Is It Possible to Fix One Side of a Broken Nose?

In our experience unilateral osteotomies and closed nasal reduction performed many years ago have been fraught with complications and asymmetries.  We have since abandoned those procedures and perform only bilateral osteotomies to completely straighten and realign the nasal pyramid, and have had an excellent success rate with that.  Reducing a nasal fracture is not considered a rhinoplasty.  As far as the maximum amount of rhinoplasties that can be performed on a patient, that depends on the issues presented.  It is best to only have the nose done once or twice to keep scar tissue formation and buildup to a minimum.  

Hello,

Following a broken nose, there is a window of time of about one week where you can have a closed nasal reduction performed.   You can fix one side of the nose.  However, if you wait too long, it may be necessary to perform additional surgery depending on the nature of the injury and how it is affecting the overall structure and function of your nose. In regard to revisions, there is no predetermined amount of surgeries that an individual can have performed. It is best to have the surgery performed correctly the first time to reduce the chances of a revision being necessary. Each subsequent procedure becomes more difficult due to scar tissue, three-dimensional healing, and shrink wrappage of the skin.  Thank you and I hope this helps.

Dr. Nassif


 

Correcting a broken nose can be a simple or complex procedure depending upon the degree of injury. Typically if one bone is pushed in the other is usually pushed out and both need to be set into the middle. This is not always the case and sometimes just one bone can be put back into position. There is no restriction on the absolute number of rhinoplasties to answer your second question.