My rhinoplasty experience in the Country of Nose Jobs: Iran!

Hi all, it's been exactly 5 months since I've had a rhinoplasty done. I decided to take some pictures to update you guys!
I'd like to start by mentioning that I'm still very happy with my nose, and I'm very glad I went through with it! Even though my nose isn't perfect, it helped me overcome my insecurities and I couldn't be more happy about it.
In my previous update I mentioned how breathing can sometimes be difficult. This is still the case. However, I think this is due to the fact that stuff tends to.... ''build up'' in my nose (sorry, gross, I know). I did buy a nasal irrigator to clean my nose, but everytime I use it, it just gets in my mouth, causing me to automatically throw up. Since the tip of my nose is still hard, I can't blow my nose either. Although, all of this shouldn't be a problem if I just quit being stubborn and just used the irrigator everyday. First world problems, guys.
Also, I still sleep with my neck pillow. I think it's quite unnecessary since it's been 5 months after my surgery and it's safe to sleep without it, but it's kind of comfortable!
Even though it's been 5 months since my surgery, my nose still gets very oily everyday. It's not that big of a problem, but it's not a great look.
Lastly, I started wearing glasses about three months ago, and boy did that hurt the first few days I wore them. It left these big dents on the sides of my nose (which luckily, disappeared each time), and it caused scabs that hurt each time I touched them. Luckily, I don't have that problem anymore, but it was kinda scary at first! My glasses still leave dents each time I take them off, but they disappear quite fast, so that doesn't worry me anymore.
I guess that's all I can update you guys on for now. Not too exciting, I know. If you have any questions, please let me know!

It's been 2 months since I had my surgery. Time flies! Just wanted to post a quick update to let you know how I'm doing right now!

I'm happy to say that I'm feeling really good about my nose. I have no pain, however it does feel uncomfortable when I accidentally hit my nose, haha. Breathing has gotten better, but it's still not 100% as good as it used to be. It often feels stuffed, and I'm not sure if that's due to swelling or due to dried up blood/mucus I have in my nose. I recently bought a nasal irrigator that I will be using from now on, so I hope that helps!

Also, since my surgery my nose gets oily so much! Even though I have dry skin, I have to clean my nose so often in a day. I'm not sure when this will go away, but I hope it does! It doesn't annoy me a lot, but it doesn't look great when I'm with other people, haha.

My doctor told me I could not wear glasses for 1 month. I wanted to be extra cautious, so I wanted to wait for 1 extra month. So, I went looking for glasses last week! So excited to wear glasses again as it gets really annoying wearing contacts 2 months in a row!

Lastly: sleeping. I am still, 2 months later, sleeping with my neck pillow. It's actually quite comfortable! I do this because I am kinda afraid to roll over on my nose while I'm sleeping. I'm just gonna continue sleeping with the pillow until I'm tired of it, haha! Like I mentioned in my first update: definitely a must have after rhinoplasty!

I added two pictures to show you how my nose is looking right now. I realized after I took the pictures that I hadn't cleaned my nose, so it's superrr oily. Sorry for that!

And that's basically it! If you guys have any questions, please let me know! I would love to answer any that you may have.

