Rhinoplasty recovery question. Is it acceptable to do light housework?

Great question. It sounds like it’s too soon for you to be doing housework, even if it is “light”. You just had surgery 5 days ago, so it’s important to allow your body to rest. It needs to be able to allocate any extra energy it has for healing your nose. While light housework might not seem strenuous to you, it can potentially still raise your blood pressure which promotes swelling. After surgery, I recommend that my patients rest and avoid any physical activity for 3 weeks after their rhinoplasty procedure. This helps to ensure that their nose has had time to begin healing, before putting any other strain on their body.

At this stage of your rhinoplasty recovery, it
is still early to be resuming physical activity. I typically recommend that my
patients refrain from exercising and lifting heavy items for at least three
weeks to a month from the date of their surgery. Though “light housework” may
seem easy for you to do even 5 days post-op, I would advise that you try to
take it easy during this time, resting as much as possible to give your body
time to heal properly and to ensure the best results for your rhinoplasty.

This is a question everyone asks. After rhinoplasty there is one goal: to have the swelling resolve as fast as possible. Straining and a rapid heart rate both hinder resolution. Straining retards the blood drainage while a fast heart beat increases the blood flow. Both bad. So the answer to everyone question is don't do activities which result in either of these issues. A weightlifter obviously can easily lift things which a couch potato  would have to strain and a marathon runner's heart rate wont rise as much as someone who drives to work. So it's common sense. As a rule of thumb, no strenuous physical activity for a month.  

Thank you for your question.  You should follow your surgeon's post operative care instructions, but generally, light housework should be fine as soon as you are up to it.  Just don't do anything that causes exertion or lift anything heavier than about 10 pounds.  You don't want to raise your blood pressure and risk getting a nose bleed or increase swelling.  As far as the tingling sensation, that was likely the effervescence from the hydrogen peroxide.  It would be difficult to accidentally damage anything by gentle cleaning with a q-tip.  If you are still concerned, obviously check with your surgeon and keep him in the loop.  All the best!

 It's important to not get your heart rate  and blood pressure elevated for 2 weeks after the rhinoplasty procedure, to prevent a nose bleed. What constitutes light housework is quite variable when talking to patient's. As long as the housework  is not consider exercise, it's probably acceptable to do normal chores. In our practice, we do not recommend Neosporin placed inside the nose  diue to many patients being allergic to it