Hello. I had surgery at Sures Plastic Surgery last November, and about a year has passed, so I thought I’d share a review~
1. Why I chose Sures To be honest, I didn’t have one specific complex about my eyes, nose, chin, or any other part of my face. To be exact, even when I looked at my face, I thought, "Hmm.. it’s not exactly handsome, but I’m not sure what the problem is;;" I vaguely thought, "Would it look better if I did something about my eyes?" and visited two or three other places, but they only consulted me about the area I asked about and didn’t really look closely at the other areas, so I wasn’t very satisfied with the consultation.
I wanted to hear, from a specialist’s perspective, a general opinion like, "This part of the face is like this. So if you fix it this way, it would be better." After reading a few blog posts related to face shape, I decided to get a consultation with Director Park Joon-gyu.
When I first visited, I openly said, "I wrote that I came because of my eyes, but honestly I’m not sure what exactly the problem is." Then the director looked carefully at my face and explained several issues. He said my cheekbones looked prominent because they were low, that my chin tip was a bit underdeveloped for a man, and that my eyes were asymmetrical. When I asked, "What about the nose or fat repositioning under the eyes?" he clearly said what could not be done: "Your nose is not on the low side. I also would not recommend under-eye fat repositioning."
During the consultation, he clearly pointed out the overall issues and explained well what he would and would not recommend from a professional standpoint, which is how I ended up choosing where to have the surgery ^^
2. Pre-op tests The surgery was scheduled for about a month later, and in the meantime I had to do the pre-op tests. There was a hospital nearby that was affiliated with Sures, and if I only had the tests done there, the results would be sent automatically to Sures, so I didn’t need to go to Gangnam twice, which was convenient~ I think the tests included blood tests, urine tests, and an ECG, and the cost was around 60,000 to 70,000 won. (It was a year ago, so I don’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t a large amount ^^)
3. Surgery day I visited the hospital at the scheduled time on the day of surgery. I changed clothes and waited in the consultation room, and all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind.. What if I go under general anesthesia and never wake up.. What if I can’t make it home safely today, and so on haha About 20 minutes later, the director came in and gave me one last consultation. He marked the areas to be operated on with a pen and designed the surgical lines. Especially with the eyes, even a 1 mm difference can look strange, so he paid extra attention to the design.
After I lay down on the operating table, I don’t remember much. The only things I remember thinking were, "Ah, the operating room is cold," and "What if it hurts when I wake up from anesthesia " The anesthesiologist gave me some medication, and I think I fell asleep pretty quickly.
When I woke up after a short sleep, the surgery was already over and I was lying in the recovery room. At first, the operated areas, especially inside my mouth, hurt a lot, and I felt a bit nauseous, probably because I hadn’t fully come out of anesthesia yet, and I kept wanting to sleep. The nurse kept telling me to stay awake because if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t fully come out of anesthesia, and it was so frustrating haha. I was that sleepy. After about 2 to 3 hours, I left the recovery room, took a taxi home alone, and arrived home safely. Once I got home, I started to feel more awake.. The operated areas were throbbing and my mouth hurt whenever I moved it That’s when I realized surgery really is a major surgery My mouth hurt so much that I just changed clothes quickly, didn’t eat anything, and went to bed early.
4. Day 1 I woke up the next morning, and the throbbing pain felt much less severe. Because the surgery was done through the mouth, I had pain every time I moved my lips It was fine when I stayed still, but when I gargled or ate, if I moved my lips a bit, it hurt a lot. They said cold compresses were important until day 2, so I used the ice packs they gave me and even the ice packs I had put in the fridge from a delivery order before, using everything I could haha, and kept icing it~ They also said to wear the compression support about 4 times a day, so I wore it, but the pressure on my face was so strong at first that I could only manage about 10 to 20 minutes. My lips hurt, but I also couldn’t open my mouth wide, so it was hard to eat even porridge, and I ordered liquid meal replacements to drink and had those~! (Instead, I got hungry again very quickly, so I think I had about 8 packs a day haha)
5. Day 2 The pain when I was still was much less than on day 1. But it still hurt when I moved my mouth, so I only ate liquid meal replacements. Bruising started to become visible on my face. The cheekbones were okay, but bruising appeared around the eyebrow area from the brow lift and on my neck.. I had some bluish bruises that made me worry they might not go away.. My energy had recovered a lot, so I was well enough to take a short walk outside. I wanted to wash my hair, but because water couldn’t touch the brow-lift area, I had to tilt my neck back and wash my hair that way. Since I lived alone, there was no one to help me, so I ended up going to a nearby salon I had visited often and asked them for help haha (I thought it would be awkward if I went too often, so I went about once every two days to wash my hair haha) For my face, I just removed some oil with blotting papers and didn’t wash my face for a week
6. Days 3 to 5 By day 3, the throbbing pain when I was still had mostly gone away. I still had pain when I moved my lips a lot or gargled. Even though I iced it well, the swelling was severe.. My eyelids, cheeks, and lips became extremely puffy Even now, when I look at the photos I took then, I just.. ^^;; From day 4, I was able to eat porridge. But I still couldn’t open my mouth wide, so I ate by pushing small amounts into my mouth with a teaspoon haha Liquid meals were much easier, so when I got hungry in between, I often drank those products. The swelling seemed to peak on day 3 and then decrease only very, very slightly. (It absolutely does not go down quickly..) To help the swelling go down faster, I also wore a mask and walked for 2 to 3 hours a day!