Hi all! I've never written a review before, but I decided to share my rhinoplasty experience as I hope it may help out some of you guys!
WARNING: During writing this review I got carried away, and it's become a mix of a storytime and a review. I'm sorry! If you decide to read it all, it's a long, LONG read. Okay, here goes!
I'm a 19 year old female from The Netherlands (Iraqi from origin) who's struggled with how my nose looked for YEARS. I hated my old nose, and when I say I hated it, I REALLY did. I was so insecure about my nose, and it bothered me so much that it literally affected the way I interacted with people. I would do ANYTHING to prevent people from looking at my side profile. I could be sitting on a bench with a friend and I'd turn my head in such an uncomfortable position just to prevent her from looking at my profile. Yeah, it was bad.
Today is the 15th of August 2017. I made the decision to get a nose job in the summer of 2016. For one year I've been doing research on different doctors, the procedure, pros and cons, I've watched every rhinoplasty experience video on YouTube to prepare myself. You name it, I did it.
I already knew I was going to have my surgery in Iran. My aunt lives there and we hadn't visited her in years, and we were finally going to visit her in July of 2017. So, if I was going to visit her, why not get my surgery there aswell, in the capital of nose jobs in Tehran?
So, fastforward to one year later, 16th of July 2017. On this day, I arrived in Tehran, Iran. By this time I had already chosen a surgeon who I had planned an appointment with on the 3rd of August 2017. I was so excited!
So, days went by, and I started panicking. Why? Because this doctor had his office in Mashhad, on the other side of Iran! Did I found out about that just now? Nope, I knew that before coming to Iran. If I knew that, why was I panicking? Well, I was LITERALLY in the capital of nose jobs!! In the city where literally everywhere you looked, someone had their nose taped. It is SO normal there, there are plastic surgeons literally everywhere, so many which where close to my aunt's house! And I booked an appointment with a doctor who has his office on the other side of Iran!! I felt so stupid then. So, with less than 2 weeks left, I continued my search. We called a few doctors, but no one was willing to give me an appointment as soon as possible (I am leaving Iran on the 17th of August 2017). But, when I was getting hopeless, there was this one doctor. His work interested me, so without hesitation, I booked a consultation with him.
Fastforward to somewhere around the 26th of August: time for the consultation.
When I entered, the waiting room was PACKED. I started panicking because I was afraid I was not going to get an appointment in time.
After waiting less than 5 minutes, the doctors' secretary called us in. Before I go further, I do not speak Farsi. However, my mom and my aunt do, so they guided me throughout this whole process.
So, I entered the room and literally the first thing the doctor says: "English?". Why? If doctors know you're not from Iran, they make you pay way more for the surgery than a local. The doctor even admitted that if he knew I wasn't Iranian, he would've charged us atleast 2000 USD!
Anyway, back to when I first walked in. We sit down and the first thing he does is touch my nose and instantly turns to my mom and aunt and tells them that my nose will turn out "very nice". Not gonna lie, that kinda excited me, knowing that he already knew what to do!
So, after that he calls his colleague, and it was time to take some before pictures. These pictures were made so he could photoshop them to what he thought was an ideal look. We took the pictures and he told us to come by two days later.
Two days passed, and I saw my before and after pic. Let me tell you, I was HYPED! But, it wasn't exactly what I wanted. So, through my two great translators, I asked him if I could show him a picture of how I want my nose to be. So I did, and he started editing the 'after' picture with a blue pen (the background of the picture was blue, so the edit looked better than you would expect). I was even more excited than before! After a while of talking, he asked me what I ate that day. I told him I just had a few slices of bread with chocolate. Why'd he ask me that? Because if I hadn't eaten anything he would've LITERALLY done the surgery on that same day!! I didn't even want to have breakfast that day, but my aunt made me eat. I was kiiiinda bummed, but I believe everything happens for a reason so I just went with it. But, he did give me an appointment for the 31st of July 2017, 17 days before I leave Iran. I was so excited!! At this point I didn't cancel the appointment with the other doctor, as I wanted to have a back-up plan IF this one would fall through.
