Septoplasty: Stories

I had a septo/rhinoplasty with a turbinate reduction 6 weeks ago. I had a deviated septum, nasal valve collapse and enlarged turbinates which disabled me to breathe thru my nose. After years of treating it like allergies, i finally decided to go to an ENT specialist to get a second opinion on what was actually going on.

Finally, I was diagnosed properly and was suggested to have surgery to fix my deviated septum, turbinate reduction and the nasal valve collapse.

I had an open rhinoplasty with extensive grafting to prevent the collapse and support my native nasal cartilages . Along with that I decided to get my nasal hump reduced and my surgeon suggest a slight deprojection of my nose since it was disproportionately long for my face.

This whole process has been a crazy roller coaster for me. The recovery was hard especially the first 4 days post-op; then once the cast was removed it was even worse for me.

My nose was huge, swollen and lacked definition. No matter how much I had prepared myself for this, apparently it wasn't enough! I hated looking at myself in the mirror (especially the front). I LOVED my profile though! it looked beautiful without the nasal hump!

Throughout the weeks everyday was different, one day my nose seemed crooked the next day a dent would form, etc.

Till this day (6 weeks later) I have days where my nose looks more swollen than the day before. I am trying to hang in there and be patient (like my doc keeps on telling me) but it has been very hard!

Overall, for now i am VERY happy with my decision to get this done. There is NO price i can put on being able to breath thru my nose! :-) it feels amazing!!! Also my sense of smell has increased x100!

I still think there is still quite a bit of swelling in my tip area due to the amount of grafting and maneuvers that were performed.

But just to give you an idea i attached a before and after pic of my profile view.