7. Days 6 to 7 After a week, I went to the hospital for disinfection. Because I had kept wearing the compression support, the swelling wasn’t too severe, and they said I probably didn’t need a swelling injection~ But during the cleaning, they pulled on my lips haha, and that hurt so, so much. I could barely open my mouth the width of one finger, I think. The sensation was dull on the outside of the left jaw and in the upper teeth.. They said the sensation would gradually recover, so I decided to wait!
8. Weeks 1 to 2 I’m an office worker, so I used up one week of leave and had to go back to work from week 1. Before going back, I worried that people would notice I had surgery. Women noticed it, but men didn’t catch on very well haha Most people couldn’t really tell when I was wearing a mask, but when I took it off, they’d say, "Wow, why is your face so swollen? Did you get hurt somewhere?"
Honestly, more than the swelling, the bruises were what really stood out and bothered me The bruising under my eyes especially had spread down to the lower eyelids like dark circles. The good thing was that by then the bruises had changed from bluish to yellow, so they weren’t as noticeable as they had been on days 3 to 5~
I still couldn’t open my mouth well when eating.. so I ordered porridge separately to eat. (Trying to eat porridge for all three meals was miserable(?).. hahaha) From around day 10, the swelling had gone down a lot and the bruising wasn’t completely gone, but the yellow color had faded a lot, which was a relief. At the 2-week mark, I went to have the stitches removed. After the stitches were removed, I could move my lips without pain and felt like I could live again.. That was when I realized how precious it is to be able to brush your teeth thoroughly.
9. 1 to 2 months After about a month, the major swelling had gone down quite a bit. People at work who saw me every day didn’t really notice a big change, but people I hadn’t seen in a while asked things like, "Why did you lose so much weight?", "Your chin looks so sharp now?", and "Your eyes look like they’re twice as big, did you get double eyelid surgery?" The dull sensation at my chin tip gradually started to return, though not completely. I could also open my mouth better and was able to fit about two fingers.
10. 3 to 6 months The dulled sensation in the left chin tip had almost fully returned, but the sensation in the left upper teeth did not fully come back.. It felt like I couldn’t really feel it when flossing? The biggest issue during this period was that the scar from the brow lift was still red, so it was very noticeable. I wanted to cover it with eyebrow tattooing, but they said that would only be possible after about a year, so I had no choice but to endure it. A lady at a nearby salon said she had gotten it done too and that it could be hidden with concealer haha, so I even got product recommendations and used it on important days.
11. 6 months to 1 year Around 6 months later, my mouth finally opened as wide as it used to. About four finger widths.. I didn’t really have the cheek sagging or similar issues that I saw in other reviews, so I was relieved. There were many scary reviews saying you would have to live with a lifting device forever.. so I was worried, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. The scar from the brow lift changed into a thin white line, so it became much less noticeable. Before, people would ask me, "Did you get your eyebrows tattooed?" or "Did something happen to your eye?" and that was surprisingly stressful, but now that doesn’t happen anymore, which I really like.
12. One-year overall review Last month marked one year, and when I looked at old photos and current photos.. wow, is that really me? My face had changed so much. Honestly, I can’t say exactly which point changed, but my mouth corners lifted and my face looked more alive? I think that’s the good thing about cheekbone and chin-tip surgery. Other people have no idea what you had done haha. It feels like you just become subtly better-looking. I used to have dark-circle-like shadows under my eyes, and with the added volume in that area, the tired look was greatly reduced too~! The best thing about the brow lift is that it gives the feeling that only the eyes became a bit bigger from my original eyes, without the artificial look of double eyelid surgery, so I think its naturalness is the biggest advantage. However, since there will inevitably be a scar under the eyebrow, I’d only recommend it to people who can either cover it with makeup or don’t mind scars!!
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This review is a post-surgery review in pursuit of natural beauty.