So, the day of my surgery comes and y'all, I was NERVOUS. They gave me an appointment for 10 AM that day and told us to arrive 30 mins before. So, we arrived at 9:30 and oh my God, I've never had to wait that long in my life. Apparently, someone before me was ONE AND A HALF HOUR late, and that's why my appointment was delayed. I'm not talking about a 30 min delay, no, they called me in at 3 PM THAT SAME AFTERNOON. So, me and my hungry self went upstairs with my mom to get dressed in their hospital clothes. They also gave me a pill that I had to take, no idea what that was for though. After getting dressed I had to wait quite some time, I believe it was another 30 mins. During this time I was getting SO nervous. I wasn't afraid for the pain or the surgery itself: it was the general anesthesia that scared me. I was afraid I'd wake up during the surgery and being aware of them operating on me. I kept scaring myself, but before I could finish doing that, I was called to the operating room. My mom obviously couldn't come, so I said goodbye and we parted ways. I didn't cry, but I got emotional because I felt "alone", like I couldn't speak Farsi and I don't know lmao I was being extra.
So, I enter the room and they told me to lay down on the surgery table. At this point, I was SHITTING myself. I was so scared.
The doctors' assistants were getting everything ready, and I felt so uncomfortable y'all. My mom had told them that I spoke Arabic instead of English, so as I was laying there, assistants walking by me, they constantly, almost YELLED Arabic phrases at me. This one dude literally kept repeatedly asking me how I was doing in his broken Arabic, and when I finally understood what he was saying I told him I was fine, and he just laughed.
When it was time for the anesthesia, they gave me this mask. Another guy tried to tell me (again, broken Arabic) to breathe through it. Did he ask me nicely? No, again, almost yelling at me. Again, I felt the need to cry like a baby, but I kept my composure.
Anyways, I breathe through the mask and they remove it from my face. Literally a couple seconds later and I was OUT. I don't even remember getting sleepy or whatever, I just instantly went out. So, I got the worst part out of the way. Atleast, that's what I thought..
Before I go on, as I mentioned before, I did so much research. You think you're prepared after that, but people often forget that it's called plastic SURGERY. It's called SURGERY for a reason. And boy, let me tell you, the 31st of July 2017 was the day me and 'surgery' met for the first time. It wasn't pretty y'all.
So, that being said, I wake up after surgery. I have to wear contacts and without them I can barely see. All I saw when I woke up was a guy standing next to me. He put a suction tube in my mouth, and y'all, did that feel uncomfortable. After that was done, they put me on a bed with wheels and rolled me in an elevator, to another room where the other patients were laying.
When you think of your first day of getting a nose job, you think of being happy. New nose, excited, no discomfort. For some, that has been a reality. For me, unfortunately, far from that.
Still groggy from the anesthesia, they eventually allowed family to come in. I remember my mom walking over to me, and it literally felt like I was in a movie. My mom and aunt were SO concerned and so sad, my sister was literally crying, and even the husband of my aunt could barely look at me. Even my DAD, who NEVER cries, cried on the phone when I talked to him because he had seen the photos my mom took of me. I was laying there as if I had been in an accident, and to be honest, it felt like it too.
Not only that, I was SO. THIRSTY. My mouth was the Sahara desert that was crying for some water. So they gave me a bit of water. Not too much, because they told me it would cause me to bleed more.
After that, they allowed me to go home. My mom had to hold my arm and help me walk because I was SO weak. I could barely walk, barely keep my eyes open and I was DIZZY. It felt like hell to get into the car to go home.
When I got home, the first thing I did was sleep. I slept with my neck/travel pillow, and let me tell you: this is a MUST if you're planning on getting a nose job. It's such a lifesaver!! It also prevents your head from falling to one side while you're asleep, and it's quite comfortable! I must say that I slept quite good after day 1 of my surgery. But, the annoying thing was, the doctor gave me 4 different pills that I had to take: 2 small pills that I had to take twice a day: during the afternoon and again in the evening. The other 2 however... those were big capsules which I had to take every 6 and 8 hours, meaning that I had to wake up during the night to take them: 4 AM, 6 AM, and then wake up again at 10 AM. I got so sick of doing that, and he gave me so much of it too, so I was taking those pills for like 11 days straight.
