Will an Alar Base Reduction Be Painful Under Local Anesthesia?

     The injections will be painful, but the surgery will not.  Find a plastic surgeon with ELITE credentials who performs hundreds of rhinoplasties each year.  Then look at the plastic surgeon's website before and after photo galleries to get a sense of who can deliver the results.  Kenneth Hughes, MD Los Angeles, CA

It is possible to have alar base surgery with local anesthesia, but it is more painful than with IV sedation or a general anesthesia.  The trade off is that the cost is usually less when it is done under local anesthesia.  The painful portion would just be at the beginning when your nose would be numbed with some injections.  Once this is done, you should not feel anything and the procedure should not be more difficult to perform for the surgeon.  

 An alar plasty is usually performed under local anesthesia and the surgery itself is not painful. The injections to get the base of the nose numb are a little bit painful but not the surgery itself

Alar base reduction is commonly performed under local anesthesia.  You should expect to have minimal discomfort with the injection of the actual numbing anesthetic at the beginning.  After this, there shouldn't be much, if any, pain through the rest of the procedure.  It is important to have this discussion with your surgeon prior to the procedure to determine if local anesthesia is right for you.  Sometimes patients who are extremely nervous choose to have more than just local anesthesia for their procedure.