4 Things to Know About Revision Rhinoplasty
The vast majority of rhinoplasty surgeries (commonly referred to as nose jobs) proceed without a hitch and leave patients feeling happier about their looks and breathing ability. However, anywhere from five to 15 percent of nose job recipients feel the need to try again with a revision rhinoplasty.
Whether you have experienced complications from your original rhinoplasty or you simply don’t like the way the procedure turned out after healing and recovery, you’ll want to know as much as possible about revision rhinoplasty. Start by considering the following four points about this form of corrective facial surgery.
1. Why People Seek Revision Rhinoplasty
No matter how much surgical skill goes into a rhinoplasty procedure, the end results depend on various factors in the body’s healing processes. For instance, scar tissue naturally forms as the nose heals, but too much scar tissue formation can leave visible results or interfere with normal breathing.
Rhinoplasty usually involves some removal of cartilage to change the shape of the nose or its nostrils. In some cases, the loss of cartilage can cause the septum (the wall of cartilage separating the nostrils) to deviate, making breathing difficult. The tip of the nose can also collapse, making it look artificially tiny.
2. Why Revision Rhinoplasty Can Prove Challenging
Before you leap into the decision to get a revision rhinoplasty, bear in mind that this procedure can present a tougher challenge than the original surgery. One key difficulty lies in the creation of the post-surgical scar tissue mentioned above, which makes additional corrective work that much harder to pull off successfully.
Another potential problem involves the fact that the original rhinoplasty probably involved the removal of separate planes of tissue in the nose. The surgeon could easily pull away one layer of tissue to work on another layer. These separate layers may no longer exist when the time comes for revision rhinoplasty.
These difficulties can cause a revision rhinoplasty to take up to five hours, longer than an initial rhinoplasty. You also face a somewhat higher risk of requiring a future revision of this surgery than you did for your original rhinoplasty.
3. How to Prepare for Revision Rhinoplasty
The first critical step before a revision rhinoplasty involves allowing the nose to heal completely from the first procedure, a process that can take up to a year. Aside from the medical necessity, this healing period may eventually yield a nose you find completely satisfactory, especially once all the swelling goes down.
The same basic preoperative steps and safeguards that you followed for your original rhinoplasty will also apply to a revision rhinoplasty. If you consult a different plastic surgeon for the revision rhinoplasty, make sure that this surgeon knows your complete medical history and has all the records pertaining to the original procedure.
Your plastic surgeon will examine your nose and airway carefully to see how much cartilage you’ve lost, how much scar tissue you’ve accumulated, and how these changes affect looks and function.
Based on this evaluation and a discussion of your goals for a final outcome, your plastic surgeon can now discuss the details of the procedure with you. For instance, your surgeon may inform you of the need to borrow cartilage from another body part (such as a rib) as a means of restoring a nose with insufficient cartilage.
4. What to Expect From Revision Rhinoplasty Recovery
Due to the extra work involved in restructuring a nose already altered by surgery, you may experience more postoperative bruising and swelling than you did from your first rhinoplasty. Your plastic surgeon will probably advise you to limit all activities during the first week of recovery.
After the initial inflammation recedes, you may need to exercise patience for several months as the swelling around the nose slowly goes down. As in your previous rhinoplasty, the entire recovery period can take up to a year.
You can get the nose you originally sought to have by scheduling revision rhinoplasty at Jaibaji Plastic Surgery. Contact us today to set up an initial consultation and get all the details about this procedure.