Hello It has been about a month since I had rhinoplasty for cosmetic purposes for the first time.
Since this is long, to summarize briefly:
(Currently)
Pros: My nose became higher, and my impression looks more refined. Because it is not an implant but autologous cartilage, it is safe.
Cons: After surgery, my nose became hard like a stone, so the foreign-body sensation is severe. Absolutely cannot make a pig nose. Even though I did it in the safest way possible, the biggest anxiety is not knowing what will happen 5 or 10 years later. Because it is costal cartilage, it is difficult to shape it exactly into the desired shape. Because costal cartilage has to be harvested, a surgical scar remains, and I heard that later about 10-20% of the cartilage gets absorbed.
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I had the surgery in Daegu.
Implants felt risky and I had a strong aversion to them, so after searching and searching and searching for another method, I learned about a method of raising the nose by granulating costal cartilage. I searched on YouTube and watched videos to see exactly how the surgery is done. Even if the surgery scenes were gross and scary, I had to know what surgery would be done to my nose ㅜㅜ
Anyway, among places that do surgery with costal cartilage, a plastic surgery clinic in Daegu seemed somewhat trustworthy, so I made a reservation and had surgery right away the next day. It is in another region, and the round trip took more than six hours. But I thought once I have surgery, it is for life, so I went far.
For a first surgery, I wondered if making an incision in the chest area and taking out costal cartilage was too extreme of a choice.
Before going to the hospital, I had only planned to shave down the hump, use ear cartilage, or just do nasal tip cartilage tying or so (implants absolutely no no). But at that hospital, they do all rhinoplasty using costal cartilage? I had misunderstood before going, haha (...)
Before surgery, I told the consultant not to raise the side profile too excessively and to make it as natural as possible,
I thought I had a slight hump on my nose, so I expected they would shave it down, but they said they would not shave down the hump, but instead raise the nose to match the height of that hump. That was unexpected.
And as I was consulting, they said that because my nose was too wide, rather than the hump, the wide part should be shaved down. So they shaved down the wide part. After surgery, I was more satisfied with having the wide part shaved down than with the nose becoming higher. It became slimmer.
Because costal cartilage had to be harvested, they made about a 1 cm incision under my chest, and maybe because it has only been a month, the scar is still red ㅠㅠ I am diligently applying scar ointment.
The surgery itself did not hurt at all. Really, to a surprising extent!! After the surgery was what was hard. For several days, it was hard to breathe, blood flowed backward behind my nose and I tasted a fishy blood taste in my mouth, and if I opened my mouth wide, my nose hurt, so I had to be careful even when eating. The area where the costal cartilage was harvested ached like muscle soreness, so it hurt whenever I sat down, stood up, or lay down.. It was like that for about 3 weeks. All I could do was take medicine, rest, and sleep, so I felt a bit depressed ㅠ After staying like that, I went to the hospital after 10 days to remove the splint.
For me, the nasal cartilage moved and the shape became crooked, so I wore the splint longer than others.. It was frustrating ㅠ
As I write this, I am at the one-month mark-
I am very relieved that there have been no major side effects so far, and there is no part I am greatly dissatisfied with. But as you can tell from the photos, it is not a semi-saddle line or a semi-straight line, just a shape that is higher than my original nose? So I feel a little disappointed. It is natural, though.. The swelling has not gone down yet, so I do not know, but that is what I think now ㅜ
When I look at photos of other people who had surgery at the same hospital, some people changed dramatically and looked much better, and some people improved only slightly like me? That is how it seemed. It seems case by case.
And my nose before surgery was not pretty, but it was not ugly either. Now, it is so, so, so hard that it feels like a stone, and I wonder if I had surgery for nothing ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I miss my soft nose. It is not like having a soft nose is especially good, but before, it moved naturally with facial expressions and had a natural feel. At the time, that felt so obvious that I did not think much of it, but now that it has become like a stone, I feel a bit of a sense of loss.
I like that I look better than before, and I did it with what is said to be the safest method, but in one corner of my mind, I also feel anxious, as if I am walking around with a time bomb attached to my nose.
If I had known the things I am feeling now before surgery, I think I would have thought about it more carefully or just done a small nasal tip cartilage tying procedure or something.
They say plastic surgery is intentionally inflicting trauma like a traffic accident on the body for the sake of beauty.
I hope everyone thinks about it carefully!
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