Rhinoplasty: Stories

I've been following this site for over a year now. To be quite honest, I can't believe I'm actually having the procedure. I can't even believe I'm here right now, talking to you and typing this review on the site. It's felt as though this opportunity would never come my way, but time and savings has made this possible.

I suppose I'll go into my thoughts on having this done. I'm 26 and I've wanted this done since about 12-13 years old. Of course my parents couldn't afford such a "frivolous" thing and I've always been taught that what is on the inside is important, not the outside. So with that in mind, I spent my high school and college years focusing on the inside. After all of that soul searching and personality building, you know what, I'd REALLY like to feel and look awesome on the outside too. It's taken me years to realize that it's OKAY to want change with my personal appearance. I've felt society has taught me that if I'm born a certain way I have to live with it, but you know what? No, I really don't. If I think it's not who I am, why should I live with it?

After realizing the above, I went off and I searched for a doctor for the past year.. annnddd.. I've found one! I've chosen Dr. Ciardullo in White Plains, NY. I'm having to fly in to have the procedure done, and I will stay at a hotel for a week before I fly home. Honestly, it's all worth it to find a doctor you trust. I talked to several doctors that just wanted my money and didn't even pretend to care about what I wanted. I had my consultation with Dr. C a few days ago and he seemed to really put forth an effort to listen to my expectations and concerns. I REALLY like his view of how a feminine nose should look. It matches my view. I also happened to meet two girls in his waiting room who had their nose done by him. All I can say was WOW. I didn't know they had anything done until he mentioned it during the consultation. (I just thought they were two pretty girls!! The noses looked 100% natural.) I suppose a shocker during the consult was the building and area. His office is tiny! (This is a city though..hehe.) and I would suggest not walking alone off of Maple Ave. I had to walk to Main Street (a couple blocks down) to meet up with someone and I was hassled twice on the street.. O_O ack! I just walked faster. Yes, I'm really not a big city girl.

I'm now scheduled to have it done on the 27th of Dec.. Merry Christmas to me. (Anyone else out there having it done this time.. let me know.) :-)

Thought I'd share what I've been doing 2 weeks before the surgery and what I'm packing for after the surgery.

2 Weeks Before:

1. staying away from overly salty, processed foods and have been drinking lots of water (help prevent bloating)
2. taking 500mg Vitamin C with Bioflavonoids daily.
3. stopped my typical exercise routine and switched to yoga and pilates (to not stress my body)

Packed in my suitcase for after care:

1. button up shirts, stretchy pants (yay!), and big soft cotton shirts
2. taking vitamin C 500mg Vitamin C with Bioflavonoids daily.
3. Arnica gel (in case of bruising/swelling. couldn't find the pill form in town, but I found the gel. This may have to be used after the cast is off. We will see..)
4. q-tips
5. saline nasal spray
6. Afrin nasal decongestant (for the flight back 8 days later).
7. a small humidifier (in case the hotel room is dry or I'm stuffy).
8. my prescriptions from the doctor.

Hope this list helps anyone else preparing for their surgery. I keep swinging from super excited to extremely fearful. Ahhh, okay, I'm sure it's normal to think this way. Riiight. :-)

So, tomorrow I go in for surgery. I have been super happy and excited up until the last 4 days. In the last 4 days I've been getting sudden heart palpitations and sweaty palms(even a little shaky). I'm now feeling nauseous at the thought of going in the doctor's office tomorrow. I've never experienced something like this. It's a little nuts. I haven't had any kind of surgery before, I've never had anesthesia, and I keep asking myself if I researched enough on the doctor or if I'm too trusting. Before the past 4 days I would have said this would be worth it, but now, I'm not so sure. I have high expectations of my results at this point. I'm doing what I can to be positive (even though this doesn't sound quite so!).

I had my surgery yesterday. I was too exhausted to update... I only slept for an hour and a half the night before my surgery! I was a bit wound up to say the least. (I'm sure that's evident from my last post.)
DAY 1:
My surgery was rescheduled to be the first instead of last, so I arrived early in the morning. I was greated by the nurse on staff and she instantly held my hand through the entire process from that point on. The reviews on this site have been spot on about how caring the staff is at Dr. Ciardullo's office is. The nurse, anesthesiologist, and the rest are all caring people. I had someone by my side the whole time. What I truly appreciated the most was how they took care of my mother during the situation. She didn't travel with me for the consultation so she knew nothing about this doctor or office. The someone on staff gave her a tour of the facility, and practically held her hand while I was in surgery. I couldn't have appreciated it more. Right before the surgery, Dr. Ciardullo and I discussed what I wanted and what he was going to try and achieve. We were both on the same page about everything and off I went to surgery. For the surgery itself, and being my first surgery ever, I was surprised that it wasn't as scary as I thought. I didn't feel bad from the anesthesia and woke up without issues. I wasn't dazed or confused either, which I was afraid would happen. I remember trying to take off the thing on my face that was causing pressure. The nurse told me I had a lot of bruising and an ice pack as on my face. I still told her to take it off. It was soooo heavy on my face. I was woozy, but I was able to understand what was going on, even if I was a little incoherent. I signed my waiver to leave and back to my hotel I went with my mother. I couldn't go to sleep, for whatever reason, so I just laid in bed all day. I didn't have the energy to do anything. I had to take a pain pill and an antibiotic. I finally fell asleep at 4am and slept for 3 hours.

DAY2:

I'm really tired today people!! Why can't I sleep? I think I wound myself up so much. It's much more difficult than I thought it would be to travel to some place far away and have this surgery done. I have some advice I'd like to post at the end of all this about someone who is thinking about traveling to a place for this surgery.... this ordeal has been WAY more stressful than imagined. My nose isn't packed, but I have to have the drip pad. My sinuses are nuts right now and I can't blow my nose? It's getting gross. I can't breathe out of my nose yet. My only fear right now is not being able to breathe our of my nose. I'm not even concerned about how it looks.. haha! I just want to BREATHE!! How long did it take for some of you to start breathing out of your nose again? I could almost smell the garlic in some soup I had today. As for how it looks.. even with the cast on and all my freaking bruising and swelling, it looks much shorter and the bump is completely gone. The tip is turned up quite a bit. I know it'll eventually go down, and I'm ok with how it looks now, but I really hope it doesn't turn up anymore.. Other than that.. I think it's going to look super cute. Last thing to ramble about while on my pain meds...uhmm... so yes, I've been taking the pain meds and I noticed most people on here don't. I don't know how you didn't! I don't normally take ANY medication, but I can't not take pain meds. I'm swollen and bruised all under the eyes. I'm talking -- black and blue. I suppose I'm not surprised. I stressed myself out the day before and it's not odd for me to find random bruises on my body. I just bruise easily I suppose(even though I live a healthy lifestyle). I haven't tried arnica. I'm wishing I bought those pills now... oh well.. lots of ice. The ice has been helping a LOT. Okay, rambled enough. Hope this was informative for someone out there. :-)

Day 3:

Yesterday was day 3 since surgery (I had surgery on day 1), and it was the best day yet. I think I felt so great because I finally got some sleep. I slept in a leather recliner. I reclined at a 45 degree angle with a memory foam pillow. Best sleep I've had in days.

I had a lot of swelling in my forehead and inner eyes. Throughout the day I thought my cast might pop off from the pressure. In some ways I was hoping it would so I could scratch underneath the cast. People were right when they talked about itching underneath!

I've been trying to keep myself from sneezing. For anyone who has bad allergies, this is going to be an annoyance. I've been using saline spray and squirting it up my nose and using a q-tip doused in saline and rubbing it inside my nose. It's really helped. The hardest thing has been keeping myself from sneezing and keeping myself from blowing my nose.


DAY 4:
I just woke up an hour ago. I'm feeling like myself today. I had a full night's rest and I'm slowly getting around the house more.

Swelling has going down a LOT. I ate pineapple yesterday and decided to eat it for breakfast this morning too. Maybe it helped? :-)

A weird thing is I can't use the center of my upper lip. Every time I do, I feel like I pulled something inside the tip of my nose. I just did it a moment ago and it hurts really bad now :-(. I wonder if I pulled stitches? It feels like it. I can only put a straw at the side of my mouth. I can't smile much either right now. Oh, and I look like a chipmunk. I have little puffy jowls on my jawline (and I have a very small, petite jawline.. so it's funny to see these huge jowly cheeks. I think I'm hiding nuts in them! Okay, it's safe to say they're most likely swollen.)

As far as my nose looks, I think a lot of people would be freaking out because the tip is upturned, but I'm loving it. I know it's taped up and I know the tip comes down, so with that in mind, I'm REALLY happy with how everything looks right now. I keep taking pictures of the side view with the cast and I am so giddy. I can't believe how short it looks compared to before. My only fear is what I can't see. What if the front view isn't straight (and it was before surgery.) I had a very pretty frontal view and would be upset if I didn't look like "me."

Another day of movies and internet.. woohoo!

Ah! I lightly bonked my nose this morning. It was a complete accident. No blood, and I don think anything is out of alignment... but I guess I wont know until the doctor looks at it.. OMGAAAHH. *dies* I really hope I didn't mess anything up. This whole recovery is much rougher than I imagined. If you're trying to imagine what it's like... Hold all of the snot that you want to blow out of our nose, and not blow it. Breathe through your mouth for a week. Sleep sitting at a 45 degree angle. Don't make facial expressions. Don't scratch our nose. Don't touch your nose. (For heavens sake, don't BONK your nose like I just did this morning..) Try to eat out of the side of your mouth because you can't use the middle of your lip.

I'm not complaining because to me it's worth it, but these were little things I didn't even think about. I thought most people made recovery sound like a breeze and it isn't. Surgery is no joke. You're going to be healing from this for a long time and it take conscious effort to not undo what was done! (That's right, I need to stop touching my darn nose!) ;-)

I get the cast off tomorrow.... ready, ready, ready. ;-)

I think my healing process has been more difficult than others or a lot of people don't discuss how difficult recovery can be. I'm still really bruised too. I can't believe how bruised my face is! I'm going to be going to the airport, the day after my cast is off, with black and blue eyes and yellow cheeks.

My profile, even with the cast on, looks beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing the front of my face. I didn't have any issues with the front view of my nose before the surgery, so I hope it looks at least as good as it did before. I'm a little anxious about the front view being messed up.

Had the cast off...

It hurt a lot...

Not sure yet.

The profile is just GORGEOUS. Better than the image I made up for him. And my nose all together is so SMALL. I only dreamed it would be this small. The front... umm.. just not sure yet. One side looks a little more curved and the other side looks much straighter. I hope it's uneven swelling. I can breathe okay, but I'm still so stuffy. I hope that goes away too.

Really swollen and one side is still curved in while the other side is straighter. I keep thinking my nosrilt tip reminds me of jillian michaels but with a more upturned tip and a slightly crookedness to it. It's really weird. The tip is so fat. I really hope all of these problems are with swelling. I'm still bruised too. Maybe I take longer to heal?

How much should I expect the tip to drop when it does? (I understand that takes 6-8 weeks to happen.) I can see all the way up my nose and pray it drops dramatically, not just a teeny bit.

Wanted to add that I read it's too early to pass judgments on crookedness and size of my nose. Uneven swelling can cause this. SO. I will update in a month to let you how it's going. ;-) Overall, I'm happy right now, just some shocking changes.. (sorry I'm writing a book on here! I do hope it's helpful to someone. Trying to be an open book and help others.)

I'm becoming more anxious because as my swelling is going down, the front is looking more twisted as it curves to my right.

I'm feeling really awful right now. My frontal view was straight before. How did it become curved? I may have a stellar profile now, but I just traded a terrible profile for an even worse frontal view. Right now I feel like this wasn't worth it at all.The saving, the traveling, and the pain while healing. Hope I have different feelings by the 1 month mark, which will be the end of next week.

I'm rating 3 stars until I like it more.

I added pictures people have been asking for. I REALLY hate hate HATE my front view. It looks like plastic surgery gone wrong. I'm also having pain on the left side of my nose (the straighter side). A bump has grown on the top and it feels like a sliver of a fracture going down my nose. This is in the exact spot he kept pressing on after he took my cast off. Why does everyone else on here have such "fantastic" results from this guy and I had to be the one to pay so much for travel and the procedure and get the worst results? -_-... so not happy. I keep calling his office and he's always in surgery. Every time he's called me back I've been in a meeting. Ugh. I'm still trying to keep positive and think maybe it'll get better......

MY LAST POST! YAY!

1 MONTH POST-OP

I still have issues with the front. It may resolve itself or I may have to have a touch up. Thankfully, all the options Dr. C gave me had nothing to do with surgery. I hope it doesn't come to a touch up. I really, really don't want to travel all the way back to White Plains and stay in a hotel and blah, blah. I really want it to be behind me.

I've had several people asking me if I'd recommend Dr. Ciardullo. My answer is Yes! I still would, even after my little fit (above). While I'm not the happiest with the front at the moment, I'm ecstatic about my profile. If I had before and afters of it, you'd see why. It was long and had a huge hump bump. Now the profile is medium/small and no giant hump bump. My front is MUCH less flattering though (in my opinion). I've talked to Dr. C over the past month and he has received extra kudos from me. He's admitted to seeing the problems in my photos and said, "While it didn't look like that on the operating table, I can see the problems you're talking about in your photos." I was surprised he said that. He's been very kind about the situation and has reassured me to just wait it out. He said in 6 months if I'm still unhappy, he's willing to work with me until I am. He wants to make sure I'm happy with my results. He did throw out there that he hasn't had to do but a handful of touch ups in the past 1000 noses. That didn't make me feel lucky at all... haha, but I'm glad he's working with me and taking my crazy calls so early in the healing process.

I do have something to say for those of you considering to travel far away for surgery. My advice is to be very aware of your financial situation. I didn't expect to face the possibility of going back. The thought of it hurts my wallet. If I were to EVER have surgery again, I would not travel by plane to get there. That's my personal opinion. Travel if you are happier with your decision, just remember.. you may need to go back..either for checkups, consultations, surgery... I really ignored this before!

That's it! Sorry if I scared anyone. I'm a bit of a drama queen. :-)

Best wishes to you all!

I wanted to add that I'm now starting to like my new nose. The tip is starting to drop a little and swelling on one side is going away. It's actually evening out. Maybe I won't need a revision after all. Everyone was right on here. It was too early to judge. I feel so embarrassed..heehee.

I was told a few days ago by someone that if I hadn't told them I had surgery, they would have never known. They said it looked so natural. I think I'm my own worst critic. :-)

just wanted to add..going to an ent.. can't breathe out of the right side of my nose and my nose is a C shape. It is more curved as swelling goes down.

Hey! I'm back..lol. ENT said I'm stuffy still from surgery and everything look good overall. He said my nose has a curved/crooked look bc the middle third on my right side is a little weak. This causes the right nostril to flare out. When swelling goes down over time, it's possible for it to be too small to notice/care. If I don't update this again, just assume it healed properly. I'm tired of coming back here. :P

Okay. I'm not sugar coating anything anymore. I didn't say everything my ENT said, and its been bothering me I didnt. I have been in such denial about my results because I've had to tell myself something positive to get through the day, even if its ignoring the obvious. I didn't want to get on here and bash a doctor and be that crazy negative person, but everything isn't rainbows and ponies.

My ENT said Dr C didn't do a good job and the right side needs support. The middle third of my nose is weak. The left side is growing a huge hump because there is no support on the right. I can't breathe because of the lack of support. My doctor wants me to come back in 3 months to discuss what to do about revision.

Swelling is going down more and more and its just horrible. My nose still hurts all the time, I find blood on my tissues, I'm still breathing out of my mouth, and I look deformed with a C shaped nose. The cherry on top is this huge hump growing on the left side. Wasn't getting ride of a bump the point? Now I have a new bump and extra deformities..yay!

I'm not saying don't go to Dr Ciardullo. I'm saying just don't get surgery. I would take my long bump nose back to have my long thin nose over the A shaped dent wide nose I have now...that can't even function properly. So what? I had someone once in a blue moon say something unkind about my nose back then.Boohoo. BFD. I didn't realize how much it didn't matter. I now have to face mental, physical and financial stress over the rest of the year and so on until I have this stupid revision. Then what? What if it goes wrong and my breathing is worse or it looks even wider, uglier..so on. You see? This is SO not worth it. The strain on my personal relationship and the strain on my life has been more than I even DREAMED it would be.

Stay away from plastic surgery. Its too big a gamble. Accept you as you and move on with your life.

Funny.. Right before I went in for surgery, one of his nurses said "don't worry, Dr C does natural noses!" I'm sure some of his patients got one, but somehow I ended up with the short straw. Natural? How about concave on one side, fat on the other, tip tilted to the right, and a new hump.. Time to roll the dice soon again and see if something better comes out, BC I'd like to breathe again one day..