First, I should note that I didn’t just have cosmetic surgery, I also had functional surgery (rhinitis / deviated septum / nasal valve reconstruction), so I had a harder recovery than someone who only had cosmetic surgery. (In other words, if you only had cosmetic surgery, you’ll probably be able to tolerate it much better than I did.)
For the nose shape and functional aspects, you can see my review here: http://sungyesa.com/new/b01/624364 This only covers the recovery process before and after nose surgery, and the post is extremely long lol It’s so long that if you don’t want to read everything, it’s fine to just read the summary at the end
The day before surgery I’m a pretty timid guy for a man, so I started getting nervous the night before. What if I can’t wake up after anesthesia? (My first surgery ever lol, unnecessary worry) What if the surgery goes badly and the shape looks weird? And so on. Then the pre-op instructions said to get enough sleep and come in, so I ended up lying awake all night with random thoughts like, I should sleep early, what do I do? and went in for surgery without sleeping
Surgery day ~ Day 2 Actually, the fear was less than the day before. For some reason I felt fine, but the moment it was time for surgery and I lay down in the operating room, all the fear that had disappeared so far suddenly exploded at once. Honestly, it was scary.. The only saving grace was that I lost consciousness within 5 minutes of lying down in the OR. While they were inserting IV lines in my arm one by one, I heard the anesthesiologist say, okay, now we’ll put you to sleep... and then I lost consciousness right there. When I opened my eyes, I was in the recovery room. Other than being a little dazed and completely unable to breathe through my nose, nothing was wrong. I had the surgery in Gangnam, and my place was a bit far away, but a friend drove me home, so I got back comfortably.
But my mouth was insanely sticky lol, and when I looked, there was a ton of dried blood inside my mouth, even my teeth were red. I felt so suffocated I thought I’d go crazy. I realized for the first time how far Gangnam is from my home. The only relief was that my nose was completely blocked, so there was no smell of blood. When I got home, I slowly sucked water through a straw (you must not tilt your head up..) and spit it out again, about 30 times, and the blood got a bit better.
After I got home, some time passed and the effect of the painkiller injection started wearing off, so the pain gradually began. The pain level was like a toothache from a badly decayed tooth that needs root canal treatment. The pain felt like someone was gripping my nose hard and pulling. Actually, the pain is really tolerable. The truly awful part is the packing stuffed tightly inside my nose...
Even someone like me, who usually lives with nasal congestion, found it really hard to endure. Since I was breathing 100% only through my mouth, my lips dried out completely and all the skin peeled off (my lips peeled twice over those two days lol) Every time I drank water through a straw, it hurt. Human anatomy is strange like that: when the nose is blocked this badly and you try to swallow water through your mouth, it seems like the water wants to come out through the nose, so it always puts pressure on the nose once before slowly going down into the mouth. Only people who’ve experienced it know that gross feeling lol. Of course, nothing tasted like anything, my whole body was very tired, and it was hard to eat, so I only ate porridge for those two days, and even that had no appetite at all, I didn’t want to eat it, but I forced myself because of the painkillers. Honestly, without the painkillers I would probably have just starved.
Once two days had passed, they finally removed the hated packing. If you know the Park Jun-hyung nose surgery story, if not, just search “Park Jun-hyung nose surgery” on Google and it’ll come right up, and that story is not exaggerated at all. lol I seriously felt like they were pulling the packing out from my brain. If it had gone on a little longer, I might have hit the doctor;; After removing the packing with that huge amount of pain, blood poured out so much I wondered if it was supposed to bleed that much. And right after taking out that packing, a new packing went in. “Still, this one will be much better than the last one.”
It still blocks the nose completely, but in practice it really was much better than the first one. In the end, the inability to breathe through the nose is the same, but the first one was that super-compressed packed one, while the later one just blocked things firmly. The difficulty level is surprisingly different. This one was at least bearable, and I could remove it at home that same day.
On the way to remove the packing in the morning, I thought, am I finally going to be able to taste again? I should buy something delicious to eat! That dream was swept away. Not only could I still not taste anything, but the pain from removing the packing killed my appetite too lol, so I ended up eating pumpkin porridge again..
Days 3 to 7 I removed the packing that had been put back in yesterday, but I still couldn’t breathe. That’s because my nose was completely filled with scabs and crusts, blocking it entirely... Of course I still couldn’t taste food. Oh, and I forgot to explain above: because blood and some unidentified fluid kept flowing out of my nose, I had to keep changing and applying gauze or something similar. When I went out, even with a huge disposable mask on, it still looked pretty odd because of this, so it was noticeable. I didn’t care much, but people who are very conscious of others’ gazes probably wouldn’t be able to go out easily.
When I lay down, my nose pulled a lot. Sitting up was fine, but every time I lay down it pulled so badly I wondered if something had gone wrong. But as time passed, it got better lol.
I couldn’t wash my hair because I wasn’t supposed to get my face wet and I couldn’t bend my head down. To wash my hair, there were two options: 1. Go to a hair salon and have them wash it while I leaned back 2. Ask a friend or family member and wash it while leaning back I chose option 2 because it felt wasteful to spend money, and my hair was so greasy that it felt rude lol. I wiped my face with wet wipes, and for showers I made sure no water got near my face and used lukewarm water (hot steam is also bad for the nose).
The pain was much better than before, but I still needed painkillers. Painkillers are god-tier. Without them, it would really hurt. In the first week, I went back and had the stitches and splint removed. Inside my nose I had dissolvable stitches, and on the outside I had stitches that needed to be removed. I read reviews saying stitch removal was insanely painful (some people said it hurt more than taking out the packing), so I was really terrified. Taking out the packing had been extremely painful. I think it hurt more than circumcision. (I had circumcision in 3rd grade, so I honestly don’t remember it well.) If I ever have revision surgery again, I’m going to ask them to give me a painkiller injection when removing the packing... But when it actually came time to remove the stitches, it was just a little sting? That was all. It stung a bit repeatedly though lol.
After removing the stitches and the splint, my nose felt less blocked than before. I could taste things to some extent, and I was overjoyed. I ordered two chickens and ate them all day lol.
Day 7 to Week 2 (current) From one week after splint removal, it’s time for nasal irrigation. It’s annoying and feels weird. I have to do it 4 times a day, 60 ml x 2 each time.. But other people say that when they irrigate, debris (scabs, etc.) comes out immediately. For some reason, mine doesn’t come out... I have to gently scrape it out separately with a cotton swab. I probably wouldn’t need nasal irrigation if I had only had cosmetic nose surgery. Judging from my younger sibling not doing it, that’s probably certain.
The swelling improved a lot starting from the first week. Right now, it seems like only the remaining swelling is left. They say residual swelling can last more than two months.. the yellow bruising on my face still hasn’t gone away either. Still, from the first week on, it was tolerable to go out without a mask. But because it’s cold, I end up wearing one anyway. I usually never wore a mask at all, but after nose surgery I picked up the habit of wearing one, and it’s really warm and nice lol. For about 10 days? there was still some pain, but now it feels like zero pain aside from the hassle of nasal irrigation.
Summary Surgery day ~ Day 2 -> hell on earth, half-dead, not human Day 2 ~ Day 7 -> Light daily life is possible, social life may be somewhat disrupted, and there is still pain. Day 7 ~ Week 2 -> Social life possible. Almost no pain. Nasal irrigation is annoying.