Got It Right This Time -Fleming Island, FL

I sought out a revision rhinoplasty after my primary one was an obvious failure. I had my first rhinoplasty August 2012. Now a year and four months later and I am healed enough from it to finally fix it. The reason my first rhino was so bad was because of my choice of doctor. I was too excited about the thought of making my nose better and I picked someone who should never operate on another nose again. The surgeon I picked was NOT a board certified facial plastic surgeon. He was a board certified oral/maxillofacial surgeon who convinced me he was qualified enough because his training and specialty do a lot of reconstruction of faces. He had before and afters of quite a few noses but none were impressive, which should have been another red flag. He also did NOT do computer imaging/simulations which are sooooo important because they allow the surgeon and the patient to see that they are on the same page and have a common goal in mind. The problems with my nose after my first rhinoplasty are obvious in the pictures I'll provide. My tip is way overprotected and buckles awkwardly upward. My bridge which was once straight, now looks scooped in one area, and has a bump in another. My columella is hanging and there is cartilage that is pressed up against my tip making a visible bump. My nostrils are even from below but when you look straight at my face, you can see more of one than the other. Basically a large asymmetrical nose with various problems. Also my scar is really obvious and bad. It is thick and noticeable which I have never seen in other rhinoplasties, as most turn out nearly invisible. My biological nose had none of these problems. The reason I wanted rhinoplasty was to make my nose a bit thinner from the front and shorter/smaller from the side. I had a long straight nose.

It was hard to make the decision to trust someone again with my face but in my case, I knew it had to happen at some point because there was no way I was living with this nose for the rest of my life. I found a new and much more qualified doctor to do my revision. He's a facial plastic surgeon who does mostly noses and has a great reputation. His personality is awesome and he's not really stiff and typically "doctor" like if you get my drift? He's great to talk to and explains things well. He loves what he does and gets very excited about fixing noses. I loved the simulation pictures he put together and I set a date for my surgery, December 17th, 2013.

I went through the surgery and the entire process was a hell of a better experience than last time. The hospital I went to had extremely nice staff, the nurses and the anesthesiologist were great and talked to my parents as well. They made me feel comfortable and I woke up without any nausea like I did last time. I was able to dress myself and was aware of what was going on. Last time I barely woke up and was completely sick feeling and kept falling in and out of sleep as the staff rushed me out. This time the nurse was sooo nice and I didn't feel like they were rushing me out or anything. Dr. Pearson saw me before and after the surgery and showed me pictures he took of me on the table immediately after the revision so I could get a glimpse of what my nose would look like. The is really comforting to revision patients as a lot of us have anxiety since the first operation was so bad.

The 6 days I spent with the cast on post op were pretty awful because I had internal splints which basically make it so that you can't breathe and they caused a lot of pain. The first 3 days were the worst and then by days 5 and 6 I was actually feeling ok. The hospital surgery center (Orange Park Surgery Center) called me the next day to check on me and they even sent a card which I thought was really nice. I'm very impressed with them over all and would definitely recommend to someone else seeking elective surgery. Post op care from Dr. Pearson was great as well, you can tell he cares about you and cares about the nose he created. When I got the splints out it hurt but not that much, it's not unbearable or anything. The cast coming off didn't hurt at all.

Right now I'm 8 days out from surgery and my new nose looks great. It is MASSIVELY swollen right now, in every place. My tip is swollen, my nose looks a little wide from the front because of swelling, and my bridge at the top is swollen because I had a radix graft put in there. It's the only grafting I had done (thank god, those things are complicated) and I'm not a fan of it so far BUT everything is so swollen right now that it's not fair to judge. I'll give it maybe 6 months to settle in and look more natural before I decide if I want it out or not. Right now the edges of it are really apparent and its a bit high, but this will probably resolve itself. Overall my nose looks wayyyyy better than before and I know it will just continue to get more refined over the upcoming months. But my tip swelling is going to take forever to come down because it did take the full year last time, and this time I had a 3 and 1/2 hour REVISION with lots of tip work, so I guarantee it will take 1-2 years for 100% of the swelling to dissipate but that's alright.

I should probably also mention that I had a septum deviation fixed this time as well as the cosmetic revision. That's why I had internal splints and that's part of the reason I'm extra swollen. My skin has been gross since the surgery as well, its oily AND flaky all at the same time and I'm trying to moisturize well to make it better. It has improved some since I got the cast off and hopefully over the next week or two it will be back to normal.

