11 Days Post Op- Nose from the Front is SO SWOLLEN I'm Confused on What the Final Shape Will Be? (photo)

     You are absolutely swollen after 11 days, and your tip will improve substantially over the next several months to a year.  Your tip is already markedly smaller than before.  Patience.

At 11 days post-operative, your nose is still very swollen as would be expected this early on. I generally tell patients they will start to like the shape of their nose around the two month mark and that the final results will be seen in 6-12 months.

Significant swelling will persist for several months after rhinoplasty. You will have a good idea of the results by then. The tip will take up to 8 months for swelling to resolve, particularly if an open rhinoplasty approach was used.

10 days postop is very few days, the front view is the most difficult view, the edema for social life, is 1 month, for to take idea of the result, 6 month, and the final result 1 month.

Your nose looks exactly right for 11 days post op. Because of the hump removal, the soft tissue had to be dissected directly off the cartilage and bone of the upper 2/3 of the nose. This takes time to settle down. If you look at the junction of the nose and the face in this area you will see that it is not wider. The soft tissue of your tip was also elevated off the lower lateral cartilages. If you look at the width of the tip compared to the ala (outer nostrils) between the two pictures you can see that your tip is narrower. Your nose is going to look great when the soft tissue swelling goes down (most is gone between 1-3 months after surgery, but, as all here have pointed out, it takes at least 1 year for complete resolution). Think of the soft tissue in a normal (non-swollen) nose as upholstery or wall paper. It's the underlying structural elements that impart the shape, and yours look great.

You are very swollen and not seeing the final result at all. Be patient, you will go through "plateaus"  where you will see changes at 1 month, 3 months and 6 months to a year.

At 11 days after rhinoplasty, there is often a lot of swelling.  It may take six months to a year to improve.

 At 11 days after a Rhinoplasty, the nose will be swollen.  How much is highly variable from patient to patient depending on how much surgically is done to the nose and how efficiently (in time) the Rhinoplasty Surgeon performs the techniques.  The longer the bone is rasped, the tissues remain elevated...the more, proportionally the swelling can be expected to be in the immediate post op period.  Rhinoplasty swelling can last for 6-9 months, so at 11 days the final result would not be visible yet.  

 At eleven days post op the nose will be swollen and this swelling will last for many months and possibly for a year.  In reviewing the photo, the tip appears to be smaller.  I think a “tincture of time” will reveal the true shape of your nasal tip. Please be patient as this is the norm for rhinoplasties.

 

You are in the early post op period.  It can take over a year for all swelling to resolve.  Give it more time before you critique the result.  Donald R. Nunn MD  Atlanta Plastic Surgeon.