Nose Jobs (Rhinoplasty)

Rhinoplasty is surgery to reshape the nose. It is one of the most common plastic surgery procedures performed today. Rhinoplasty can reduce or increase the size of your nose, change the shape of the tip or the bridge, narrow the span of the nostrils, or change the angle between your nose and your upper lip. It may also correct a birth defect or injury, or help relieve some breathing problems. People seek out Rhinoplasty for both physical and emotional health reasons.

During the year of 2005 there were 298,413 Rhinoplasty procedures performed in the United States, which is down by 23% from numbers available from 2000. This procedure is not used to change your overall look. What it can do is help you regain your self confidence after a disfiguring accident. It can help you gain self confidence after correcting a birth defect. It can also help you breath better by correcting the problems that cause you to have breathing problems. What it will not do it allow you to look like your favorite actor/actress or singer.

The best candidates for the procedure are those that do not have unrealistic expectations for what the final outcome will be after the surgery. The fact that this is a surgical procedure will mean that it will carry with it certain inherent risks. The biggest risk for any patient receiving plastic surgery of any kind is having unrealistic expectations for the final outcome. Kids do not make good candidates for surgery until they have finished growing, this is generally around 14-15 for girls and a little older for boys. The exception to this is the correction of a birth defect that is causing grave emotional harm to the child. Otherwise the doctors want to make sure that it is something that the kids really want and that they are not being pushed into by their parents.

The procedure should only be done by a qualified surgeon and for that reason you should always make sure that the surgeon is a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon. Then you should check with the state and the patients of various surgeons to see what their results were like. Are they happy and would they honestly recommend there surgeon to you. After all this is a procedure that is going to be done on your face and it will not be something that you can hide. You will wan to make sure that the surgeon you will be using not only knows what they are doing but is actually good at it. Knowing and being good are after all to very different things.

Before the actual surgery you will have several meetings with the surgeon to talk about what you want done and why you want to have it done. This will help the surgeon understand what the desired outcome is whether it is strictly cosmetic or is there an underlying medical concern. The procedure is started out by making incisions inside the nostrils and at the base of the nose. This allows the surgeon to have full access to the underlying cartilage of the nose. This will allow the surgeon to reshape the cartilage of the nose to gain the desired end result. This is the part that separates the knowledgeable from the artistic. The reshaping of the nose is more art than science.

This procedure is generally considered a short stay procedure so it is done in the doctors office much like going to the dentist. Depending on the amount and the type of work that is being done you will be awake during the procedure. It is not uncommon for the procedure to be performed under local anesthesia and only the area of the actual surgery is numbed. For more complicated procedures they will use a general anesthesia in which you will sleep through the procedure.

After the procedure is completed your nose will be filled with packing material and a soft splint will be applied. The splint and packing material is intended to ensure that the nose keeps its desired shape. The amount of time for you to fully heal from the surgery will depend to a large degree on your overall health and age. Younger people in good health will heal faster then older people in poor health. A general ground rule for recovery from a surgical procedure is about 4-6 weeks. Your doctor will decide how many post operative visits you will need and how ling you will need to wear the splint and keep the packing material in place. The following activities should be avoided for 2 weeks after surgery (jogging, swimming, bending, sexual relations-any activity that increases your blood pressure).

You will not be able to wear your glasses for up to seven weeks after surgery. This is to keep the weight of the glasses of the bridge of the nose until it has fully healed. If you need to wear your glasses to see than they can be taped so they sit high on the cheek. After about seven weeks you will be able to fully return to your life with your new look.