A Better Version Of My Old Nose! Rhinoplasty, Septoplasty - Glendale, CA

I have always been considered pretty however, I had a small bump on the bridge of my nose that I was unhappy with since age 15. The bump runs in my family and prior to my surgery, my mom and sister had rhinoplasty to remove theirs (which were more pronounced). Mine was the least noticeable of all of ours and that's ultimately why I lived with it for 29 years.


Over the years I would go back and forth on whether I wanted to get it done. What if i had it done and looked like Michael Jackson? Or it looked worse than before? I learned to accept it and told myself that imperfections were beautiful. I got married and was no longer trying to "impress" anyone, so I lived with it. Inside though I always looked at other people's noses and compared them to mine (weird I know!) and when my younger sister had it done, I noticed she looked a lot better without the bump. I was always conscious about the bump in my nose, and only took pictures from one side of my face where it was less pronounced.

Over the summer, I was considering a non-surgical rhino where you have filler injected into the bridge of nose to "mask" the bump. I considered this because I was partly scared of surgery and also cost was a factor. I mentioned this to my mom who had paid for my sister's and when she offered to pay for a portion of my nose, I jumped on it! She told me surgery wasn't that bad and reminded me that I would not want to have to get "refills" of filler in my nose, it would be better to do it permanently.

My mom has had two rhino's in her life; a primary, and a revision as a result of her disliking the first. For this reason I was terrified of not liking my results. My sister's nose job was great, but again, she had a lot more work to be done and therefore, any decent result (minus pinching!) would be an improvement. For me, because my nose was already OK, I could not take the chance of having it be worse. I wanted THE VERY BEST rhinoplasty surgeon I could afford. I read tons of reviews and found Dr. Grigoryants thanks to this site. I was lurking on RealSelf but never actually wrote a review or create profile cause of time constraints (I have a baby and am a business owner too!).

I had my surgery on October 15th and now, almost two months out, I absolutely love my nose. It looks so natural and it's exactly what I asked for "I still want to look like myself but without the bump." He also narrowed my nostrils and cartilage tip ever so slightly. It looks like a more refined and elegant version of my old nose. He lifted the tip too a tiny bit which makes it more feminine I think.

I'm happy taking photos from the left side now which I avoided before! Happy I decided to have the procedure. The surgery was straightforward, I loved all the nurses and the anesthesiologist too. They all made me feel comfortable. Recovery wasn't too bad. Just felt like I was sick with a bad cold. Couldn't breathe through nose and had a sore throat. It was a little hard to sleep too, but worth it! After about 5-6 days I felt much better and was excited to get cast off (it started to itch pretty bad on day 6).

I've been happy with my nose since cast removal and have had minimal swelling. I saw the Dr . a month after and he said I looked really good and had a lot less swelling than most of his other patients, so that's good. :) Lots of water and Kimberly Snyder's Glowing Green Smoothie (Spinach, romaine, celery, lemon juice, pear) that I drink daily, might have helped? Dr. G also told me he found enlarged turbinates and deviated septum and he fixed those too.

It's been almost two months now and I love it more every day. I have a follow up appt. (and I think I'm going to get Restylane under my eyes for hereditary dark circles!) in February. I will keep you posted. :) Good luck to all those who are considering rhinoplasty.

People have been asking for a frontal view. I don't have too many front pics from before, I always smiled from my right side as I thought my old nose was a tad bulbous from front. Here is a a before and after pic of front of my nose while smiling. As you can see, it's a smaller more refined version of my nose. Not a cookie cutter nose.