So happy I went with Dr. Yoo

Sorry I missed a lot of people’s private messages - I don’t really check this site anymore! Most people were asking for updated photos, so here they are. Apologies for all the stickers on the pics but I just want my privacy and a lot of my family photos are up on the wall so I wanted to cover them. It’s been almost 1 year since my rhinoplasty, and I still absolutely love it! I haven’t had any issues at all, and I’ve pretty much just continued my life not obsessing about my face anymore, which is the GREATEST thing about plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is NOT a substitute for mental health care but if you literally just really dislike one thing about yourself and have disliked it for 20+ years and want to do something permanent about it to stop obsessing - go for it! I basically just don’t have to contour the crap out of my nose anymore and can get on with my life. No it hasn’t changed my self worth or made any problems go away or magically made me a better person - it’s just a nose and I don’t have to spend every morning staring at it and putting makeup all over it. Know EXACTLY what you want, save up, do your research/research/research, not just on this site but also Facebook, Yelp, everything, and then manage your expectations - know that it is just one change and isn’t going to make or break you as a person. That is the best advice I can give! I wish you all the best and Lots of love to everyone.

Adding more photos - one of the my profile taken about 3 months post-op, and a before/after of my nostrils taken only 6-7 days post op so you can see how flat my nose was before. My nostrils still looked uneven and swollen in that pic - they have evened out since then. You can still kind of see the scars on my nose right now, but only through my magnifying makeup mirror. No one else has seen them, and I don't need to cover them with makeup.

I ended up going with Dr. Yoo, and I am beyond happy with my results. I am about 3 months post-op, but honestly I did not swell a lot - my nose looks pretty much the same as it did 7 days post-op. Please note, I DID NOT GET THE DCF in my bridge. I only had a problem with the width of my nose at the base (wideness of my nostrils/flatness of the tip), and that is all I wanted fixed. I did not ask for any bridge augmentation, and he agreed that I did not need it. He did an alarplasty to reduce the size of my nostrils as well as added several rib grafts to push the tip out more to make my nose pointy instead of smashed/flat. Honestly, he did EVERYTHING I wanted. It is my dream nose, and I am so happy every time I look at it.
I do agree with some of the posts that say Dr. Yoo is a bit robotic. He is very professional, but he is not someone who is going to be your best friend forever. I think he did his job, did it to 100% efficiency, and that's what I wanted. If you are looking for someone extremely personable, he is probably not the one for you, but I think his skill is top notch. I am personally a little wary of super personable doctors anyway because I think they can try and use their personality to sell you on stuff, and their skill is not that great. I prefer someone who is just very skilled; personality is not huge to me, but I understand it is a big deal to some people so I figured that I would mention this. The office doesn't do much to follow up - that is on you to schedule follow-ups, but I don't mind because I don't want to be doing a lot of back and forth to LA.
I know there are some bad reviews for Dr. Yoo. I too was scared about booking with him, but ultimately I decided to go with him because we share the same aesthetic vision of beauty. I think that is VERY important to be on the same page there with your doctor. Some people think that more natural looks better. Others, like myself, like a more drastic, Eurasian appearance. I would say that Dr. Yoo tends to have the latter view of beauty as well. I did look at other surgeons who were more "natural", and I did not like their work at all, so I did not go with them. If I'm paying for a nose job, I want it to be noticeable, and I felt that Dr. Yoo could give me that kind of result.
I will say that what helped me to get the results that I want is that I have known for 20 years EXACTLY what I wanted done to my nose - less nostril flare, smaller base, and more pointy tip. I looked up the medical terms for these (i.e. alarplasty, alar base reduction, increased tip projection, etc.), and this is what I communicated at consultation. I did not go in there with a wishy washy kind of "make me look hot" sort of request. I think this is EXTREMELY important if you are considering a nose job. Know EXACTLY what YOU want to do with YOUR face. Research it. Research the terms. Look at yourself in the mirror and articulate what you do not like and how you believe changing it will make you look better. Do not just go in there with a vague wish to look better or just wanting someone else's nose on your face, or he will give you what he *thinks* you want. Communication is important. Knowing yourself is important. KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT AND BE ABLE TO ARTICULATE IT! That is the best advice I can give.
If you have any other questions, just leave them here. I don't see the flag for personal messages, and I don't check this site very often since getting my surgery, so I will respond as I am able to. I hope this review helps some people. I will try and leave updates as time goes on, but honestly it's one of those things where you're happy with what you got so you just kind of go on with your life. I think that's why a lot of people vanish from this site after getting a positive result. But I will try and keep posting updates since I know the other updates helped me a lot when I was researching, and I hope this review will help you all. Best of luck to everyone in your rhinoplasty quests!