After that day, I did nothing but sleep for a couple of days. I wouldn't recommend doing that as you are supposed to walk around a few times a day, but I was so weak that I was unable to do so.
Anyways, fastforward to day 3, when my internal nasal splints got removed. Y'all. When I tell you it was uncomfortable. YALL. I've seen videos of plastic splints getting removed, but mine were VERY different. They were very thin, and LONG. My doctor is very skillful, but not that nice, so he kept calling me a wuss, so that kinda pissed me off, but oh well. He also got SO angry immediately when we walked in, because I had SOME bruising... 3 days after my surgery. Like, what do you expect?? He was literally yelling at my mom. Ugh, anyways,
he removed the splints and I instantly got dizzy and couldn't go home immediately after, so I had to lay down for a bit. I also had to get an injection in my butt.... wasn't too excited about that, but luckily, it didn't hurt that much. Didn't know what that was for either.
After the removal of my internal splints, day 3, I spent all day on my phone and decided not to sleep during the day anymore, since the doctor got so pissed. I forgot to mention that the first day or two my mom had to feed me since I was too weak to do so myself (yeah, I was in quite a condition..). After day 3 though, I started to feed myself and walk around the house more. The doctor also gave me a whole bottle of sodium chloride and a syringe, and I had to clean my nose 3 times a day from then to get rid of the blood that was dried up.
Day 4 was when the bruising started to go down little by little. I also took a shower, which my mom helped me with. Since you can't get your cast wet, I threw my head back and let my mom wash my hair while I had a towel on my face to protect the cast, in case some water would get on my face.
I took a shower because my hair gets greasy very easily, and I didn't smell too great either.. (it's very warm in Iran during the summer, so sweating was inevitable).
If your hair doesn't get greasy easily, or it just doesn't bother you, I wouldn't risk taking a shower.
Day 7 was the day of my cast removal. I was so excited! In the morning we went to the office, which was a 30 minute ride, and when we get called in once again, I immediately sit down and he takes the cast off. I hear my family go "wow", so I was so excited to look in the mirror! But, when I walked over to the mirror and saw myself, I was kinda shocked. I loved the side view, but my frontal profile! It was... odd. So swollen, so big! But, I had done a lot of research, and I knew that not everyone likes their nose at cast removal, and I was one of those people. My nose was obviously very swollen. Not only that, it was full of white pimples! I think I counted 8 or 9, I felt so disgusting! My face was also VERY greasy, even the tape on my face which was supposed to be white, was transparent. Gross, I know. I guess that's what happens after not washing your face for 7 days straight.
So, we walk back to the waiting room and again, I felt like crying because I wasn't pleased. But, once again I pulled it together and just reminded myself of other peoples' experience.
We went home, and that evening my nose started to look better already. Also, I was finally able to wear contacts again! My eyes were so dirty and I was taped very close to my eyes so I couldn't wear contacts before my cast removal.
Day 9 was the day my sutures were getting removed. Mixed feelings about that. I was happy to get them removed so I could finally laugh and yawn again, as that was painful to do with the sutures. But, I wasn't sure if it was gonna hurt or not, so that made me uncomfortable.
Again, we get to the office and the doctor's secretary offers to take out my sutures. I was literally sitting there, not making a sound and she turns to my niece and calls me a wuss. I was literally so confused as I wasn't scared nor acting like I was. So frustrating! Anyway, pulling the sutures didn't hurt that much. It did take longer than I expected though, as she couldn't get a good grip on the sutures. The most exciting part: she took a cotton ball, I think some alcohol, and started to clean my nose. Even though it was a bit painful and uncomfortable, it felt so good to have a clean nose, as it was very hard for me (and still is) to clean it myself. After that, the doctor came in to examine me. Remember the white pimples I was talking about? Yeah, he scraped those off with a knife. It wasn't as gruesome as it sounds though. Quite happy he did that actually.
