What I usually recommend to my patients who are still pursuing some sort of career aspirations in mixed martial arts, and I recommend that they wait until their sort of career or their sparring days are sort of coming to an end, and then come and see me because it's a huge investment. You can put a lot of time into reconstructing somebody's nose, and you don't want it to be injured again. The secondary and tertiary construction is very, very difficult because of the scar tissue. So my recommendation is usually to wait until they have sort of finished their career, and then come see somebody like me for their reconstruction.

We can't provide names, but I actually had a patient who was a professional boxer, and he joined the army because he felt duty to his country. But before his army days, he was a professional boxer. He had 45 professional bouts, and his nose was mashed, I mean, beyond belief. But we were able to reconstruct his nose. We had to use a rib graft, and it was probably one of the most challenging cases that I did. But it is possible even of people who have had lifelong career in things like boxing or mixed martial arts. It is possible to rebuild their nose and restore their function.

MMA Fighters and Rhinoplasty: How Many Revisions Are Possible?

Physically active patients who take a lot of trauma to the nose are particularly challenging for Dr. Joe Shvidler but he says he hasn't turned anyone away yet!