Reduction rhinoplasty by Dr. Denenberg (Warning Graphic Images)

Just wanted to show how the nose changes over time after rhinoplasty. I don’t think it looked like this several years ago, but maybe I’m just noticing it? And it also changes day-to-day with swelling. This photo was taken January 18 and you can see irregularities in my nose now that it’s getting closer to the 5 year mark. Hopefully it doesn’t keep “warping” as I’d call it, or I might have to get filler in the bridge. I’ve always had that bony part sticking out on that side but it seems a bit more pronounced especially because there is now a decent sized indent in the bridge beneath it.

Today officially marks 4 years since my surgery. I apologize, I don’t get on this site very much so I may not have seen or responded to comments.
I’m definitely more used to my nose than I was the day the cast came off or even the first year or two after surgery but there are still some things I don’t like but I try not to think about those things and just enjoy life.
I think I continue to see more refinement as time goes on, but I do still have that persistent fullness in the supratip (although it’s probably slightly better than the first year). My nose is less squishy than it was then, so either the swelling is going down or it’s turning into scar tissue.
You can still see the scar at the base of my nose (it was an open surgery). I guess most people wouldn’t notice it and I don’t really care that much but sometimes I wish it could have been a closed surgery (but then I wonder how much different the result would have been since you can’t see/access the tip cartilages as well as with open surgery).
Something I’ve been doing the past year or so is wearing lip liner and maybe ever-so-slightly over lining my lips to help them look a little fuller. I feel ugly without it and think my lips look way thinner and my upper lip looks longer without it.
It does seem that my tooth show is a little bit better than it was the first year or two but it’s still not completely what it used to be I don’t think. My upper lip moved differently when I had a tension nose so I don’t expect it to ever come back and be like it used to be.
My sister says I for sure look better after surgery and that I was pretty before but now I look like a Victoria’s Secret model (I disagree and I think she’s just being a nice big sister, but either way she doesn’t think I made a mistake that made me look worse or anything like that). My dad also is confident that I look better now and he doesn’t think my nose looks too small either. I guess my mom agrees. Not sure about the rest of my family. And no one else sees the tooth show thing that I see.
I think in many ways the surgery was good for me because I used to never smile because I hated how my nose looked when I did. And I felt like a new person after surgery and felt more confident (because I thought it would improve with time and my nose would look better and my tooth show would come back).
But when the one year mark hit, and then two years and three years, and I still didn’t like it, I got pretty depressed about it and was really self conscious and it made me question if I still wanted to be a plastic surgeon and it affected my schoolwork, and personal relationships too because I was too self conscious about my lips to want to kiss anyone and my confidence/self-esteem was down from other things that happened to me personally that I won’t get into here, and I felt like having that surgery made me lose a part of me and it’s hard to explain. Before surgery I had a strong nose and after surgery I had this wimpy, tiny little nose and I didn’t feel like myself anymore and felt like a “weaker” person, sort of, and I lacked confidence and kinda let people walk all over me (particularly guys) because my self esteem was gone (and not just because of the surgery) but I feel like some of those things that happened to me probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t had that surgery (which I know sounds crazy).
Instagram was also quite therapeutic for coming to terms with my surgery. I was too self conscious about my result and felt too unattractive in photos after surgery to post on social media and also worried people would realize I didn’t look like myself anymore. But a year or so ago I started using instagram and posting photos and people were always so kind there and left nice comments saying how pretty I was and maybe they were just saying it to be nice, but on some level it helped me feel better about my result since I didn’t like it but other people still seemed to think I looked okay after surgery, even though I didn’t think so.
Anyway, just thought I’d give an update at the 4-year mark and let you guys know how I’ve been feeling about the result and what the process has been like for me. I want people to understand that plastic surgery IS a big deal and it can be life changing—good or bad, and sometimes in between—and it definitely requires patience and getting used to the result. I hope the supratip fullness goes down as time goes on and that I don’t start to develop deformities or collapse.
One thing I can say with certainty is that I don’t think there are many other doctors out there that can do the nasal tip work that Denenberg does. Most doctors can’t refine a bulbous tip like he can, and although I may think my septum was shortened a bit too much or that my nose was deprojected too much, I’ll admit he definitely improved my bulbous tip better than any other doctor could (in my opinion) and that’s a big reason why I chose him, and I’ll also agree that I had a very difficult nose to work with. It definitely wasn’t just a simple hump removal. The whole structure of my nose needed changing essentially. I wanted an entirely different tip, and I definitely got that, along with other things like a narrower bridge and hump removal. It also definitely made my eyes more of the focus of my face instead of my nose, and made them look bigger. That’s one of the main things my dad noticed, too.

Here they are: