Disastrous Revision Rhinoplasty - New York, NY

As of an email today Dr Constantinides has decided he will not pay me the $15,000 that he had agreed so I can fix the damage done to my nose. He has used my story and review as his reason and excuse to walk away. Not unexpected after nine months of chasing him to honor his promise and him giving me excuse after excuse. He took my money (over $30K) and disfigured my face - its as simple as that.
I did suggest to him that he put the 'before' and 'after' pictures of me on his website to show prospective patients his work - not holding my breath........

Let me give you an idea of what an horrendous revision Rhinoplasty (actually two by the same doctor...) has done to me. Sorry its a bit long but its in detail. Please read it, particularly if you are considering this doctor.
I went to see Dr Minas Constantinides in May 2013 on the advice of a doctor I had seen for another procedure. I was 43 at the time. My family had just moved to New York and I didn't know anyone in the city so I assumed another doctors recommendation would be the way to go.
The consultation went well, I thought he was a nice man, polite and seemed to know what he was talking about. His staff were also very friendly and accommodating. I had a Rhinoplasty when I was about twenty years old. I had no problems with it and the only issue with my resulting nose over the years was that it was quite runny a lot of the time, I got used to it. The reason I went to see Dr Constantinides was that over the years the cartilage seemed to have maybe moved a bit, it was quite sharp and pointed on the tip and if I had a cold and rubbed my nose a lot it would feel like it was almost going to break through. One side of my nose looked a bit more flat than the other more bulbous side. I just wanted it evened up a bit and the cartilage in the tip fixed. I had no breathing problems and my nose was straight. My husband said he saw nothing wrong with my nose and I didn't need anything fixed but that if it would make me happy I should do it. Dr Constantinides said he could correct my concerns.
At the same time, being 43 years old I'd started to see some hollowness around my eyes (I'd tried some fillers like Sculptura but wasn't particularly impressed) and asked if there was anything he could do about that. He said a mid-face lift would help. After some deliberating I decided to go for the two procedures. I was away from home and thought once I was healed, I'd look a bit younger, a bit fresher and no one would know.
I googled him, there were good and bad reviews but then every doctor I googled seemed to have the same. I decided to go ahead with the surgery and paid $26,400.00, of course all paid in advance, as requested for a revision Rhinoplasty and a mid-face lift.
The surgery, done in his theater below his offices, went fine as did my recovery. When the cast came off my nose looked huge, this enormous bulbous, crooked/twisted looking mess. He assured me that it was swelling and it would all come down. After weeks and then months of visits, steroid injections and waiting, it settled a bit but was still very, very big and on top of that I couldn't breathe properly through either nostril. I was very patient with Dr Constantinides, I never got angry or frustrated with him, just trusted what he said to me that it was healing as it should. A lot of people noticed and I got a lot of questions asking when the swelling would go down. As the months went by comments made with the best of intentions began to hurt me deeply. I could feel my nose, it was big, hard and inflexible, and after six months I knew it wouldn't be going down too much more.
I was devastated and found myself crying virtually every day, I couldn't look in a mirror and not tear up. I did my makeup as fast as I could in the mornings and wouldn't look at myself again until the next day. I grew my fringe out and hid behind my hair and became very self conscious. I avoided cameras at all costs. My husband and I were going to renew our vows in Greece in August 2014, deposits had been paid and I cancelled all of that, I knew I would need another operation. I felt ugly and cried myself to sleep many many nights.
So I went back to Dr Constantinides in January of 2014. During our conversation he admitted that the result wasn't what we had hoped for so we scheduled another surgery for the next month (with additional costs of about $5,000) to fix the size, make it smaller, correct the twisted look and open up my airways so I could breathe. When I gave Dr Constantinides the benefit of the doubt and allowed him to do the second surgery, he made a point of saying he was 'happy to do it and he wanted me to know that', it was glaringly obvious that the results were not at all good. He generated a computer image that he said would be attainable and he told me how he was going to do it. I didn't expect my nose to look exactly like that picture, but at that point something close would have been fine.
When I showed up for surgery on the appointed day I could tell he was in a bad mood and my husband and I commented on it when he left the room. The surgery went fine as did my recovery. From the moment the cast came off after the second revision and I looked in the hand mirror he gave me I could see my nose was not straight, it was very obvious. I thought I was having a nightmare. I have photos from when I got home that day which show it clearly. It was horribly crooked. I thought to myself, maybe after a day or two with the cast off it might settle. After a couple of days I realized that wasn't going to happen, in fact the deviation got worse. My nose was smaller yes, but horribly bent to the left and I still couldn't breathe. I also had a bump now running down my nose that I didn't have before.
