Dr. Constantian Fixed My Droopy, Crooked Nose

I had a rhinoplasty about 28 years ago, when I was a teenager to fix a very prominent curved nose. Over the years, I started noticing that my nose was getting more and more crooked, and still curved down, especially when I smiled. I had read an article in the NYTimes about revision plastic surgery and the articles mentioned Dr. Mark Constantian in Nashua, NH, as being a surgeon who performed a large number of revision surgeries, and I really liked his comments in the article. In particular, he was quoted as saying "rhinoplasty is unique in that “you can lose ground every time.” With other kinds of plastic surgery, patients “are not worse off than when they started.”

Last June (2014) I decided to finally go see him. I immediately felt that I was consulting with a true expert but also felt very comfortable with him. He's has done so many rhinoplasties (primary, secondary and reconstructive) that he could tell as soon as he examined me what my issues were. Turns out that my breathing was also compromised and he's committed to fixing his patients breathing first and foremost. I scheduled my surgery that at that initial visit, for six months later. Waiting was hard, but I wanted to take a full two weeks off and I had to use my last vacation days from 2014 and also 5 days from 2015. I've posted some before pictures to show my awkward crooked nose from before.

This 4 days after surgery. I look worse than I felt! I didn't need to take the Vicodin that the doctor prescribed, just something called Tramadol, which was like a stronger version of extra strength Tylenol. I wasn't good about icing, so the swelling got pretty bad.

On day 5 I went back to Dr C. to get the cast off and the packing out. It was so nice to finally breathe through my nose again! I was pretty squeamish because after getting the packing out, he was trimming some stitches in my nose and all of the tugging and clipping made me think of what must have happened during surgery when I was under anesthesia. Best not to think about it!

I was definitely immediately happy with the result, because even though my nose was swollen, it was much straighter and the tip was much more defined and didn't dip down when I smiled. Dr. C said that my old tip didn't have enough cartilage to support it when the smile muscles pulled at it. He built up the tip with ear cartilage and he also used ear cartilage to brace the sides and open up my airways. What an incredible difference in my breathing. I couldn't stop talking about it!