Septorhinoplasty - Salt Lake City, UT

So I've been debating about whether or not I wanted to record my experience here because privacy is really important to me, but I know there's no rhinoplasty reviews for Dr. Ward with pictures so I thought it could be really helpful to other people interested in Dr. Ward or who are still trying to decide on a surgeon :)

My nose has always been my biggest insecurity since I was really little. I've wanted a nose job since the 4th grade, but my parents struggle a lot financially so I never thought it'd be something that I'd be able to afford. I've learned to accept my nose recently. I like that it's different and gives me a distinct look, but my breathing has gotten so bad that it's started to affect my health. I feel like it's not something I can ignore for much longer.

When I was 15, I randomly woke up one day completely unable to breathe out of my left nostril. I looked in a mirror and saw that it looked really deviated inside. It's only gotten worse since then. The past few years I've been getting debilitating headaches on my left side. They're rather unpredictable, but there's months where I'll get 5 headaches a week. I've tried several different treatments, but nothing works. Sinus flushes and nasal sprays dont work because I can't get anything up that side of my nose. I can't breathe well during exercise, which is frustrating because I love working out and feel like I can't push myself to my fullest potential because I have to stop frequently to catch my breath or else I get really light headed.

I had no intention of getting this fixed because if I'm going to go through the recovery for a septoplasty then I want to fix the physical characteristics of my nose that I don't like as well. I'm really really picky about nose jobs because I've seen so many bad ones over the years, but when I was randomly looking on realself, Dr. Ward popped up in my searches. I really liked his before and afters, and I couldn't find any negative experiences with him. His credentials were really impressive, and the fact that he's done such amazing revision work speaks a lot to his ability. I also liked that he only does facial plastic surgery and isn't a one stop shop. I've been researching surgeons for years, and the doctors I found who I liked were always in LA or New York and their costs were astronomical. I was so surprised to find such an amazing facial plastic surgeon in SLC, and combined with the fact that his prices are a lot more reasonable, I felt like this was all meant to be.

I scheduled a consultation with him on January 9th and was even more impressed in person. He was able to explain everything to me in a way that I could understand. I was really surprised because I thought all of my breathing issues were only on my left side, but apparently my right side is also deviated and has bone spurs. Basically my nose was a huge mess inside haha. There's no question that it's very deviated, and he even felt bone fragments on my dorsal hump that he could feel shifting around from being fractured. I think the biggest thing that confirmed I wanted to get this done was talking to one of the employees. I was shocked because I was thinking to myself how pretty her nose is and a few minutes later she mentioned how Dr. Ward had done her nose a few years ago. I asked her a bunch of questions about her experience, and she was super helpful. I'm attaching a few before pictures. The plan is to shave the dorsal hump, refine the tip and shorten the tip, raise my septum a bit, deproject my tip, and also use a septal graft on my bridge to make the width more uniform because it's so pinched around the middle.

Here are a few pictures of my profile. I honestly don't hate the bump so much. I'm just excited for my tip to not be so overprotected.

I was really really nervous for surgery, but the nurses, CRNA, and Dr. Ward were all really comforting. I reviewed my photos with Dr. Ward before I went into surgery so I felt comfortable that we were on the same page. Before I went into the OR, I mentioned to him that there was an area in my nose that causes me a lot of pain and feels like it's the source of my headaches. We had a really good discussion about it. He told me when it comes to fixing pain, there are no guarantees, but he'd make sure to see if he could find anything in that area.

My surgery took a little over 3.5 hours. The nurse came out to tell my mom that Dr. Ward was working on making sure my nose looked absolutely perfect. He made my nostrils smaller and then went back and refined my tip more because it looked too pointy. I'm happy to know he spent so much time ensuring it was perfect. I still have a cast on but I love how much smaller my nostrils look. He told my mom and I after surgery that my nasal bone was pushed completely to the left side and that he found bone on bone. Despite all my swelling and discomfort in recovery, I haven't had a single headache since the operation, and I really think it's because Dr. Ward fixed that section of my nose. If nothing else, the surgery is definitely worth it for that. I've been insanely swollen, and I'm still dripping blood from my left nostril, but I think that's because of how much was done to that side. I'm nervous to get my cast off on Thursday because of how swollen I will be.