Again weeks and months of visits and steroid injections but the damage is done. When both my husband and I sent Dr Constantinides emails in May of how upset I was and how this botched surgery has affected me I got a lot of excuses. He sent me a response which included a 'revision of how we got to where we are' that included blaming my doctor from 23 years ago for my problems and giving me a lot of technical explanations. I told him I could only go on what I saw with my own eyes, of how my nose looked after the first revision, it was very clear, we both had the pictures. On top of how badly distorted and ill-shapen it looked I also couldn't breathe properly. I still cant.
He made a comment - 'good surgery did not lead to the desired outcome' – clearly it was not good surgery or more importantly the correct surgery for me. I didn't go to him because I had a breathing or medically necessary problem I went to him because I wanted to improve the appearance of my nose. Aesthetically it was disastrous surgery. I went to him with a nose that had one side of the tip more bulbous than the other which made it look a bit lopsided, that bothered me. The cartilage in the tip was very sharp and felt like it was pushing through the skin which over the long winter and constant sniffling had been very irritating. Those were my concerns - I didn't think my nose needed straightening, to my eyes my nose was not symmetrical but it appeared straight, perhaps a crooked nose is what he saw, but it wasn't what I saw. My nose wasn't that bad, it wasn't long or bumpy or big (that was fixed the first time 23 years ago), there were a couple of things that I thought would be a relatively easy fix.
Dr Constantinides certainly didn't lead me to believe it would be a difficult or problematic surgery on either occasion. And I understand that when he got in there things may have been different than he was anticipating, but he NEVER said at any time to me after the first surgery what he wrote in a later email response that - 'the scar that formed was so massive', the cartilaginous structure was so weakened and devastated, my nose was too scarred' - there was NOTHING said about my nose having been in such a horribly bad state. Going into the second surgery it appears he knew that. It certainly would have made me ask more questions and think twice about how to proceed with another surgery had I known.
In May 2014 we began to discuss options and compensation which initially he was cagey about but then agreed to pay me $15,000 so I could see another doctor to have yet another surgery to fix these botched ones. I asked for the names of the best Rhinoplasty doctors for me to contact, he gave me some (and astonishingly included himself in that list....).
I went to see Dr Steven Pearlman, who took a look at my nose and advised me that he does think he can straighten it with another surgery using rib bone, which he believed should have been used from the outset. At the time he wouldn't consider doing it until a year after my last surgery – which is, now, February 2015.
Dr Pearlman is also of the opinion that he doesn't think he can make it any smaller which to me is quite devastating since my nose is significantly larger and wider than when I went to Dr Constantinides' office that first day. Perhaps it happens, but I cant imagine anyone goes to have a nose job to make it bigger. Any reduction now will be minimal, my nose is very hard and inflexible.
I'm incredibly upset and disappointed that I'm now in this position. After two surgeries my nose looks so much worse than it did when I first went to see Dr Constantinides. After the initial revision, there’s no other way to describe it, my nose was just a mess, it was very big, lumpy, crooked and ugly. Now after the second revision it is slightly smaller but it is still misshapen, so obviously crooked to the left (probably worse than before), I have a hard lumpy mass inside the right side of my nose that makes it hard for me to breathe, a new sizable bump down the middle which I didn’t have before, a bulbous heavy tip, and its significantly bigger than what I came to him with.
Obviously not at all the outcome I expected. It has been the worst cosmetic surgery experience I have ever had, and I have dabbled. Something I thought would be a little tidying up has turned into an almost two year nightmare for me and something I'm not able to hide, its right there for everyone to see. I wish I had never done it.
I have paid Dr Constantinides over $30,000 in total, the bulk of which is for this monstrosity on my face. So far he has made excuse after excuse not to pay me the money he promised he would saying his practice has been very slow – TAKE THAT AS AN ADDITIONAL WARNING - I am not in a position to ask my husband for this money again, so I'm at a crossroads. Do wait until Dr Constantinides pays me (if he ever had any intention of doing so), do I save up to pay for another surgery (quoted at $23,000, so I'm going to be an additional $8,000 out of pocket), do I get a loan, do I sue him (which will cost money also)? I'm not sure where I go from here. Warning others considering surgery with this man is high on the agenda though.
Oh, and lastly – the mid-face lift – compared to the disastrous results of the revision rhinoplasties, my problems with that have taken a back seat. There was virtually no discernible difference in helping the hollowing out under my eyes or freshening up my face, after he did the mid-face lift. When I smile or laugh now, my left eye which was much more swollen after the surgery, squints and closes up much more than the other one giving me a lopsided look, I have been using Botox since then to try and remedy that (Dr Constantinides noticed that also because he gave me the first shot of Botox to fix that problem, perhaps he thought in time it would fix itself but I still need the Botox to make my eyes appear even) and I have noticeable scars under my lower lash line which I need to cover with makeup to hide. Another reminder of the huge mistake it was for me to go to this doctor. More than happy to discuss with anyone if they need any further information.