Have Finally Decided to Get Surgery! - New York, NY

Hey guys,

So I am 28 and have been debating getting a nose job since freshman year in hs. I remember a few girls getting the procedure at the time and i feel like at that time it wasn't as accepted. I always secretly wished I could get one and went back and forth about it. Sometimes I would think no im fine what if the doctor completely ruins my nose and other times i would think I definitely want one.

So here's my issues with my nose...I have a hump and i also broke it when i was younger so its crooked as well. I have "a side" that i take all my pics and if my profile is ever caught in a photo i am totally embarrassed. I realized i do A LOT of things to hide the appearance of my nose. I wear heavy eye makeup and i have really thin hair so i always try to curl it and fluff it to make it look bigger to take away from the center of my face.

I have recently made a decidion that I am in fact going to go through with a rhinoplasty so I have set up some conultations. I have 3 coming up. I hate that price is an issue because when it comes to my face I only want the best, but I will be paying out of pocket so i don't think I can afford anybody over 9-10k.

All of your stories have helped me so much and I recently just told my mom and my sister that i really think I am going to get a nose job and my sister is very supportive and my mom is upset bc she doesnt want me to "look like everybody else" and have a boring nose and she thinks my nose gives me character and blah blah. Im glad she thinks im beautiful bc i know some parents who encourage their kids to get nose jobs but i really realized i want to do this for me. I feel like it will help my self esteem a great deal and ill be able to wear less makeup and not be self conscious about people taking random photos of me.

Here are a few of my concerns about surgery:
-Im scared it will change my face completely (kind of like the girl from dirty dancing where nobody recognized her)
-Im scared it will look like a nose job (theres lots of before and after pics i have seen where the nose looks plastic and the same as all the other "after" photos and i dont want that)
-I have a droopy tip which i would like to fix but i am extremely scared of having a bolbous or pig nose

I have 3 appointments coming up and one was supposedly a good doctor but he doesnt have digital imaging. Although i read that digital imaging is strictly a sales tool and doesnt have anything to do with how skilled the surgeon is...I think i am going to cancel his appointment bc I would like to be able to see what the doctor has in mind for me to make sure we are on the same page.

So that is my story...its really hard for me to even talk and post pictures because it is the single thing i am the most insecure about! Most of my closest friends have absolutely no idea how much i hate my nose and Ive never been able to talk about it.

All feedback and questions welcome!

Okay so I met with my first doctor today. Norman Godfrey in NYC. I was suprised to see there was no reviews about him on this website. I filled out paperwork and he took me right in, absolutely no waiting time so that was cool. He was super friendly and made me feel really comfortable. He was really chatty and would go into detail about certain things (some not that important or not even on topic) but i didnt mind it because i didnt feel rushed at all. He was feeling my nose and asked me what I didnt like. He answered any questions I had about the surgery. Then he took about 15-20 pictures of me in another room and I was a bit surprised when he said that Id have to come in again to see his pictures. I was looking forward to seeing what he had in mind for me right away so that was a bit disappointing, but he said he was going to "perform surgery" on my picture and its important to see if what i conveyed to him was the same nose that he sees me with.
He also said to feel free to bring in any pictures of noses I hate or noses I love so he gets a clear understanding of what i like and dont like...I really liked how much he was interested in really getting me the nose that I wanted and not what he thinks would look good on me. He never once said I think you should do this or that...
To be honest, I have a consultation set up for tomorrow with Dr. Joseph and I was sort of already thinking I would pick him because of his amazing reviews...but now I'm not so sure. I'm very interested in going back and speaking to him further....maybe he sets it up in 2 appointments because the digital imaging takes another half hour-1 hour to get to the point where you are really satisfied. I read some reviews on other sites where the girl said she came in a lot of times because he said she could keep coming back until she was 100% confident she wanted to go through with it and until she felt 100% about the image. I dont mind coming back also because the consultation fee was only 50$, as opposed to most doctors that were minimum 250 range.
All in all, I went in there not knowing what to expect...and basically thinking Ill just have someone to compare it to with my next consultation..But now im wondering if I want him to be my doctor. He was so educated about noses and was super nice, and also says he has no problems doing revisions and if any doctor said they hardly ever do them or dont do them at all to run!
So if anybody else is going for initial consultations Id highly recommend Dr. Norman Godfrey...id be interested in hearing other people's opinion!