That was the last time I had to visit the office. Finally! I was lowkey so excited not having to see the doctor again, even though he is the reason I am happy with my nose at this moment. He was so impatient, did not take his time for us, and everytime he called us in he was helping 2-3 people at a time. I guess that's what you get for getting it done cheap. I ended up paying 5 million toman for the surgery, which is 1300 euros or 1527'ish dollars. Very good compared to the doctor I had previously made an appointment with, who wanted to charge me 2500 USD.
Today marks the 15th day after my surgery. I can breathe better, am no longer on antibiotics, I can eat normally again. I do, however, still sleep with my head elevated on 3 pillows + my neck pillow. The doctor told me I could sleep normally after 5 days (before my cast was even removed), but to be honest I don't trust him enough to listen to that. So, I'm gonna try to sleep with my head elevated until day 30, or maybe even week 6 if I can keep that up, haha. I do really recommend everyone sleeping with a neck pillow though, as I can sleep on my side without my nose hitting the pillow, thus not be afraid to hit it! As you can see in the pictures attached, the bruising is not completely gone, but it's just a little that's left. I still feel a lot of swelling next to my nose, but that's to be expected.
So, I guess for now I can mark my experience as being worth it! I can finally say I am happy with my nose (even though I don't 100% look like myself, I'm sure that'll change in a few months), I no longer have to be ashamed of my side profile, and I am excited for the healing process and to see how my nose will look from now and a year later! At this moment, 15 days after surgery, I feel quite normal. The only things that bother me are 1. my smile. It looks weird, and my front teeth no longer show when I smile or laugh. Hoping that fixes itself soon..
2. I don't look like my "normal self". This, however is getting better each day. I think it's due to the swelling in my face which makes me look a bit odd. Other than that, I feel good!
Again, I'm sorry it's such a long post. I tend to get carried away so easily, so it's been more of a storytime than a review. I'm sorry! If there is anything I missed (I probably did as I suck at reviews), please let me know! I would love to share more of my experience with you guys and possibly help you with your journey!
To conclude it, I think I had quite an unique first week after surgery. I felt weak, the anesthesia messed with me BAD, and I think it took longer than most people for me to recover. The first day was the hardest in terms of physical discomfort, but day 3 was the hardest mentally. That's when I was questioning whether it was worth it or not, and just being very down in general. This is normal though, and I hope my review/story didn't scare you, but it's good to know about all the ups and downs of such an impactful surgery.
To end this, I just wanted to add a few tips of surgery in Iran, or surgery in general:
• Like I mentioned before: neck pillows are your best friend! They make sleeping so much better, so if you're planning on getting a nose job: you should definitely have one ready!
• If you're planning on visiting Iran purely for surgery: I strongly recommend you to have a travel buddy who speaks the language (Farsi). Most of the people don't speak English, not even my doctor did! This will make navigating around the country very difficult. Not only that, people tend to make foreigners charge more for a lot of things. Think of taxi's, food: even surgeries! If they know you're not Iranian, you can expect people to take advantage of that.
• As I mentioned before, I had my aunt and mom to guide me since I don't speak Farsi and my doctor didn't speak English. Please don't make that same mistake. I am lucky to have had a succesful nose job (as of now), and the reason I went with that doctor was because I was desperate! Make sure you can communicate with your doctor without needing a translator, or atleast a doctor who is patient enough for a translator. You need a doctor who is willing to listen to you, know about your needs and a doctor you can trust!
Lastly, in case you're wondering, the name of the doctor is Farzan Rezaei. He is quite experienced (done over 10K+ nose jobs), and knows what he's doing. However, like I mentioned, not that nice.
Also, I didn't mention what was done to my nose! As you can see in the pictures attached, I had quite a dorsal hump and a bit of a drooping tip. The dorsal hump was shaven down and my tip was raised with cartilage grafts.
Finally, this review is coming to an end. If you read this whole entire thing: thank you! Please leave a comment if you have any questions or if I missed anything, I'd love to help out! Also, please let me know if you're interested in me keeping this review up-to-date by posting every now and then. Thanks again!