Rhinoplasty Experience

This has been a long time coming! As of the time of writing this, it is the day of my rhinoplasty and I am just at home recovering. I had two consults with Dr. Lichtenberger before scheduling my surgery, and he was great at answering my questions and letting me know what to expect. He used photo editing software to give me a general idea of our goals for my nose after the surgery and in the long run once it has fully healed of course.

I will be updating this review with my final rating and whether or not it was "worth it" once I'm a bit further along in the process, but everything has been great so far! The surgical and anasthesia staff was all great and put me at ease, as it was my first time under general anasthesia. I didn't have any bad side effects from it like nausea or anything. I was just a bit groggy when I came out of it, and have a bit of a sore throat from the intubation, but it's manageable!

I have only taken a minimal amount of my prescription pain meds so far, as the pain has not been too bad overall. I can currently see some brusing near the top of my nose and inner corners of my eye area, but nothing crazy so far! I'm doing really well currently, and just relaxing and recovering at home. I will post some before and just after surgery photos, and then of course more later once the cast and splints are removed!

I had my surgery on Tuesday and now it's Friday, so I'm currently three days post op! I only had to use the drip pad below my nose for about the first 24 hours after surgery, and after that the bleeding and dripping had subsided enough that I could go without it. The bruising near the top of my nose has already mostly gone away, but I did get some more that appeared underneath my eyes (not super dark).

I also stopped taking the prescription pain meds last night, so I've transitioned just to regular Tylenol now! My pain previously was only somewhat bad when I was trying to sleep. More uncomfortable than anything else.

I've been pretty tired and just resting at home mostly, though one of my friends got me to get out of the house for a little bit yesterday and we went to get one frozen yogurt, which was nice for my sore throat!

I'll post a photo of how my recovery and healing is going today!

Today I am 6 days post op and I got to get my cast remove and splints taken out of my nose! It's amazing to see what my new nose looks like (more or less) and so nice to be able to breathe better and feel more comfortable without all that stuff in my nose. I've posted some photos here of what my results look like so far! No more significant bump in my side profile, and my nose is so much straighter! Plus the tip is a bit more smaller and defined. I feel like my swelling really isn't all that bad. I was expecting it to be worse and for my nose to look a lot bigger at first, but it still looks smaller than before! It will definitely take some getting used to, and it doesn't really feel like my nose yet, but I am overall really happy with it! I know it is still going to change a lot over the next several months
I have some numbness in my tip, which I know is super common and normal, and will diminish over time. My incision site is still a bit tender, and some of the dissolvable stitches won't really be gone for a few more days, but they aren't noticeable. I'm also still tender in some areas of my nose, but it's not noticeably painful on a regular basis or anything. My bruising as well is nearly gone at this point!
Also, I was originally going to note this in the first part of my review but forgot: the procedure cost for the rhinoplasty was only $6000, but then you end up paying about $3000 in additional costs once you add the operating room fee and anasthesia fees on top of that. I figured it was more helpful for people to get the full picture of the cost that way! I'll continue to update as we go, and my next follow-up visit is with my surgeon in one month!