Rhinoplasty: Stories

If I didn't absolutely hate my nose, I wouldn't choose elective surgery for myself. But I know it's necessary for me and now at 22 I finally saved enough to do it.

I've always dreamed of the day I could get my nose fixed and be able to wear my hair ALL up and out of my face. Or not worry 100% of the time that someone would see me from the wrong angle. Not only is my nose big, but it's crooked too so from one angle it looks huge and horrendously terrifying. So I won't have to hide anymore.

I've had one consultation so far in Chicago with a doctor I liked a lot. I live a couple hours north of Chicago so I drove down and met with him alone so I was very nervous.

He answered all my questions, took pictures and then showed me morphs of a nose he thinks would work best for my face. I didn't have anything in mind because I'd be happier with just about anything other than what I have.
I'll be meeting with another surgeon in Madison on January 18th. My mom will come with this time so I'm happy about that. After I meet him, I'll make my decision right away of who I like better, and get the surgery scheduled for as soon as possible. It can't come soon enough for me.

Now I've consulted with two doctors. One would use general anesthesia and the other would use IV sedation.
Long story short, I'm liking the surgeon who uses IV sedation more, but the idea of being somewhat conscious during surgery is absolutely horrifying and I wanna cry just thinking about it.

If anyone has any advice or opinions or just anything to make me feel better/relax, I'd appreciate it.

After lots of thinking, worrying, freaking out, talking with my mom, and going back and forth, I made my decision. I'm incredibly indecisive and easily swayed, so choosing a surgeon has been tough. I thought my gut was telling me one thing until I found some very scary reviews about one of the doctors. I'm also NOT AT ALL comfortable with twilight/IV sedation. I thought I could talk myself into it, but that's never happening. So I got to speak with the doctor I ended up choosing this morning. I had lots more questions for him and he put me at ease. I feel great about my decision!

My surgery is scheduled for valentine's day, what a nice gift to myself :)

So I got some comments telling me not to get rhinoplasty and not to mess with my face. Thank you for your concern. I'm well aware of possible complications and I have a pretty open mind about it. In my first post I said I'd be happier with just about any other nose and I still mean it! If it turns out to be any improvement I'll be happy and it'll be worth it. I uploaded a couple pictures of myself I took yesterday and today from different angles. Maybe then you can see more why I need it.

But anyway, I'm starting to stock up on various supplies I'll need for after surgery. If there are any kind of items that you're glad you had or even wish you had, please list them for me! Comments welcome!

6:30 am tomorrow... I feel like there's so much I have to get done first! I'm not scared or nervous right now, who knows how I'll feel tomorrow. I've been watching a lot of nip/tuck on netflix haha. Coincidence? I don't know.

I added a few more "before" pictures today. Can't believe this is the last day OF MY LIFE that I'll have this nose. Forever. I've been brainstorming different ways to change my hair for when I go back to work. You know, to distract. We'll see....

I may or may not update tomorrow before surgery, so any last words of wisdom are appreciated!

So much to tell. Here goes:

Left home at 3am with my mom and my grandpa to drive to Chicago. Checked into the surgery center at 5:30 and I was soooo scared. So scared that I could barely talk to or look at anyone.
A very nice man named Rommel was taking care of me and he put in my IV. The IV didn't hurt AT ALL! Then the anesthesiologist dr Olson talked with me. Lastly dr shah came in to talk and go over details of surgery and show me the morphs again.
So then a lady took me into the surgery room. Dr Olson was administering my anesthesia and the last thing I remember is him asking where I'm from and I said Milwaukee. That's it as far as I know.

Next thing I'm waking up in recovery with ice on my face and a mystery woman saying "Jessica! Wake up and breathe through your mouth!!" The next half hour I don't really remember much but my nose did hurt. It was bearable though, and felt better after I took some pain pills. I got to drink water right away and use the bathroom right away too.

