Hello. From personal anecdotes to consultation reviews, this is going to be a pretty long post, so please read it when you have time.
There are a lot of miscellaneous stories, but the core of this post is that this is not a recommendation post, a review post, or a blacklist post, but a post discouraging cosmetic surgery.
For my first surgery, I went to a plastic surgery clinic in Apgujeong that anyone familiar with cosmetic-surgery communities would know.
At the time, I had cheekbone reduction and nose surgery. There were some side effects with the cheekbones too, but I’ll only talk about the nose.
(+Since the matter was settled, I can’t tell you which clinic it was, so please understand.)
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- Nose Surgery - (The consultation details are at the bottom of the nose-surgery episode)
At the time, I was living in the provinces, so it wasn’t easy for me to travel around Seoul for cosmetic-surgery consultations.
After a long round of persuasion, my mom and I came up to Seoul on a whim, visited about three clinics that stood out to us, and then impulsively booked with the one whose manager was the kindest.
It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember clearly, but for the first surgery I had osteotomy, and as far as I know, silicone, ear cartilage, and septal cartilage were all used.
My original nose was very low (basically no bridge at all), small, and wide. After surgery, I got a bridge, but the glabella area was too high, and because my nose had been so low and the tissue was so soft, the tip dropped insanely low, so from the side it became a straight-line nose. Kind of like a cat’s profile...?
I told the hospital about this and had a revision surgery. As far as I know, ear cartilage was added in the revision.
After the second surgery, the glabella became lower and the bridge appeared, so the nose shape was roughly established, but when I said before surgery that I wanted a half-curve line, they made the boundary between the nostril and the bridge cave inward.
Also, the left nasal passage became so narrow that breathing was difficult, and cartilage became visible at the tip.
It wasn’t a shape I particularly liked, but I’m a pretty dull person, so I just lived with it, then went back to that hospital again because breathing had become too uncomfortable.
(I still wonder if things would have turned out very differently if I had gotten a refund then and had surgery somewhere else)
And so I foolishly had another revision surgery... Three surgeries in total at the same hospital, with the same surgeon... What’s more, even though this person was not a board-certified plastic surgeon but a board-certified otolaryngologist, I still ended up with functional problems
For the third surgery, there was no cartilage left, so they said they would use donated rib cartilage.
After surgery, my breathing passage improved and the visible cartilage at the tip was reduced. The hollowing between the nostril and the bridge remained, but the problems that had bothered me for so long were mostly resolved, so I went on living more or less like that again.
Then over three years, I had revision surgery once a year, and three years passed after the last surgery... This time, my nose began to turn up.
As I said above, I’m a pretty dull person, and I’d also gotten tired of cosmetic surgery itself, so no matter what other people said, I only worried about it at the time and didn’t think much about my nose.
(As an aside, a man once asked for my number, and when I said, “I had nose surgery, is that why?” he got annoyed and said, “Yes. Why?” and ran away)
The reason I’m telling you these unnecessary stories is because I want to say that even if cosmetic surgery goes wrong, your mindset can make a huge difference in your life.
If you think about it, aside from about two years when the shape was okay after surgery, I lived for roughly three years feeling stressed by a damaged nose shape.
From strangers to my boss to my boyfriend, I got criticized about my nose shape.
But that didn’t mean I stayed home crying and complaining about my lot in life. I worked, dated, traveled, and lived my life that way. I’m shy by nature, but I tried to be forgiving about my nose. If anyone said something about it, I’d tell them to hand over the money so I could get it fixed.
Even if you’re thinking about revision surgery, if your function isn’t so ruined that daily life is impossible, don’t just sit in a corner and give up on life.
I often see people in cosmetic-surgery communities saying they want to die because surgery went wrong, but people are wired to see only what they want to see. Stop looking at the nose that makes you want to give up on life. I know it’s hard, but stop looking in the mirror. Stop taking selfies. Stop looking at old photos. Take care of your current mind and body, not just your face.
I wrote all this in hopes that those who have been through, or are going through, hard times like me will steel their hearts and keep fighting.
Continuing on... Through acquaintances and friends, criticism of my nose gradually increased, and even my mother, who had said it was only pretty, asked why my nose had turned up so much... Honestly, I had wanted to keep living with it as best I could, even in that condition, because I didn’t want to lie on an operating table anymore.
