Is bone regrowth possible after a rhinoplasty?

Hello and thank you for your question. Bones do not grow back. What can happen is the initial swelling is hiding a residual dorsal hump left during your surgery and as the swelling resolves the hump becomes more prominent. When this occurs, I don’t recommend having rasping performed under local anesthesia. This will usually make the nose look better for 1-2 months and then it will actually get much worse long-term afterwards, with contour irregularities developing. This is because the skin of the dorsum is extremely thin. A much better approach is to do a formal revision with rasping and placement of a dorsal onlay fascial graft to help smooth the dorsum. Here is some general advice when considering a surgeon.

I highly recommend that my patients focus much more on real longterm before and after photographs rather than 3D imaging.   I encounter so many patients in my practice who see me for revision rhinoplasty who previously had surgery elsewhere who feel like they were mislead into surgery by surgeons who relied heavily on 3D imaging without adequate real before and after pictures to back it up. Photoshop is easy but real surgery is very different.

I always recommend that you carefully evaluate your surgeon’s online before and after gallery on their website for both quality and quantity of results. Make sure that there are hundreds of real before and after pictures which demonstrate long-term follow up results. If your surgeon is posting mostly on table results without real long-term follow up results, that is usually a major red flag. If a surgeon is posting mostly just splint removal day videos without longterm follow-up pictures, that can also be a red flag. Long-term results are much more meaningful than on table results or 1 week post-op results. I recommend that you seek consultation with a qualified board-certified rhinoplasty surgeon who can evaluate you in person.

Best wishes and good luck.

Richard G. Reish, M.D.
Harvard-trained plastic surgeon

it is possible to have residual fullness of the nasal dorsum depending on what was done at the time of initial surgery. If a substantial dorsal hump was taken down often rasping of the bone is performed. If these bony fragments are retained, it is possible for some overgrowth to occur resulting in some residual hump. It may be possible to address this with closed rasping of the affected area.