Rhinoplasty in One Week... Excitement Vs Doubt! - London, UK

Sorry for not posting for ages, I guess I just got on with life with the new nose and lost track of time! I feel like the shape of my nose is improving every week, the only trouble I've had is breakouts and the skin on my nose which has peeled intermittently. Entirely to be expected of course!

In general I'm really happy and can't believe it took me so long to decide to get it done. My self-consciousness is gone, and it's amazing that I still catch myself starting to worry about my profile - until I remember it's not a problem anymore! I've even been to a makeup class as I feel much more confident and want to show off my nose :-)

My advice is, if you're thinking about it: do your research, be organised, be realistic... and then go for it! ;-)

Day 5: was tough! I think I just got to a fed-up point of feeling gross and fed up, had stopped the stronger painkillers and ended up with less sleep, more swelling and more pain :-( Not a deterioration, just a feeling of stagnation and a bit of cabin fever too!

Day 6: Major progress, all the pain subsided and all I took was paracetamol. The swelling in my cheeks was still pretty prominent but a little less so, and I just felt I had more energy to do house stuff, feeling spurred on by the impending big reveal!

Day 7: BIG REVEAL DAY!! I was literally itching to get my cast off and got about 2 hours sleep in anticipation! My swelling has reduced some more, and most of it is now around my cheeks. Slight bruising left under both eyes, right more than left. I was feeling great in myself but quite anxious about the reveal though I could see the tip and concluded the reveal would probably be reasonably good! I am really happy with it at the moment, I know there is still a lot of swelling, and I don't want to say I'm definitely thrilled in case things go wrong later, but my first day with my new nose felt like the beginning of a more carefree and less self conscious life (despite the bruising! I look like I've been in a bar brawl ;-) )

I'm now home trying to cleanse the yucky remains of skin gently off my new nose and have a feeling I'll be trying to feel it for weeks yet, in disbelief that my big bumpy nose is no more :D :D :D

Thanks so much for all your support! I will of course keep posting updates!! :D

I've just got enough energy to do stuff on my laptop - day 4! A brief summary of the experience so far:

I was admitted at 0730am, had all my nursing info filled out, then was seen by the anaesthetist and surgeon. My main concerns with the anaesthetic was nausea and pain... with the nose, that the effect would be either too obvious, or too subtle, and would not match my face. I wanted a nose that would be smaller, more feminine, with a more acceptable profile that didn't detract from my other features. My op was between 1000 and 1130, and I woke up at 1145 feeling confused and thirsty (the way you do after an amazing sleep!). They kept me in until about 6pm, initially with constant observations (every 15 mins), then after about 2hrs they did hourly obs. I felt pretty surreal and the day was a bit of a blur! Initially I needed 5mls of oramorph, after getting 100mcg fentanyl IV in recovery. After that, I had some dihydrocodeine before the journey home which took about 1hr 40 minutes. Overall the improvement in how I felt was quite quick that day. Sleep was on and off, but I fully expected that! I had no packing, just a nasal bolster which had a bit of blood coming through, but nothing to write home about. It was also immediately obvious I was getting a major bruise under my right eye, left had a tiny bit of bruising.

Day 1 postop: was generally OK, pretty bruised and swollen. I think I expected to feel pretty rotten and felt not great, but not awful, and got myself into a regime of taking my pain meds/decongestants/arnica, and doing my drops and nasal cream so that kept me going.

Day 2: More swelling around the eyes and moving down my face to my cheeks! Otherwise OK. I didn't have any bleeding as such, but felt more secure with the bolster so kept it on.

Day 3: Decided to start coming off codeine towards the evening and took the bolster off for a bit. Swelling seems to have increased around my cheeks!

Day 4: No codeine all day with slight twinges of pain. I've left the bolster off all day today as well which is OK but bizarrely feels more congested, maybe the bolsters were distracting me from the congested feeling? All in all not bad. Swelling still significant in my cheeks and bruising is starting to go more greeny-yellow. The splint started to make me feel itchy around its perimeter yesterday and it's really bothersome today!

I think in general day 3/4 is quite tough because you realise you've "survived" and things are OK, and get more impatient with the swelling and seeing results and getting the splint off. I am now literally itching to have it removed and fed up looking like this! Although so far it's worth it and I think I'm going to have a pretty good result.