I had surgery in February 2015 with 3 mm silicone + septal cartilage for the nasal tip, and had everything removed in May 2016. Today marks one month. Even when I had plastic surgery, people around me didn’t notice. They just thought maybe I had lost a little weight. And even after removal, no one knows. lol I walked around without a mask two days after getting the stitches removed, and no one noticed. There was some swelling in my nose, but people were just like, did you gain weight? You look kinder? That was about it.
Before removal, I went to quite a few consultations and read reviews over and over. So I think the shock(?) or things I could experience after removal felt less intense. Because I knew about them. For example, people say they get shocked because the nasal bridge looks too flat right after removal, but after seeing reviews others consistently posted saying it gradually improves,, of course I was a bit surprised right after the taping was removed too. You can’t stop the first thought that pops into your head when you see it lol, so I just told myself it would get better soon and moved on. At 2 weeks after removal, when I woke up in the morning, my glabella seemed high and my nasal tip seemed high too, so it felt strange, but I had seen similar reviews about that as well, so I just thought it would get better and didn’t look in the mirror after that morning. Until around then, it hurt when my hand touched the glabella while washing my face. Now I’m one month out. The nasal tip height has become rounder than right after removal, and maybe because the swelling has gone down, it has gotten lower, but compared to my original nose, the nasal tip is still more defined. And the redness of the open-surgery scar is quite dark. The first open-surgery scar was almost invisible unless you looked really closely, so even the doctor during the removal surgery (different from the first-surgery doctor) said it was hard to see, but this time it’s also not very smooth and things like that. I think this too will get better than now with time. It doesn’t always work, but I try not to pay attention to it and do other things. I had removal because of anxiety, so I’m trying to live with peace of mind, because if I’m going to stay anxious even after removing it, I feel too sorry for myself. ^^;; And now I’m quite a bit more at ease. These days I don’t look in the mirror often, and when I wake up in the morning I don’t check my nose first anymore. lol I haven’t felt anything special like a contraction phase or a pulling sensation, just that the skin of my nose feels pretty taut. And sometimes it aches or feels like brief stabbing pains. It happens briefly and stops. It has improved a lot, but I don’t think I’ll be completely reassured until 6 months.;;
At my 2-week post-removal visit (1 week after stitch removal), I asked the doctor, “I heard that after a month or two, once the swelling goes down, the nose can turn upward.” The doctor said that when removing it, they didn’t touch anything else and used the scalpel minimally just to remove the septal cartilage, so it wouldn’t turn upward. My guess is that this probably means they didn’t touch the cartilage that had been tied during the first surgery. I also asked the doctors a lot of questions while going to consultations this time.. (I should have done this before the first surgery..) First, they say that when you get rhinoplasty (a support strut), the cartilage is always tied. They cut between the alar cartilages and, in doctors’ wording, they dissect it; anyway, there are alar cartilages on both sides, and they cut the middle part, put the strut in between, and then the two cartilages separate and lift, so they must be tied and fixed. Before surgery, the nose has space between the pair of nasal tip alar cartilages and the cartilage behind them. They are separated, so when doing something like a piggy nose, it can move because there’s an empty space. But in an operated nose, all of that is stuck together as one mass. So even if it’s removed, it won’t just become a piggy nose like an unoperated nose, and they said it gradually becomes softer over time. At first, I didn’t know exactly what adhesion meant. I thought maybe it meant things were attached here and there like bridges connecting, but that wasn’t it; it’s just all stuck together as one mass. When it comes to removal, doctors’ opinions differ a bit on this point. Some doctors say they separate all of that and reposition it, while others say it’s better to touch it as little as possible. Personally, I was drawn to touching it as little as possible. They said that even if everything is separated and repositioned, it won’t become the original nose, and it still won’t become a complete piggy nose. And many doctors find the term “cartilage repositioning” awkward. Based on that, I think “cartilage repositioning” is not a medical term but a recently created commercial term. One doctor asked who my first-surgery doctor was and said, not that he personally knew that doctor, but this field is smaller than you think, and since that doctor has worked for a long time under his own name, the condition from the first surgery was probably okay. Then he asked where I had heard the term cartilage repositioning, and whether it was from a young doctor. When I said I thought the doctor was on the younger side, he just went, hmm... and left it at that. In reviews from this community too, there was a doctor who said that “cartilage repositioning” is not really a term, and that it is a process normally included in rhinoplasty but has been separately named like that and used commercially. I’m not an expert, so I don’t know. But after going to consultations at several places, I got a rough sense of it (there are things the doctors commonly say). That sense is subjective, though,, so I think it’s best to ask the doctor directly. Since the consultation fee is only 10,000 won, they kindly answer questions well. Again, this is my personal opinion, but I think long-experienced private clinics are better than large hospitals with many doctors and many consultants. Among private-clinic doctors, many also have experience as university professors. If I had asked all these things before the first surgery, would I not have done it.. or would I still have done it.. or would I have been less anxious and less uncomfortable afterward because I knew and chose it....... I have all kinds of thoughts like that too. haha;; For my first surgery, I went to 2 hospitals and just did it right away at the second one. Thinking back now, why did I do that.. I don’t know either. When I went to the first-surgery doctor for a removal consultation, and the doctor said silicone can be removed but removing my own cartilage is dangerous, the first thought I had was, “Then why didn’t you tell me that before surgery?”... But I thought there was no point saying that now, so I just kept it to myself. Looking back, everything has pros and cons, and what only has pros? I also wondered if I was stupid for not asking about the cons... During the pre-surgery consultation, the doctor only talked about the advantages, saying septal cartilage was the best. They didn’t tell me it would be hard. When I went for a septal cartilage removal consultation and said it was so hard that it bothered me a lot, they said ear cartilage is less hard than septal cartilage but still has some foreign-body sensation, and because it has less support than septal cartilage, it often droops or deforms over time. Costal cartilage is right next to the lung, so the surgery itself is major surgery, and later there can be side effects from rib asymmetry. Autologous dermis leaves a lot of scarring and is absorbed over time, so they recommend it when silicone can’t be used, but the effect isn’t very strong..... and so on. Every method had disadvantages.
Conclusion: I’m one month after removal, and I’m doing well without any major issues. I feel much more at ease. Still, I don’t think I can feel completely reassured until 6 months. The end.