Rhinoplasty: Stories

May 13th, 2012
I wanted a nose job since I was very young, maybe as young as 13 years old. While growing up people like a friend from school, my old boss at work and even my godmother asked me if I had not thought about having a nose job, and that really affected me, so now with 25 years old I decided it was time.

I had my surgery March 8th, I thought I was over prepared, I had read so much about rhinoplasty for all this years that I thought I had a master's degree, but God was I wrong.

My surgery didn't hurt at all, it was just uncomfortable because during the first week I had to breathe through my mouth. However, I was shocked because I couldn't even open my mouth, I used teaspoons and straws to eat and drink for about two weeks, everything felt soooo tight, my nose, my cheeks, my forehead, my nose was hard as a rock, etc, I couldn't make any expressions. My full smile came back last week, so 8 weeks after the surgery and my nose is a bit more flexible, but I still cannot purse my lips.

I live in the Dominican Republic, everybody here is a mix of races, nobody is 100% black or white, so doctors are used to ethic rhinoplasty. My doctor is lovely he did a very conservative nose job, he did a small alarplasty and inserted an L shaped silicone implant, but I've come to realize that "You don't know what you have until its gone", yeap, I made a mistake, my new nose doesn't look bad, everybody loves it, but I've been so depressed, this isn't for me, it doesn't make me happy, my natural me, that's who I want to be, me with my big, flat, SOFT nose and it's so sad that I had to go through this to appreciate myself.

I wanted to remove the implant May 10th, but my doctor is going abroad and said that he prefers to do it after he returns at the beginning of June, so I can have follow up appointments the weeks after the removal. I'm scared because I don't want to end up disfigure, but my doctor told me that everything will be fine and that I'm going to have my normal nose just a bit narrower because of the alar trimming but nothing drastic. Meanwhile, I'm going to see a therapist, the emotional toll of this has been huge for me.

Rhinoplasty is wonderful, it can help a lot of people but I just focused on the physical part and totally skipped the emotional. If you're thinking about having a nose job, take into consideration EVERYTHING, because once it's done there's no turning back. I hope once my implant is removed I'll have a similar nose to the one I had before, but I know it'll never 100% the same.

I'll update about the outcome of the implant removal.