But surgery became unavoidable. I developed contracture. At the time, I had never really thought about contracture, so I didn’t even know exactly what it was.
I belatedly complained to the hospital where I had the three surgeries, and they said they would do another revision, but I refused and got a refund.
After that, holding the medical records I had requested from the hospital, I started looking for hospitals for revision surgery...
At first, I looked into removal, but after seeing my nose condition, many hospitals said that even if the materials were removed, reconstruction would be inevitable later. They said the shape would become much worse than it is now. (During the process of going around hospitals, they also found a perforation.)
From here on, I’ll write about the consultations.
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- Consultations - * Please understand that the consultations were two months ago, so the details may not be precise. * Because consultation experience is highly subjective even when hearing the same doctor, I tried to write this based on facts while minimizing personal bias.
< Apgujeong - ㅅㅅㅇ >
Cost: 6.3 million KRW (10% VAT extra if paid by card) Discount:? Aftercare:? Consultation fee: 10,000 KRW Consultation time: about 15 minutes
This clinic is well-known in the community for removal surgeries. So perhaps because of that, this was the only place where they mentioned removal first instead of reconstruction.
They said to remove everything, including the donated rib cartilage, and recommended cartilage rearrangement through an open approach.
I don’t really know how cartilage rearrangement surgery is done, but they said they would use all the small amount of cartilage remaining in both ears.
According to the doctor, we should do removal + cartilage rearrangement, wait 6 months, and then decide whether or not to do reconstruction. He said it would be better than now, but only to that extent, and he could not guarantee anything about the nose shape.
There was also mention of autologous rib cartilage, but according to the manager, the doctor doesn’t like leaving scars on a woman’s body, so he only does the minimum necessary surgery. They said that if I went somewhere else, they would probably recommend autologous rib cartilage first, and told me to think carefully.
< Hongdae - ㄱㅇㅅ >
Cost: ear cartilage - 6.6 million / rib cartilage - 8.8 million Discount: 15% discount possible if photos are made public Aftercare: free replacement if inflammation or warping occurs within 1 year Consultation fee: 10,000 KRW (because the doctor was in surgery and the wait was long, the consultation fee was not charged) Consultation time: about 30 minutes
This is also a clinic frequently mentioned in the community for removal surgery, and it was the only place that performed nasal endoscopy.
After the endoscopy, they confirmed that there was a perforation in the septum. The doctor explained that repeated surgeries had crushed the inside of my nose, which caused contracture and made breathing difficult.
Normally, when contracture occurs, the principle is to remove the implant and wait 6 months for the skin to soften, but in my case, enough time had already passed and the inside of the nose was in very severe condition, so he said to proceed directly with rib cartilage surgery.
He also reacted negatively to the cartilage rearrangement mentioned by the ㅅㅅㅇ doctor, saying it was not suitable for my current nasal condition.
In the consultation with the manager, two methods were presented. The first was the method the doctor mentioned, using rib cartilage as support to correct the septum and lower the columella. The second was to harvest the remaining ear cartilage instead of using rib cartilage. Using ear cartilage would be cheaper and would avoid a scar on the chest, but because it cannot serve as a strong support structure like rib cartilage, it would not be able to straighten the septum properly. In other words, ear cartilage is not as strong as rib cartilage.
However, if only rib cartilage is used in the bridge, it would become too hard, so they said they would use donated dermis called MegaDerm.
< Apgujeong - ㅍㄹㅁ >
Cost:? Discount:? Aftercare:? Consultation fee: 5,000 KRW Consultation time: about 15 minutes
This place is also a clinic well-known in the community for removal surgeries.
When I told the doctor about the septal perforation discovered at ㄱㅇㅅ, he looked inside my nose and said immediate surgery would be difficult.
He also said that even though three years had passed since surgery, my skin would still be hard and the inside of my nose would likely not be in good condition, and he recommended stem-cell grafting, waiting about 2 to 3 years, and then having surgery if the contracture loosened even a little.
(I’m not sure, but I remember him saying that stem-cell grafting had to be done without removing the implant inside the nose. I think the reason was that removing the implant would put even more serious strain on the nose, and he was worried the situation would worsen.)
< Gangnam - ㅅㅇ >
Cost: donated rib cartilage - 9.0 million / autologous rib cartilage - 12.0 million Discount: none Aftercare:? Consultation fee: 10,000 KRW Consultation time: about 15 minutes
After looking inside my nose, he said it seemed like a lot of miscellaneous materials had been used, and sympathized with me, stressing that the first surgery is the most important.
