How Long After Rhinoplasty Until I Can Return to Normal Daily Life?

Hi New york8421 in New york,

Plastic surgeons typically recommend 2 weeks of restricted activity such as bicycle, running, yoga, or sex and 6 weeks for contact sports such as volleyball, basketball, or soccer. Touching the nose is avoided early after the procedure and your plastic surgeon will let you know it's OK to touch or massage. One month after surgery you should have a routine daily life, but may still feel tightness or numbness which is expected.

Rhinoplasty swelling occurs both on the outside and inside of the nose. It is normal to feel congested and have nasal obstruction and postnasal drip immediately after rhinoplasty surgery. Patients are generally "restaurant ready" and socially acceptable within 2 weeks. Most swelling after rhinoplasty resolves within a month. The final 20% of swelling takes a much longer time to resolve, up to a year or longer after surgery. Fortunately, this final swelling is usually only evident to the surgeon and patient.

Rhinoplasty swelling varies greatly and is largely based on the areas of the nose treated, surgical approach to the nose (open or closed/endonasal), skin thickness, postoperative care, and your healing ability. The more extensive the surgery, the more you will swell and the longer the swelling will last. The tip of the nose holds onto swelling longer than the other parts of the nose. Open rhinoplasty, where there is an external incision at the base of the nose, swells more and longer than closed/endonasal rhinoplasty. Patients with thicker skin will also have more swelling.

Keeping your head elevated, maintaining the nasal splint/cast, ice, arnica montana, and following your plastic surgeon's guideline may help reduce rhinoplasty swelling. Persistant swelling may also be reduced by steroid treatment into the nose.

Speak with your rhinoplasty surgeon to help guide your post rhinoplasty recovery.

Dr. Chaboki

I recommend 2 weeks before returning to work or school. The bruising will be gone. The swelling will have started to resolve sufficiently that most people are comfortable being seen in public again. As the nose is weakened from surgery, although you can touch your nose to clean it, the nose must not be moved, even slightly for several weeks. Moving the nose may cause it shift inside. Therefore you must avoid any activity like sports where there is a chance on bumping it for 6 weeks. Flying is OK after a month.

Normally after you have a rhinoplasty you should be able to return to normal activites 2 weeks after surgery.  Typically, the bones are healed after 4-6 weeks.  At 29 days, your nose should be healed enough to take practically any activity.  Obviously, if it is hit with significant force, you can break it just like anybody else, but you should be in good shape at the present time.

Following a rhinoplasty, I usually give my patients about 1 week to go back to light activity.  After 2 weeks, they are allowed to return to normal, full activity, as long as their nose does not get hit for 6 weeks.  After 6 weeks, the nose should be strong enough to withstand most activity.

Other than contact sports, there really isn't much you can do to adversely affect your surgery.  Try to wait 3-6 months before contact sports

At one month after surgery, you should be able to do everything except contact sports, but check with your surgeon just to be sure!  Good luck!

It sounds like you are about a month out from your procedure. Barring anything unusual done surgically, you should be able to resume most normal activities at this time withou any restrictions.

1 month after rhinoplasty you should be fine to return to your normal activities.  However, you should just be cautious about bumping your nose.  Otherwise, you should be fine.

 

Enjoy your new nose!

After rhino I tell patients to wait about 6 weeks prior to return to normal because I, like you get a bit nervous when imagining someone's elbow messing it all up in a second.

At one month post-op, tissues and bones have healed, though there will be scar softening and maturation, as well as lymphatic swelling reduction, for many months. Most importantly, your nose skin sensory nerves have not recovered protective sensation, so your nose should feel numb and firm (to your touch) while looking normal. Because of this loss of sensation I always remind my rhinoplasty patients to avoid sunburn or frostbite situations, since their "Too Hot!" or "Too Cold!" sensory warning capabilities are absent or reduced.

Otherwise, your new nose can be damaged just like my or anyone else's unoperated nose if we put it where it shouldn't be. So without being paranoid, enjoy your new nose and just be careful! If your life revolved around mosh pits, unruly crowds, and establishments that over-serve you alcoholic beverages, you may wish to consider a lifestyle change to go along with your new look! Be careful out there!