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.