ABSOLUTELY NO NAUSEA! Not even a little bit. That must mean dr Olson the anesthesiologist does his thing flawlessly because I think waking up was a breaze.
My throat isn't sore at all either! And there's BARELY ANY PAIN. Close to none right now.
I didn't see dr shah after surgery but he talked to my mom after and told her everything went well, no surprises. It did take a bit longer than we thought but no big deal.

Ok so the last two things before I forget, my hair is very crusty and full of this yellow orange stuff and I hope it doesn't stain my hair haha. You can see in the picture I put up. Be kind please, I look gross and in sure it will only get worse.
And lastly, we asked my surgeon dr shah if he would take a picture of my nose right away when he finished while I was still under on the table and he did!! I gave him my phone and he took a before and after and it looks so good. Natural, still looks like me but so improved :) I don't think I'll post it because I look dead and I don't wanna scare anyone.

It's the day after surgery so this would be considered day 2 right?

Well I feel fine for the most part. Only took Vicodin yesterday and this morning switched to extra strength Tylenol. Still very little pain. I wanna say basically none for the the majority of my day. Still no nausea. There's some bleeding and draining yet. Doesn't bother me much though.
I didn't sleep last night because I've been icing religiously. I didn't even wanna sleep because I didn't wanna miss out on 20 min on, 20 min off.

Sooo as of now, minimal swelling and bruising. In my picture I'm uploading from today, you can see a TINY bruise by the inside of my eye. Everyone says day 3 is the worst so I'm expecting more to come.

My mom is taking great care of me, I couldn't do this without her :) she washed the crusty stuff out of my hair and keeps my timer for icing, puts the ice on me, changes my drip pad, cleans the grossness underneath it and brings me food. She's the best! My own private nurse! (She is really finishing up nursing school at the moment)

So overall I'm fine! Just bored and looking forward to being done with icing my face

Days 3 and 4:

I have just a little bit of light bruising under my eyes that showed up yesterday (day 3) and are already fading now. I have kind of a balloon face too because of swelling. Both bruising and swelling at this point are not as bad as I expected. My nose has no pain (unless I laugh), but my teeth hurt for some reason. I remember waking up from surgery with my top teeth hurting pretty bad so I wonder if the breathing tube was jammed in my mouth weird and pressing against my teeth. That's the only explanation I could think of since my teeth never hurt before.

Anyways. I'm just so happy to be done icing, that was the most annoying thing I think. I'm still wearing the drip pad because there's some gross stuff leaking out a little bit. I haven't had a hard time eating, chewing food, or brushing my teeth so far. I'm just a little more careful and that all works fine.

Also thought I might mention that I don't like being on a low sodium diet because in my opinion everything delicious is high in sodium!

Tomorrow's the day. THEEE DAY! I'm so excited and of course keeping a very open mind. Even preparing for disappointment incase my swelling is more out of control than I thought it would be. There's a good chance of that since I had an open procedure. But I like to think I'm a fairly reasonable and patient person, so I won't freak out :)

So with that being said, there are just a few small concerns I have at this point that I'll bring up tomorrow. 1) I'm still dripping. It's not that bad and only a little bit. I think this is normal but I need reassurance that it's fine. 2) My smile is so ugly. NOW I GET WHAT EVERYONE MEANT ABOUT THE WEIRD STIFF UPPER LIP! So gross haha. I would just like an idea of how long it'll take to return to normal. No improvement on that so far.

On the plus side, My teeth stopped hurting and the little bruising I had is completely gone already. I'm going to the salon I work at later to have one of the girls wash and style my hair. After hours when no one's there, special treatment! Then when my hair's clean I'll take a new picture of myself to show my little bit of swelling and lack of bruising. I didn't bother putting up a picture of my bruising before at its worst, because even then you could barely see it.

One other positive thing might be kind of hard to believe, but my skin has actually cleared up a bit during the past week. Yes it's still very oily now, but I had some CRAZY breakouts the days and weeks leading up to surgery and now it's going away! In case anyone wants to know, it might be the combination of the following: Wearing no makeup, eating healthy, drinking lots of water, relaxing/not stressing, gentle cleansing, and wiping my face with an astringent twice a day.