So yesterday the 30th I had my 2 week appointment and it went well. My incision is healing nicely and I don't have a lot of swelling in the bridge anymore. My radix graft looks a little more even than it did and it's starting to harden and not become so easily moveable.

My tip is still very swollen and as of now the bottom part of it has most of the swelling. It's funny to watch it change day by day. The tip being swollen doesn't concern me because it looks good as it is now anyway and I know that it will go down eventually. My bridge isn't wide anymore, thank god. My tip has also dropped down a little bit over the past week or so. it wasn't "upturned" necessarily at first, just a little higher. I like where it's at right now. My scarring on the inside of my nostrils is kind of webbed and puffy but this will go down over the next several months as everything still needs to contract. I've still got stitches on the inside that have not dissolved yet either, and I'll be happy when they go away, haha.

The only imperfection is that I have a little bit of a "scoopy" area still in the middle of my bridge. It has definitely improved since pre revision surgery, but its still just a tad more scooped than the doctor and I would like it to be, and therefore it looks like I've got a small bump at the top of my bridge. Honestly it's not a huge concern of mine and it's not really bothering me at the moment, so when we fill it in it will just be an added bonus. At about 6 months post op Dr. Pearson says he will inject some juvederm to fill in the spot which will straighten out the bridge and conceal that small bump, and then if I like the juvederm once it wears off (6-10 months) we can replace it with artefill, which is a permanent filler and then my bridge will be perfectly straight! And if I decide I don't like the looks of the juvederm I can just choose not to replace it with anything when it wears off. I'm uploading more pictures if you guys wanna see the slight bump, the best view of it is on my right profile.

As I said the swelling in the bridge has gone down a lot, but the swelling in my tip hasn't much at all, it has only moved around. Part of that is because I've been crying a lot lately, there's been some family issues such as my grandma being hospitalized and I found out my live-in fiancé of 6 years has been cheating on me so it hasn't been a great month and this surgery was extremely stressful to go through at this time, which is why I'm really happy it went well. But every time I get upset my nose just balloons right up again.

Just in case you guys were interested I posted pictures of my biological nose, which was big and long.

So it's been almost 1 month post op (will be on the 17th), and so healing well. My tip is still quite swollen, haven't noticed any of it going away yet, just moving around. It's decided to settle mainly towards to bottom of the tip making it look really rounded and not downturned but not as high as it was before. I don't like the look of this, I will be happy when the swelling decides to go away so my tip looks sharper and higher again. From the front it looks like a big U shoe between my nostrils cause of where that swelling settled. I still have that bump at the top of the bridge (which is bone, not swelling). I might as to have that shaved down once I'm at least 6 months out instead of having artefill added to the rest of it to conceal it. Just sounds better to me. Plus I don't want the bridge to look TOO high with added stuff, and taking away the bump won't make it too scooped looking so that might be what I go for. Overall my nose is doing well, just really frustrating to deal with the awkward position of the swelling making my tip look temporarily different. I'll post some more pictures so you can see the roundness.

Make up helps make it look a little more defined for now. :)

I ended up getting a really cute picture of my nose today where it looks perfect. Probably just because of the angle/lighting since it doesn't always look like this but it made me happy, haha.

1 month post op today. My next appointment is at 6 weeks, and my mother is coming with me so she can have a consultation for her nose done too.

I had a post op appointment on Feb 10th. I'll be two months out on the 17th. I'm really loving my nose so far, the swelling is coming down slowly, usually it balloons up in the mornings. At 6 months out or more I'm going to fill in the slightly depressed area on the bridge with some artefill and then it's going to be nearly perfect. I have another appointment in 6 weeks and my mom had a consult with Dr. Pearson this last time we went, she might have hers done in the summer.

I am now nearly 9 months post op. I had juvederm injected in the little dip in my bridge in june and it looks amazing. Nose is now completely straight. I have no complaints about my nose and am 100% happy with it. I did not think a result this good was possible after my horrible primary. Please contact me if you want me to email you some pictures because if I put them up on this website they end up on google and that's a privacy violation in my opinion. Lol.
My nose is still stuff and hard at the tip and I expect this to be because swelling is still present. It will probably take 2 full years for it all to go down. Normally most people's swelling would be gone at a year but since this is my 2nd OPEN rhino and a lot of work was done and I am someone who swells easy even though I'm Caucasian, for me it will take longer. I will update again at one year:)