As materials to be used in surgery, he mentioned ear cartilage, autologous dermis, and silicone.
As the main structural material, he mentioned donated rib cartilage and autologous rib cartilage.
Because I had developed contracture after the last surgery using donated rib cartilage, I expressed concern about using donated rib cartilage, but he said that if the material is used properly, there is no big difference between donated rib cartilage and autologous rib cartilage.
He said donated rib cartilage would be done under sedation anesthesia, while autologous rib cartilage would be done under general anesthesia.
In the consultation with the manager, I felt the price was burdensome, so I think I failed to ask properly about the things I was curious about.
< Apgujeong - ㅈㅇ >
Cost: 9.3 million KRW Discount: discounted to 8.5 million KRW for same-day reservation Aftercare: revision surgery if problems are found within 1 to 2 years Consultation fee: 10,000 KRW Consultation time: about 10 minutes
ㅈㅇ is a medium-sized hospital with a doctor famous for reconstruction of contracted noses.
Actually, the place where I had my first surgery was also a medium-sized hospital. Maybe because of that and due to some strange bias, all the places I went to afterward were private clinics too, and my first consultation at ㅈㅇ also ended without the Q&A I wanted. So I went there twice for consultations.
During the first consultation, a CT scan was taken, and the consultation was based on the CT results.
Looking at the CT, just like I had heard in the ㄱㅇㅅ consultation, the inside of my nose was not straightened into a line but crushed and distorted.
He said he would improve that part as much as possible, and while showing me cases of contracted noses like mine one by one, explained that both the tip and the bridge would be done with autologous rib cartilage.
Since they said I could adjust or cancel the surgery date after consulting with the manager, I paid a small reservation deposit.
After finishing the consultation and heading back, the manager contacted me and said that a surgery date had suddenly opened up and asked if I wanted to do it then, mentioning an earlier date than the one originally given.
It was just 3 or 4 days later, and they said I would get an additional discount if I did it then. I said I would think about it more and did not set a surgery date.
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Aside from that, I had also planned to consult at 101, but the date was too far out, so I canceled.
In the end, I had surgery not at any of the hospitals above but at a different place. I had nostril reduction, ear cartilage, silicone, and rib cartilage used, and I am on day 10 after surgery.
The doctor who operated on me said that when they opened the inside of my nose, it was a complete mess, and that there was an unknown material tangled together with filler in the glabella area, so they had a hard time scraping it out, and that it seemed the contracture had come from mixing all those different materials. (In the previous hospital, they never once mentioned that filler had been injected;;)
The reason I’m not writing a review of this hospital is that the shape has improved, but I still have nasal congestion and a foreign-body sensation.
The nasal congestion is worse than I expected, so I plan to see whether this improves with the hospital’s aftercare, and then write a review at that time.
I don’t know whether this hospital will end up on the blacklist or become a recommended hospital, but this is what nose surgery is: even if the shape improves, people regret it because the functional side remains unsatisfactory.
If you take an X-ray of the human face, there are no bones in the nose alone. Also, among the senses humans have, smell is the most sensitive. The nose, made of cartilage, capillaries, and tiny nerves, is an organ far more delicate than we usually think.
Plastic surgeons also say that nose surgery is harder than contour surgery, which can be planned and performed in advance using CT or X-ray, because it cannot be predicted until it is opened.
That is because nose surgery is a procedure where the balance between aesthetics and function must be just right for the result to be perfect, even among cosmetic surgeries.
That is why touching the nose is extremely risky, and feels like living with a time bomb for life.
Even though I researched a lot before surgery, I keep regretting that I should have asked more, thought more slowly, and gone around more carefully. I’m afraid the nightmare from the past will repeat itself.
If cosmetic surgery is truly necessary in your life, research thoroughly and do your homework. Don’t be easily swayed by recommendations from acquaintances, internet reviews, or exaggerated advertising. Study the area you want surgery on. Check whether the manager and the doctor are writing the chart carefully. Check whether the operating doctor is a board-certified plastic surgeon. Write down your questions carefully before the consultation. Make sure to record the consultation. Look into the doctor’s career and reviews carefully. Take plenty of photos before and after surgery, from different angles.
And if possible, don’t have surgery.