Hi! First of all, this was my first primary surgery (no fillers, no Hiko). I have a short bulbous nose with a bridge, a slight hump, a drooping tip, and thick alar skin. I have all the bulbous-nose features people talk about on YouTube. (Pore scars, soft fleshy nose, thick skin)
From the front, my nose spreads out a bit, and from the side, the alar rim is long so it covers the nostrils. The biggest stress point is that the columella is also set back. (If there are others with a similar short bulbous nose, could you recommend other clinics? I feel like improving the alar width area - maybe just extending the columella - would be enough for me rather than aiming for a pretty nose. (Feeling satisfied with a pretty nose <<<< wanting a nose that feels open and easy to live with) The look I wanted most was improved bulbous nose + a columella that projects nicely when viewed from the side. The best-case scenario was to solve it with alar reduction + cartilage suturing. I had already booked with the option of non-incisional tip work in mind. + I really got contour injections on the nose about 10 times, but I’m not sure they helped much..
1. D T W T (male director) Consultation fee: X / CT, photos: X (Yes, this is the place with very few reviews.) It was my first in-person consultation, so I was very nervous, but the coordinator, unlike her impression, spoke with a lot of enthusiasm. When I said, "I want to lift the alar rim so the columella becomes visible. Then the nose will look much shorter, right?" she strongly opposed that and said short noses should absolutely not be handled that way. She recommended lowering the nostrils + functional rib cartilage. Since I was hesitant about an incision, when I said, "What’s the difference between two alar reduction scars and one open-surgery scar, if it’s just about scarring and not implant discomfort?" it did make sense, I thought. (Only from the standpoint of scars, not implant discomfort.) At a consultation where I had gone thinking about alar reduction, they recommended functional rib cartilage, which is the material used to correct a short nose, so I wondered, are they recommending the top-tier material? I was mentally overwhelmed when the doctor came in. Like the review on G N Y N, he was extremely kind and tried to match the patient’s needs as much as possible. (“Could I just lower the columella? Is there a way to improve it as much as possible without implants?” + etc.) Because I was uncomfortable with an incision, he explained that a non-incisional option was possible: cartilage suturing + using ear cartilage to extend the columella, or correcting the short nose with an open method, and recommended donor rib cartilage. He emphasized that in terms of satisfaction, there is inevitably a difference between incisional and non-incisional methods. I asked quite a lot of questions, and he answered all of them; even when there were pauses while I was thinking, he just patiently waited instead of making any move to leave. The pricing was very good, and the coordinator said the doctor is skilled, but since the hospital is new, their prices are much cheaper than other hospitals. Same-day booking, pressure to leave a review, and mention of a deposit were all absent. Event price: non-incisional - cartilage suturing + columella extension (ear cartilage) - under 1.5 million KRW Incisional - donor rib + cartilage nostril lowering + tip cartilage suturing - just over 3 million KRW
(The consultation with the doctor was longer than with the coordinator; since I hadn’t prepared that many questions, the whole process ended in about 30 to 40 minutes.)
2. J O J O (Dr. Go) Consultation fee: X / CT, photos: X Wait time: about 5-10 minutes
I booked because the answer about bulbous noses on YouTube left a strong impression. My appointment was at 13:30, and I think I waited about 10 minutes. At first, the coordinator didn’t really recommend anything; she just identified my needs and that was it. It only took 1-2 minutes, so I did think, oh, every clinic really is different. Like Dr. Go’s reviews said, it felt like a lecture, with drawings on a printed nose photo and explanations of the methods. He was soft-spoken, and here too it felt like he was mostly just reviewing the consultation notes and my nose, then explaining what kind of surgery he would do. The doctor noticed a slight hump on my nose (it was the kind of hump you can only see if you look very carefully). Because the nose bones were large overall, the cartilage was small, and it was a spread-out bulbous nose, he said the plan would be hump reduction + osteotomy (recommended) + short-nose correction + columella correction + bulbous-nose correction (ear cartilage + donor rib). I have to go all the way to osteotomy? So I asked, and he said it wasn’t mandatory, just add it if I wanted a slimmer bridge, so I left it out. Donor rib 5 million / autologous rib 6 million (the most expensive) Dr. Go explained everything at first too. When I asked questions, he answered kindly, and I asked whether, if columella improvement were achieved (I showed him a photo of my nose), the design would end up like this, and he said that what is naturally given at birth cannot be changed..^^ so I was like, okay There were no discounts, and there was absolutely no pressure for reviews or same-day booking. There was no bargain on the price either. I asked about using autologous or donor rib because of inflammation, and he said if I was worried about inflammation, then wasn’t the risk already there the moment the nose was opened? Even small injection procedures can cause inflammation. He said this clinic has far more cases of patients coming in with inflammation because they violated what they should not do after nose surgery than cases of surgery failure, and I agreed. That was the end of the consultation.
3. E S S Consultation fee: 11,000 KRW / photos taken
There was no wait, and I was very interested in non-incisional surgery, so I had watched all of E S S’s videos. When I saw the doctor, it felt like seeing a celebrity. This was the only place that took photos, and they displayed my bare-face side/front photos on a monitor while I talked first with the coordinator, but the doctor said the tip skin was thick (soft and fleshy, and the cartilage could not really be felt), so short-nose correction was needed, and alar reduction or cartilage suturing were not especially recommended. Because the nose is short, the septal material probably won’t be large. He said he would check, but it couldn’t be forcibly harvested, and recommended donor rib. Then, while lifting my nose with a cotton swab, he said that if we designed it roughly like this, it would mean bridge step correction + hump correction (mentioned) + short-nose correction + columella improvement. Because the columella is set back, the protrusion of the mouth would also improve. He seemed very tired, but he explained things very clearly and calmly, and kept answering questions while looking at my nose. He doesn’t seem to recommend minor effects very much. The coordinator was friendly, and there was some encouragement to book the same day. (Discount applied.) I was hesitating because of the price, so in the end they lowered it further: if using the septum, it would be in the low 4 million KRW range / donor rib + 500,000 KRW / autologous rib + 1 million KRW. If I were to do it, I think it would probably be here.. so I put down a deposit, but I think I’ll withdraw it on Monday because of scheduling. (There isn’t much aftercare / there was a sense of pride here in scar tissue injections or swelling injections) (The deciding factors were, well.. the doctor’s personality, a single-doctor clinic, and only two surgeries a day)
Conclusion - All three clinics recommended the same surgical approach, so I canceled the other three places afterward (S W K / 21 / P R J). Because this was my first surgery, they didn’t seem to recommend autologous rib. No clinic recommended increasing the bridge height / but they did say the hump should be shaved down to match the tip step << I felt this was even more unfair. They also said dermis can be absorbed, so filler could be used for maintenance. Also, since the septal cartilage looked clearly insufficient, they didn’t really mention it except at the first clinic I thought maybe it’s all a matter of wording, and that the same thing can sound different depending on how you say it, but I went in wanting improvement. Half of me worries whether I can live while maintaining the tip forever (I’m quite a heavy smoker), and the surgery cost I had planned at 2-3 million KRW would actually nearly double, so that’s a burden too. Because I’ll be leaving my job early and the timing is tight, I’ll have to graduate, then think about it again after that. I’ll also add the clinics recommended by everyone here to my in-person consultation list after seeing my cursed nose case. This was a consultation review where I felt strongly that my vague ideas and an expert’s eye are different. I wanted to write it down once. Thanks for reading such a long post!
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