My Rhinoplasty Journey

1. Since they took my cast off, my bridge height dropped quite a bit. It looked overbuilt but has gotten better as I recover. At the same time, my nose bridge became wider, longer and I looked a bit older. I love the increased bridge height and projected nose tip but I don't like the widen bridge. It seems a bit chunky and masculine rather than refined and feminine,
2. My nostrils were a bit asymmetric and my bridge wasn't perfectly straight. After getting DCF to increase my bridge and rib/septum to project my nose tip, these asymmetries became more noticeable. This isn't the doctor's fault. I gave a three-star mainly because the communication part and I have mixed feelings about my result which I think it isn't worth 20k + other fees. Make sure you are okay with a little bit of asymmetries before going into the surgery.
3. Dr. Yoo can be the prefect surgeon for you. Just don't go to him blindly. Do your own research and know exactly what you need.

I am currently in an early stage of recovery (3-6 months). I want to document my whole experience in here and hope it could be a bit helpful to whoever reads this review.
CONSULTATION: I always wanted a nose job because my nasal tip is really bulbous/nostrils too wide. I consulted Dr. Donald Yoo, Dr. David Kim, Dr. Eric Okamoto and multiple surgeons in the west coast area, China, Japan and South Korea. It took me almost two years to finally go with Dr. Yoo and had the surgery. I think it was mainly because there were so many choices and I got at least SEVERAL different surgery plans. I just couldn't see clearly and decide. Then Covid-19 happened so I couldn't travel oversea and I was kind of impatient and just wanted to get it done asap (probably not a good idea. Please take your time if you are considering a rhinoplasty. Don’t rush it as I did. You only get ONE chance of primary rhinoplasty. Any surgery after that is a REVISION which is riskier!!!!!). The consultation specifically with Dr. Yoo didn't last long. He gave me a morph and his signature surgery plan (open rhinoplasty with rib cartilage and DCF plus alarplasty). Talking to Dr. Yoo was like squeezing the toothpaste out of an almost empty tube. He only communicated with me about the details of the procedure if I asked him the specific question. Otherwise he wouldn't talk much. Maybe he felt like the patient didn't need to know the details since they probably don't have medical background??? For example, he didn’t tell me how much height he would add only if I asked him specifically. I guess the morph kind of expressed how much height he would add but morph wouldn't be accurate all the time. And people do absorb DCF in different amount. Some people get overbuilt noses and some people absorb it too much and the height drop significantly. He didn’t tell me that in our consultation or pre-op.
BOOKING THE SURGERY: Office staff were nice enough so the process went pretty smoothly. Vivian (patient coordinator) was SUPER helpful and responsive. I paid 50% up front to book the surgery.
PRE-OP: Pre-op appointment was pretty standard, but I didn’t get to talk to Dr. Yoo that much. I felt like every time we met; it was in a rush. I guess he saw a lot of patients so probably didn’t have the energy or time to talk through the procedure in detail with everyone. And there was some information he thought he told me but he didn’t. I think he confused me with someone else. And he also didn't remember my surgery date. IMPAIRED COMMUNICATION made me take down a star for this review. The office was kind of disoriented but that didn’t bother me.
DAY OF THE SURGERY: I arrived at the surgery center in Beverly Hills around 6am. After I went in, a nurse gave me some papers to sign and checked my ID. Then I got changed and they also needed to take a urine sample. After that, Jinli Wu (PA-C) went in and asked me some questions. Then Dr. Yoo came in and made some marks on my face. After getting the IV in, a nurse took me to the operating room. I climbed up and lied down on the operating table, and they told me to relax. I remembered there was a morph image of my side profile showing on a screen nearby. Then my vision became sort of burry and that was it. Next thing I remembered was waking up in the recovery room and a nurse was trying to dress me.
