ethnic rhinoplasty Dr Levi lansangan phillippines and eye widening with Wonjin clinic seoul

I'm in the UK but I'm not confident that UK surgeons have enough experience with mixed race noses to give me a good result. I had a consult with Dr Haworth last year, he spent over an hour with me n suggested extra surgeries I'd benefit from that I'd not even gone to see him about! Is he a visionary or thinking of the dollars?

I've just come across some of his work on predominantly Asian noses...I'm not Asian, I'm mixed race (English/Portuguese/African) but I think I have issues in common with Asian noses, like a wide undefined tip, a fairly wide alar base with flared nostrils and fairly thick skin. I Really like his before and afters, very natural looking but at 70,000 phillipino pesos (around £1200), is it too good to be true or just a benefit of the exchange rate/ price of living in the Far East....

So I finally bit the bullet and flew to Manila on 21 April for my revision rhino. The Ortigas clinic is slap in the middle of the city so best to stay in a nearby hotel so you're not stuck in traffic jams all the time. I've never seen traffic this bad, all day, every day! Arrived at clinic at 1pm, waited until nearly 3pm to see doctor Levi as he was coming from a clinic in the provinces due to a booking mix up. After a consultation in which I physically showed him how I wanted my nose to look (by physically manipulating it in front of a mirror) and showing him pictures of what I definitely DIDNT want (ie a Jackson nose), I decided to go ahead. Basically, I didn't want anything done to the bridge, I wanted the nostril base slimmed conservatively, the tip slimmed also conservatively and the nostrils de rotated to reduce the piggy look. The surgery took around 2 - 3 hours as the doc found there wasn't enough septal cartilage in my nose to build a strong tip.
I was walked back to my hotel room by 2 nurses (Nurse Renzella is such a sweetheart!), showed which meds to take and told to expect a visit the next evening.
The nurses visited twice during my 5 day recovery in the hotel. I daren't venture out with the drip pad on day one after the op as it was saturated with blood and even with a surgical mask on (which I was surprised to note that I very rarely saw anyone wearing in Manila), the cast and the adhesive tape were still visible, my face was massively swollen ( somewhat from eye surgery I'd had the day before in Seoul...I'll post a separate review about that) and I couldn't face the stares.
Once the drip pad was off, I did venture out to the ginormous SM Megamall, which was 5 mins away on foot, but even wearing a hat and sunglasses, I still felt conscious of being openly stared at.
The cast was removed on day 5. The nurse advised me to apply a warm compress for the swelling. When I sneaked a look between compresses, I must admit that I wasn't prepared for my new nose at all...it felt so much more raised, taller than my old nose and too short! Plus the nostrils were clearly very uneven. The tip was really swollen too....I can't emphasise enough how potato-like your nose looks immediately after surgery...and still does when I'm not applying a compress, 7 days post surgery. The doc told me that the nostrils should even out when the swelling subsides...the jury's out on that but he seemed really happy with the result. I was still in a state of shock and swollen and bruised from my previous eye surgery so to be honest, I kinda felt like bride of Frankenstein at that moment but I tried not to panics d kept telling myself to reserve judgement until the swelling went down. Anyways, it's early days so the swelling won't go down for a while but here are some early pics...be gentle please folks....

I am 8 days post surgery at the Wonjin Clinic in Seoul, where I undertook lateral canthoplasty to extend the outer length of my eyes and hotz canthoplasty, to lower the outer corner of my eyes. The swelling, bruising and blistering of your conjunctiva are something I would never have anticipated (and not shown on any of the website reviews). The surgery itself felt totally barbaric....your arms and legs are strapped down onto the theatre bed, one nurse holds down your head, one physically stretches your eyelids apart and the doc uses some laser instrument that literally burns an incision into the skin at the corner of your eye. Absolutely brutal. i did ask myself, what the heck am I doing!!? The discomfort after is almost intolerable. It's not so much pain, more like there's something large and flat in your eyes which makes you want to repeatedly blink to dislodge it, but of course it never goes away (during the recovery) because it's your conjunctiva which has swollen up. I literally had yellow, blustery bubbles on the whites of my eyes. I was terrified as no one had said this was a side effect though checking out 'normal' eye surgery' websites after, I saw that this is a condition 'xtosis' which can occur in 1 in 3 cases and can take up to 3 months to resolve. Be prepared....it's very unsightly and scary for kids! Anyway, some before and afters to follow.

Some pics

So I'm around 14 weeks post op. My nose continues to refine as swelling goes down. Though it's very swollen when I wake in the morning. Almost like it looked pre op! That said, the swelling dissipates very quickly. Scars at outer nostrils are pretty much invisible now though I still use a mucin gel night and day. My scar on the columella is unnoticeable though the scars inside the nostrils where the alar base was narrowed are visible at close range, if you know what you're looking for. I'd be more than happy if this was my final result though, as I feel like it's not too small or Caucasian looking so it fits me and my ethnicity. It's much more refined than it was and just makes me look less 'coarse' if that's the right word. My concerns about a twisted colmella have gone as its de-twisted a lot as swellings gone down. The tip is a little asymmetrical but not so much that I'd care to have further work done. I'm really really happy????
The eye widening is a revelation to me every day that I look in the mirror. Unless you have tiny piggy eyes, you can't truly empathise with how it feels to fear being 'caught' without full eye make up, because people would be so shocked at how different you look. Perhaps if I'd have been a more confident person, it wouldn't have mattered but I wasn't so this op was such an exciting possibility for me. Despite the pre and post op pics, I never believed I'd get the improvement I have. My whole face has a much kinder, softer more approachable look and I no longer feel apologetic for how I look. Some of you may think that sounds nuts but I know some of you will get it. I would recommend both procedures to anyone with similar issues. I Have no regrets and am so grateful to have had the opportunity to travel to South korea and the Phillippines to do these procedures.

So in my pre op nose, you can see the alar is wide, the tip is wide unrefined and upturned...oh and it was always red!! My pre op eyes are disguised with heavy eye make up but you can see the outline under the make up, very small, narrow eyes