Does Your Nose Keep Growing? Would This Affect Outcome of Rhinoplasty?

Many patients and non-patients comment that the nose is one of the few areas of the body that continues growing. That is completely false. The nose does change however. Noses get longer with age from stretching of the ligaments holding the nasal tip cartilages up to the rest of the nose. Tip cartilages may get weaker. Also the skin stretches. These aging changes may make the nose look longer from a drooping tip. The hump may also look larger. In reality the bump stays the same but the rest of the nose is falling away from it.

Rhinoplasty should be directed at the nose as it currently is. Modern techniques often includes adding cartilage grafts for strength to withstand the healing process.

We typically place a columellar strut into the nasal tip, carved from your septal cartilage, to stabilize the position of the nasal tip, and prevent drooping of the tip with aging. Hope this helps. Dr Joseph

The nose doesn’t continue to grow
past the age of twenty.This doesn’t
mean that changes in size and shape don’t occur as the nose ages.These changes are related to skin thickening,
soft tissue laxity and the constant downward force of gravity.Over the course of time the nasal
structures age in the same manner as other facial structures.With aging, facial and nasal soft tissue
tends to sag and droop.This phenomena is
often confused with continued nasal growth, but in reality is part of normal
facial aging. These changes continue after
rhinoplasty and are considered a normal part of facial aging.Rhinoplasty can set the clock back but never
stops the clock from ticking. The nose will continue to age along with the rest
of the face.

The nose doesn't continually grow with time. It can appear to do this as the tip to droops with aging.

This can be due to a combination of decrease ligamentous support of the nasal cartilages and also from less boney support at the base of the nose. Also, one's nasal tip skin can become thicker as we get older.

Regardless, these changes shouldn't affect one's rhinoplasty results appreciably. I typically augment the nasal support mechanisms during rhinoplasty to ensure stable results as the nose heals.

Noses don't keep growing: they fall with age and therefore appear to be larger. It does not affect your rhinoplasty.

The nose changes as we age and these changes depend on our genetics, environment and anatomy.  Starting with the skin - the skin gradually loses collagen, accumulates sun damage and thins out as we age.  The thin nasal fatty layer also thins with age.  The piriform aperture (the boney opening for the nose) gradually increases in size with age.  The fibrous connections between the upper lateral cartialge/caudal septum and the lower lateral cartilage/medial crura also slowly lose there integrity with age and result in the appearance of the nose getting bigger or longer.  Some of these changes will be halted with rhinoplasty others will not.

The nose doesn't continually grow all throughout your life, though it does undergo some changes related to aging, such as loss of fat, sometimes more drooping, etc. After a rhinoplasty your nose also changes for about a year slowly until it reaches the final state. That is because of swelling, skin contracture, scarring inside the nose, etc. can all impact the final outcome over time. So as part of that, it is possible that the nose drops a bit with time or changes in other ways. With good technique, you should have a good long-term outcome.
-Dr. David Mattos, New York Plastic Surgical Group

Dear Ms Funny Face,

 

Noses are considered fully grown in most females by age 16-17, and by ages 17-18 in males.  The nose continues to change as we age but does not continue to grow, rather the ligaments holding the nasal cartialge weaken and the nasal tip tends to widen and droop with age.

Most growth of the nose ends by about 17 to 18 in boys and a bit younger in women.  There can be small changes iin the cartilage with life, but nothing too significant.

Regarding: "Does Your Nose Keep Growing? Would This Affect Outcome of Rhinoplasty?
Thank you for previous help/advice on previous question. Interestingly, I heard noses do not stop growing...is this true? Would this not affect future results of a rhinoplasty? ie, the new nose could slightly fall back into its original state pre-surgery? Thank you all."

I have answered another of your questions today. Nasal growth after surgery is an urban myth. With age, there is tissue relaxation and sagging but there is no growth.  As a result, there would be no reversion into the old nose. The exception of course being Pinocchio's situation with lying associated nose growth spurts...

Dr. Peter Aldea