Planning for Rhinoplasty & Chin Implant Summer 2016. Seattle, WA

I'm not sure when I first realized I wasn't pretty. By the time I was halfway through high school I knew there was something off about my face, but I wasn't sure exactly what, so I blamed the bump on my nose. I thought if it was gone I would be just as happy and pretty and confident as my sister, who got my mom's straight nose.

Now I've decided it wasn't really the bump that bothered me, it was the disproportionality of my profile. My nose is a little big and my chin is small, making my profile quite convex. It makes every picture terrible if my face isn't perfectly dead-on. At this point my chin bothers me much more, and if I had been born with a better chin I doubt I'd even bother with my nose. But if I'm going to get a chin implant I might as well just fix the nose too, because the bump certainly isn't great.

I'm looking for a straight bridge, or maybe even a little curved outwards. Absolutely no scooping. I think it would look really weird on me and nobody else in my family has it. I know my tip is what a lot of you might consider "bulbous," and it's probably a little over-projected, but it looks like my dad's nose. I wouldn't be upset if it changed inadvertently after the surgery, but if possible I'd like to keep it. I still want to look related to my parents! And messing with the tip opens a whole big can of worms and possible complications that I want to avoid. Even though my nose is pretty big and humpy, it's still a little upturned and not at all droopy. I'd like to take as little risk of jeopardizing that as possible.

After Christmas my mother told me that she'd talked to my father and if I wanted to do the surgery this summer, they'll pay for it. I was fully expecting not to get it done until I was 23 or so and had saved up the money, but she told me that she wanted me to get it done sooner rather than later. I want to pay her back the money when I start working full-time after college... I just feel so guilty taking so much money from them for the sake of vanity. But so far she says no to that. I might have to bring it up with my dad later. I actually haven't discussed it with my father at all. I'm sure they both think I'm pretty insecure and silly for even wanting the procedures, so it's embarrassing to talk about. They're very practical people. Frankly I'm shocked they even offered to pay. (but I'll take it! lol)

(I feel like I've written a lot. Have I written too much??)

As far as surgeons go... I'm terrified of choosing a surgeon. I think I'm more scared of making the wrong choice than of the actual surgery. I want to go about this in the most logical way I can, so I made a spreadsheet of every surgeon in the greater Seattle area who's so much as sneezed next to a rhinoplasty in the past 10 years. I'm willing to go to 6 consults, so I'm in the process of narrowing down 150 names to 6.

My first set of criteria was:

-ASPS member OR certified by both the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the American Board of Otolaryngology. (No ENT-only doctors. Need evidence of extensive surgical training. I wasn't blown away by most ASPS doctors because they generally seem to do more boobs and butts than noses, but I decided to accept them anyway if they've demonstrated a particular interest in rhinoplasty.)

-In private practice

-Between 10 and 25 years since their residency ended. (This number was hard to figure out in some cases, but I was pretty lenient with it. I just want to be sure my surgeon is neither ancient nor completely new at this. I feel like old surgeons might be less willing to update their techniques. Plus, shaky hands!! I'd rather have a younger surgeon who's still enthusiastic about his work and willing to keep up with the latest breakthroughs.)

-No disciplinary action on their license in any state they've practiced in.

That left about 15 names. I removed the surgeons whose specialties clearly weren't rhinoplasty and one surgeon whose noses I just hated and was left with 10 names.

I ordered my top 10 based on the ranking of each of their schools, how many relevant articles they've published in peer-reviewed journals, and whether or not they've completed any fellowships. So now I have my preliminary top 6. I still have to pull their license and lawsuit public records, though (which is such a headache I'll probably make a post about it when I'm done).

I didn't take reviews or top surgeon lists into account at all. I think it's pretty stupid to choose a surgeon based on reviews. There are so many fake reviews out there, and even when a review is real it's purely anecdotal. The only thing they're good for is evaluating things you're not likely to get a good idea of in the consultation, like whether the surgeon will still care about you after he has your money. And I'm pretty sure those top surgeon lists are more about politics/whether the surgeon paid off the magazine than the surgeon's actual skill.

Soooo I guess my next steps are to keep investigating surgeons. I want to go to a regular ENT before I go on any consultations just to get an idea of the anatomy up there. I'm not sure if I have a deviated septum or anything, and I don't really trust a surgeon to tell me. He has a vested interest in finding something wrong. I don't want anybody messing with my septum or turbinates unless an independent professional tells me there's something really wrong with them. Besides, the ENT will also be able to tell me the reputations of the surgeons I'm looking at.

tl;dr - hi guys I'm getting a nosejob!!

I swear I'll take better pictures eventually

Pls be nice