Okay I really wanted to update this Friday after my consultation but I had a really busy weekend. So for any of you who havent been following my story I have finally decided to get a nose job, I have money saved, and a budget of 10k. Now its time to find a good doctor. I have already went on one consult and it went really well.
Friday i had my second initial consultation with Dr. Eric Joseph from West Orange. Now, I originally read about him on RealSelf...and I was shocked when EVERY SINGLE ONE of his reviews was positive. Everybody was so happy with their noses and saying what a nice guy he is and blah blah. Also, he was definitely the cheaper one out of all the doctors I have looked into...so that was a huge plus.
Ill start with the positives...
-He's double board certified which is very hard to find so he knows a lot about breathing issues as well as being able to fix your nose for cosmetic purposes.
-He has Youtube videos and seems extremely educated on noses specifically
-Nice office (this may seem silly but I def judge a doctor by the atmosphere in which he runs his business)
-Cheap...i mean not cheap cheap but he gave me a price of 6,900 plus like 2 k for anesthesia and facility (which is not his fee)
Okay here are the negatives...
-Everybody said how nice he was...and he was...very very nice. To me almost a bit fake and too animated...but this could just be a personal opinion.
-I explained to him what I didnt like about my nose and exactly what I would like to fix. I said I dont mind my nose from the front angle, I would just like to straighten out the bridge and make it symmetrical and get rid of the hump and make it straight. He told me he would prefer if he did a bit of a slop on my bridge instead of having it just straight because a slope is more feminine and "prettier". (He brought this up several times through out the consultation making me feel that he would basically put a slight slope in whether i liked it or not). This reminded me of getting a haircut...when you tell the girl how many inches you want off your hair or how you want your hair to look yet they still do it how THEY want because it'll be healthier or look better. I will hear out all professional opinions but at the end of the day if I tell you i want my nose to look a certain way since I am the one who has to live with it for the rest of my life...dont tell me that you would rather do it a different way. I want to find a doctor that wants to make me happy, not themselves.
-He told me i need to "hate my nose"...thats a quote. He specifically said his best patients are the ones who absolutely despise their noses and when they get out of surgery they are happy with whatever nose he gives them. I mean, he's a plastic surgeon who has performed thousands of rhinoplasties so im sure his noses don't look horrible...and some probably come out amazing. But I dont HATE my nose....i hate certain things about it but technically speaking Ive lived with it for 28 years...I could probably live with it for the rest of my life. I just would like to make it more symmetrical and make it fit my face a bit more. So yeah, that kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
-Now, he did do the digital imaging for me and I actually really liked his after picture...like a lot. Like..so much that if I was sure he could make me look like that I would book him today. However, the way he was talking about the digital imagine did not make me feel confident that that specific image would be my end result. He kept saying "if you love the after image and you hate your nose then we can get your nose to look something very similar to that and you will be happy"
-Silicone injections....now one girl that I have been messaging with told me she met with him and has kept looking. I asked her (before meeting with him) what she didnt like about him and she said he wasn't bad but she didnt like the fact that he uses silicone injections. Now...i thought maybe she was just a different case where maybe she needed it or something...However Dr. Joseph apparently uses silicone injections into the nose very very often. He's very open about it and told me that's what "makes him stand out" from other doctors. He says if you don't love how your nose looks "maybe if the bump is still there or its too sloped, i'll just inject a little bit of silicone and it fixes the issues". Seems a bit weird to me, I'm sure other doctors know about silicone injections and are aware how they can be used. The fact that he is using them and other doctors are not just shows me that they are more confident in their work and they don't need to add any extras to have a good end result.
-Finally, I asked him about his policy on revisions. Before telling me that he does not charge for them (except facility fees, which is standard)...he went off on a tangent about how none of his patients ever want/need a revision and his revision percentage is less than 1%. Now, I'm sorry, I dont care how confident you are...this is plastic surgery...everybody has different problems/issues with their face and there is no way to make everybody happy. Even the best doctors have some negative reviews (PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND). All it did was ring a bell and remind me of a conversation I hate with Dr. Godfrey (my initial consultation)...I asked him about his policy on revisions and he told me he does them and blah blah and he said he remembers having a conversation with his professor about revisions and as a young student he said "Well as i get better I'm going to be doing less and less revisions" and his professor just said "You're young and stupid" now im paraphrasing but basically he said as you get better you become more and more of a perfectionist...sometimes you want to perform a revision even when the patient is happy with their nose. He said if any doctor ever tells me that they don't perform revisions because they don't have to to get my stuff and RUN.
So yeah, I tried to keep this review as honest as possible...and I hope this helps you in your journey to find a good surgeon. Once again, this is my personal opinion so if you've had an amazing consultation with him and feel great about your surgery then that is awesome and I am very happy for you.
I would love to hear feedack, your stories, or answer any questions!
Also any recommendations for great surgeons in NY/NJ area since I am still looking would be awesome!