Phantom bad smell and numbness in nose years after rhinoplasty?

The smell in your nose, and the numbness of the tip: on rare occasion I have had patients mention a smell in the nose, but this is usually during the early postoperative period is probably due to thick mucus which does not get completely cleaned out or perhaps to some drainage from the sinuses that had built up when the nose was swollen inside. As far as the numbness of the tip, there is usually numbness in the first few weeks to months after rhinoplasty. Some of this numbness may persist for a long period of time depending on the type of rhinoplasty that was performed. During the surgery tiny nerve endings under the skin get cut and have to grow back for the sensation to return to normal. In some cases this may not occur completely and there may be areas of patchy reduced sensation though probably not complete numbness . There is no harm in that. It just means that little nerve endings did not completely grow back

This is fairly common during the early healing period, and nasal saline washes are helpful for removing nasal mucous that may become thickened and foul. If it’s occasional now, see if it gets better with large volume saline nasal washes. Hope this helps. Dr Joseph