WOOOOOOO CAST IS OFF!!!!!

I had my appointment with Dr. Shah at 11:30 today for cast removal (stitches too). I would have updated much sooner but there's so much good shopping right by his office, we had to stay a while longer:) Okay so right away when he saw me he said even with my cast on he could see I had lots of swelling in my nose. Which of course I anticipated. So first he took out the stitches which didn't hurt at all. Then the cast came right off and that didn't hurt either. He handed me the mirror and at first I was afraid to look. But then I did and I'm so so so so so happy. It's of course very swollen still but even with the swelling it's such an improvement! It's so much straighter now and shorter and it doesn't stick out really far off my face anymore! I know I'll only love it more as time goes by. They cleaned the outside and inside a little bit and gave me some tape to take home. Also showed me the way I have to tape my nose at night to help with swelling.

It's still very early, but at this point I wanna say this is the best thing I've ever done for myself. In my life. I'll change my 'worth it' rating to 'yes' and rate Dr. Shah after a little time goes by. I'd like to see changes in swelling first just to confirm that it's as good as I think it will be. I wanna say yes it's worth it and give him 5 stars right now because I'm so happy but I guess you never know right?

Anyway, I have some advice for everyone who is satisfied with their results. If you love love love your nose, give your surgeon some positive reviews on other sites too! Let more people know how good your experience was. That's what I'm going to do.

I almost forgot today was 2 weeks for me, so I added 2 new pictures.

Swelling pretty much changes every day. Some mornings I think my nose looks so nice and small and some mornings I think it doesn't look all that different. I knowww it's so very early and I need more time for results. My nose definitely swelled up more the next couple days after cast removal. Luckily we can always contour with makeup! If you don't know how, I suggest looking it up on YouTube :)

Generally speaking, so far so good. I'm not even thinking about drinking yet, I've heard way too many horror stories. Anyone know when I can safely have a couple drinks and swelling won't be affected?

The past month has gone by so fast, I can't believe it. Right now everything is going very well. Swelling is looking better and better as time goes on! Of course there are some bad days. It's just so hard to stay away from salt. But even on the bad days, I still look better than I did before. I should also mention my breathing is improving everyday too! It's not completely back to normal, but I'm very happy to be breathing out of my new nose now :)

I have yet to drink any alcohol or work out. Soon I'll try both and update with how it went. Next week thursday I have a follow up visit with Dr. Shah. I may need an injection for swelling if he feels it's necessary. I believe he told me I'd be getting one this time. If I do, I'll post more new pictures after the shot.

There's not really anything else for me to share at this point. All in all, I'm VERY pleased with my results thus far and how smoothly my healing is going. If you're reading this and you're someone who is contemplating rhinoplasty, I say go for it. It's such a relief to go out in public and not be thinking about my nose 24/7. I've waited so long and now I finally feel like a normal person!

Today is 6 weeks post op for me and all is going well. There's not much new for me to report. Exactly 1 week ago I went for a follow up visit and got injections in my nose for swelling. They were pretty painful but definitely worth it because within a few days I did notice a little difference.

At my appointment I asked him for how long I should follow a low sodium diet and he suggested trying to stick with it for a few more weeks if I can, so I'll be doing that. I'll also continue to tape at night for 3-6 months, which doesn't bother me.

I took 2 new pictures this morning before work, so those have been uploaded. Believe it or not, I still have not had a drink but tonight I'm going out so we'll see how it goes!

So that's about all I can think of to update. But I'm wondering if anyone could help me out and tell me how to rate Dr. Shah? I'm ready to give him a rating but his name is not popping up. Anyway, if anyone can help me solve this I'd appreciate it. I also want to thank everyone who has read my review and left kind words and support :) I'm so glad for this site, it has been a huge help.