RECOVERY: Recovery went pretty smoothly. It didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Some people said their rib incision even hurt when they breathed heavily. That didn’t happen to me. I felt a bit sore when I tried to get out of the bed or cough, but that was it. At day 3, I barely felt any discomfort at all. However, I couldn’t breathe through my nose and I needed to clean my nose at least three times a day which could be a bit annoying.
POST-OP: Post-op went well. Jinli (Dr. Yoo' s PA-C) examined my nose and made sure there was a good blood flow in the nasal tip area during the first post-op. She took care of my stitches and put tape on my nose during our second post-op which was one week after the surgery. It was a standardized process. Don’t expect anything more than these post-ops. They won’t initiate anymore follow up care besides these three post-ops (at least in my case). Because my recovery went well, I didn’t need anything more, but it could be a bit cold and careless if someone had an emergency, an infection or a complication after the surgery.
RESULT: I still got some swelling, but I can pretty much anticipate the final result. I got a bit improvement and that was it. From a scale of 1-10, my nose was like a 5, after surgery it’s like a 5.2. If I paid around 10k, I would probably give a four-star or a five-star, but for 20k, it’s a bit disappointing. Getting a major surgery with your rib taking out, recovery, travel, taking time off from work and paying more than 20k are a lot of investment. The result DOESN’T match what I put in. The improvement comes from a slightly projected nose tip from the side view. However, my nose bridge becomes wider and my nasal tip still looks pretty bulbous from the front view. Anyway, maybe I had an OK-ish nose so I didn’t get much out of it. If you had an extremely low bridge or extremely wide nasal tip, I would still recommend Dr. Yoo. In that case, it could be a life-changing surgery and it is definitely worth it.
REVISION: Even though my nose bridge looks a bit wider, my eyes are wide apart so it doesn’t look that bad to have a revision rhinoplasty. My breathing is fine and scarring is not noticeable. I think I will just move on and focus on other prospects of my life.
PHOTO: I will only post picture(s) of my rib incision since there aren’t many examples here. For the nose, I think you can get tons of images from other reviews and I don’t feel comfortable posting pictures of my face. Sorry about that.
What I learned from this experience:
1. Dr. Yoo is indeed a very skillful and talented surgeon. My incision healed very nicely and I didn’t experience much pain. However, communication wasn’t that great. I didn’t want to get personable with a surgeon and I didn’t expect a doctor to be my friend or anything like that. I just wish he could be more informative about my surgery plan like why did he choose this surgery plan (pros and cons and etc). Every time I met with him it was like 5-10 mins even though the appointment was schedule like 30 mins or 1 hour. Maybe my case was too easy/was kind of boring to him??? During our consultation and pre-op appointment, if I paused a few seconds to react or was still thinking about what to ask next, he would take the initiative to end the conversation and redirect me to Vivian (his patient coordinator). If I could go back in time, I would schedule more consultations with him before going into the surgery.
2. There are pros and cons for every surgery plan. Don’t be fooled that rib cartilage with DCF is the “golden” solution for everyone. It has its merits but also has some flaws. Access your nose carefully before you make the decision.
3. Don’t expect too much especially if you already have an OK nose before the surgery.
4. Rhinoplasty can be very risky. Even if you are with the best surgeon, there could be around 5%-15% chance of revision. I hope you all could be the lucky ones. And don't rush yourself into the surgery. Please wait until you have no concerns/doubts and absolutely sure about your surgeon and your surgery plan.
Tips if you decide to go with Dr. Yoo:
1. Bring extra sterile cotton swaps (q-tips) and gauze. They gave me 200 sterile cotton swaps and a small bag of gauze. I thought it would be enough but it ran out at day-2 or day-3. There were a lot of cleaning to do during the first week, and there could be minor bleeding for the first 3-5 days.
2. Make sure you clean your nose as instructed to avoid infection. I cleaned my nose at least three times per day at week one. I cleaned it as many as five times for the day when I had too much discharge/mucus.
3. Prepare more questions/concerns to your consultation. Otherwise you won’t get much out of it besides a morph image.
Finally, happy holidays to everyone. (November 2020)