AlloDerm? MegaDerm? (Pre-op, we had agreed on AlloDerm, but after surgery they said it was MegaDerm, and kept changing their story) For the tip, they used septal cartilage, tied together the alar cartilages, and also did surgery for rhinitis (deviated septum, inferior turbinate, etc.). It sounds like a lot, but in the end it was a bulky-nose correction using the septum and artificial dermis.
I went every day after surgery. But the doctor who operated on me also runs another clinic, so I could only see him on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Until the day they removed the stitches two weeks later, I never saw him once. Another doctor only did things like disinfecting and removing the packing in the meantime? Even though I went every day, I only got IV fluids. Then two weeks later, when they removed the stitches, they looked at the inside incision and said the nose looked strange, and told me to come see the operating doctor the next day when he would be at work.
And the next day, when I went to the surgeon, he said the tissue on both sides of the septum had completely melted away and asked why I had only come now, implying it was partly my fault? I went every day? I was stunned and said I had gone every day but never got to see the doctor, so why was he blaming me? He didn’t answer and just prescribed regenerative ointment and more antibiotics, then told me to come every day for another week. (After getting shocked, I looked in the mirror right there and the tissue had melted away so much that the cartilage was completely visible.. about the size of one finger segment on the little finger. On both sides..)
So the next day, they said it looked like I’d need suturing on the inside of the nose and told me to go into the operating room. This was the first additional suturing. Two weeks later they removed the stitches, and it split open again. Second additional suturing. Then every time the stitches were removed, it would open again, repeating the cycle.. pus also collected in the meantime.. more antibiotics were prescribed.. and I had additional suturing up through the third, fourth, and fifth times. All of this happened over two months.. It was really, really hard.
Because so much tissue melted away around the septum, a small perforation became visible in the middle, which made it even harder. (I heard a septal perforation can happen when a doctor injures the septum badly while operating on it. But I was told not to worry too much about it, though in my case the cartilage was already visible, so I was very worried it would get bigger. I also heard there are cases where it naturally closes.)
My biggest worry was that it had already become too large, so the stitches kept reopening, and if it didn’t heal, the septal cartilage would dissolve and the nose would collapse. Since it was inside the nose, if it were something that could just be left alone, I would have tried to forget about it and live with it, but because the tissue had already melted and the cartilage was exposed, the risk of infection was much higher, so they said the tissue absolutely had to grow back.
I was even more devastated after reading many posts about people whose septal tissue melted, leading to continuous cartilage exposure, then nearby bacterial infection that ate away the septal cartilage too, leaving them having to live with a plastic insert where the septum should be.. Or others whose septal tissue melted and the cartilage developed a hole, so if they inserted a cotton swab toward the septum, it would pass through and come out the other side.. Reading all those stories made me completely despair. If this situation kept progressing, I would end up like that too.. I thought about suicide countless times.
But from the third suturing onward, the left side slowly started healing. The right side, however, showed no sign of healing and opened again. The final, sixth additional suturing.. I also strongly asked them to remove it in the middle, and I went to several other hospitals, but they said it looked like it was healing and that there was no other treatment they could offer, so I would just have to wait.
I live in Busan, and at the two hospitals I consulted there, they said the artificial dermis on the bridge would not cause inflammation in the entrance area of the septum, and that because the septum was autologous cartilage, the chance of inflammation was not high, so I should wait.
When I had online/phone consultations with hospitals in Seoul that specialize in removal (ㅅㅅㅇ, ㅂㄴ, ㅍㄹㅁ), all of them recommended removal, saying the most likely causes were the artificial dermis on the bridge or infection during surgery.. but since they are removal-specialist hospitals, I think they could only say removal.
At the original hospital, they absolutely said the artificial dermis on the bridge could not have caused inflammation in that area and told me to wait. They said if it were skin necrosis, it would turn black and the surrounding tissue would also be affected, but in my case only the mucous membrane around the septum had melted, so even they didn’t know the cause and said this was their first time seeing such a case. They just kept saying time is the best medicine and would not remove anything. I also considered early removal, and after more than a month I was ready to have it removed at another hospital, but my skin wasn’t healing at all, and my biggest fear was what if they opened my nose again for removal surgery and then it still wouldn’t heal. That made me hesitate a lot. And I saw a post by a doctor at ㅂㄴ in Suwon? Seoul? saying that once the left side heals, the right side will eventually heal too, so I decided to wait a little longer.
