Out with the Old, in with the New..nose! April 25th - Austin, TX

After years of just talking about it, I finally took the plunge and had the surgery on April 25th. Reading these reviews and stories were incredibly helpful to me in preparing, so I thought I'd return the favor to others! This is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I still remember being teased in middle school and asking my mom to get me a nose job, which of course wasn't possible then, and she figured I would grow into it.

I did grow into it, but it continued to still be big for my face. I've hardly ever like any pictures I take and bad pictures are a constant reminder of what my nose looks like from other angles. I do like my "different" look and think it's funny that people constantly ask me what my background is. I'd like to keep my look, but with a smaller, more refined nose. I've kind of "joked" about doing this for years.

And then, I came to a day where I just thought, now or never? I'm almost 29, and only have a few more years before I have kids and recovery would be more difficult. Having talked about it forever, my family, husband and close friends were really supportive when I decided to do the surgery. I'm someone that does LOTS of research, especially when it comes it something like this. So I went for several consultations, and decided on a doctor that specializes in facial plastics. He also had a great, caring demeanor. I also got to see images of what it could look like, which I loved.

Fast forward to prep before surgery.. I have a very busy job which makes it difficult to be away for a long period of time. Therefore, I needed recovery to go as well as possible and I read up to see what I could do to best prepare. Besides cutting out all of the medicines, vitamins, alcohol, etc that they asked, I also started taking Arnica 5 days before surgery and started taking Bromelain 3 days before. I also have heard good things about pineapple (and whether it is true or not that it helps bruising, it is a healthy food), so I ate pineapple several times a day leading up to surgery. Now, I don't know if it is my great doctor, or the arnica, bromelain/pineapple or religious icing (or probably a combination of all), but other than slightly darker eyes on day 2 - which probably was from not sleeping much, I have had no bruising and I am on day 5, so something is going right :)

Anyway, so surgery was pretty easy. I woke up at the hospital and honestly the things that bothered me the most were a sore throat and my front teeth hurt a little. But I felt fine other than that. I wanted to walk, but the nurse insisted I ride in the wheelchair.

The first night was easy, I was so pleasantly surprised. I stuck to mild food - applesauce, NAKED smoothies and Pineapple juice. Slept in our recliner, but was not comfortable so did not sleep very well. Spent a lot of time on the computer online shopping :) I iced almost every hour for 20 minutes. I put frozen peas in zip-loc baggies and held those over my eyes/cheeks. Day 2 my husband had to go back to work so I was on my own. I removed the dressing and tape under my nose. I also had to remove the packing in the morning, which I was dreading, but it really was not bad at all. The nurse had instructed me to spray saline and let it sit a bit before pulling it out.

That helped a lot! I had some dried blood to clean as well, but after that I could see already my tip looked much smaller. I iced this day as well. Another easy day. Day 3 Another easy day, adding some more solid foods now, scrambled eggs, mashed sweet potatoes. Still drinking pineapple juice and taking arnica and bromelain. I was going to switch to tylenol, but the evening of day 3, I got a pretty uncomfortable headache. Iced part of the day.

Day 4 Probably the worst day for me.. had headache on and off all day. Spent most of the day sleeping and with ice packs. Day 5 is today. My head is feeling better today and I'm feeling a lot better overall. Only taking tylenol as needed and went for a walk with my husband and out to grab some lunch. Still no bruising/swelling that I can see. I cannot WAIT to get my cast off on Thursday!! Oh, something I noticed is that I can't smile with my top lip. I asked another girl on here about it and she said that happened to her as well and comes back in a couple weeks. So far has been pretty easy other than the headache. But if that is the toughest part, I'll take it! I'll keep updating. I'll also upload a few "before" pictures below as well as a picture I took from my phone the 2nd day after surgery.