After that I couldn’t return to work and stayed home. Every morning and evening I disinfected with povidone and applied regenerative ointment.. It’s almost exactly been three months now, and when I went to the hospital yesterday, they said everything had healed. (This doesn’t mean I suddenly recovered in three months~ A lot happened in between, but the post would get too long if I wrote it all)
The left side where the tissue had melted returned to the same state as before surgery, and the right side healed with a slight depression left exactly along the incision site. Even that feels like something to be grateful for.. Right before going to the hospital, I thought the dented mark was just part of the healing process, but at the hospital they said it had healed with a hollow left there, so it would be hard for more tissue to grow in. Still, they said it had fully healed, so there’s no need to worry anymore.. They said even if I open my mouth wide, it will never split again. For nearly a month, I lived with tape placed tightly under my nose to keep it from opening, plus repeated antibiotics, additional suturing surgery, oxygen therapy, IV fluids, and so on... I spent a lot of money and time, but in the end it seems our bodies really do recover..
Of course, if other implants like silicone or mesh had been used and the surgical site did not heal, then it would be almost certainly due to the implant causing inflammation, and the implant would have to be removed for the surgical site to heal. If that applies to you, I think you should go to the hospital and have it removed as soon as possible.. Even if the hospital says it can’t be done, strongly insist And definitely record everything!!! Whatever you do, recording is important..
And after thinking about it a lot, the causes were probably:
1. Bacterial infection through the incision during surgery
2. Right after the packing was removed after surgery, they gave me a nasal spray. You know, the kind you spray into your nose? They told me to do it about three times a day. I used it for about a month, but I stopped because I was uneasy since it’s a steroid product. (Lately I searched online and saw that they say not to do it in cases with postoperative wounds or incision sites. And they said that if someone has weak mucosa and keeps using steroids directly, the chance of perforation increases) I think this was the biggest cause.. If you had surgery and the hospital gives it to you, just don’t use it. It doesn’t even help recovery.
3. After surgery, they apply Fucidin cream inside the nose. Every time I went in, and even after the additional suturing, they told me to apply it several times a day, so I did. But online, I read that Fucidin cream should not be applied to mucous membranes. Up until the fifth additional suturing, they told me to alternate it with regenerative ointment, so I did that.
After the final, sixth suturing, I decided on my own not to use Fucidin and only apply regenerative ointment.. That may also have been what helped the new tissue grow, because Fucidin is an antibiotic ointment, so it kills both good and bad bacteria. But the nose needed to recover, and if it killed even the good bacteria, I thought regeneration might not happen, so I decided on my own to stop it. Since I had already tried a lot of things that kill bacteria through oral antibiotics, I thought I would focus on regenerative ointment instead.. After that, tissue started growing..
4. After surgery, my nose was so blocked that once or twice a day I would blow my nose at home when doing nasal irrigation. Not forcefully, but they said that if you blow your nose not long after surgery, the sutured area can tear. (But in my case it didn’t tear; the tissue melted away, so I don’t think this applies much...)
I wrote this hoping it might help even a little to people who experience rare side effects like I did after nose surgery, but this post got way too long Still, I’m able to write this while smiling because I fully recovered in three months. During that time I studied a lot about surgery, and I learned that nose surgery is really something you have to be extremely careful about.. If possible, seriously don’t do it. I’ve had several other surgeries and always got praised for having great recovery and regeneration, but this experience taught me that you should never touch your face or body if you can avoid it. The nose surgery, plus the IV fluids and oxygen therapy after the additional suturing, cost me more than 5 million won, and I couldn’t go back to work either..
Because I had multiple additional suturings in the middle, and they repeatedly cut and pulled nearby skin tissue before suturing it again, the tip of my nose became much lower than it was right after surgery. But it was still a different nose from before surgery, and since I’m no longer going to touch it, I’m just going to live with it and be satisfied.. Honestly, because it was artificial dermis, it felt a bit wider than silicone, so for people who want a slim nose, I wouldn’t recommend artificial dermis or autologous dermis. For the tip, ear cartilage seems better than septal cartilage. When I searched before surgery, septal cartilage sounded good because it’s your own cartilage, but they said you can’t do the pig-nose shape. I thought, what kind of life would I need that for anyway? so I chose septal cartilage. But it’s not just that I can’t do the pig-nose shape; it feels like a chopstick support has been planted at the tip of my nose, so it’s hard and I can’t even twist it. If I had known it would feel like this, I definitely would have chosen ear cartilage
That’s the story of the past three months If you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll answer as best I can within what I know! For those of you who are struggling now, hang in there When I was living in this community, even one comment gave me a huge amount of strength!
I won’t accept comments asking for hospital information. The aftercare was really a total mess, so I actually do not recommend it.