Hi girls, I just went through revision rhinoplasty last week and fat grafting and would like to share my experience with you guys!
Originally, I was considering to get revision DES and wanted to choose either between zygoma reduction or revision rhinoplasty. I was almost satisfied with my eyes, but just wanted to remove a little fat and excess skin. For the nose I wanted to get revision rhinoplasty since my nose had become too long and droopy after my primary rhinoplasty. I used to have a snub nose, so the doctor made it longer (too long though) and also heightened my bridge. Despite liking the height of my bridge, I still found it to be too visible, so I was considering to change the implant as well. Finally wanted to reduce my portruded Zygoma.
I consulted with Teuim, GNG, JW, April31, Regen and Namu. Overall, the experiences with each clinic were good, the staff friendly and all the doctors were very honest with me and all suggested almost the same procedures; the best options for me would be to get rhinoplasty and fat crafting while they said that getting zygoma and eyelid surgery was not as necessary for me.
So that is why I chose to go with rhino and fg and also the reason why I didn't go with Teuim since they are just well-known for their eyes. Having decided to do revision rhinoplasty, I wanted to choose a rhino specialist which meant that I excluded Regen (despite of a good price) and Namu since I wasn't sure about their expertise within this field. I have heard that Namu is good with eyes though! Finally I was to choose between GNG, JW and April31 which was really one of the hardest decisions!
GNG: from what i read GNG is a hospital and it focuses not only on the beauty of the nose, but also the functionality, they offer ENT Rhinoplasty, have an Anesthesia Specialist,and actually they also told me that they would hospitalize me for one night after surgery just to be sure. Since safety is of course very important to me, I felt that GNG was definitely a good choice.
JW: Dr. Suh, I had heard should be a really good rhino surgeon and a lot of people have been very satisfied with their results with him. JW also seemed like the most popular clinic with the most patients waiting in the waiting room. Although his consultation wasn't as technically detailed as the others, I felt confident about his skills.
April31: April31 and Dr. Kim I heard, should also be some of the best within the field. Before i met the Dr. Kim the consultant actually made a presention about the clinic and told me about the medical staff, their experience and their techniques. My experience with April31 was by far the most technical consultation, which reassured me of the doctors skills.
Although it seemed that dr. Kim was actually the most skilled doctor I, after many considerations, initally decided to go with dr. Suh, since JW also have a good reputation for safety in general and my case wasn't that complex and since the clinic seemed the most popular with the most reviews. I have also seen a lot of his work and was therefore more confident in what I could expect. On the other hand I hadn't seen too many reviews about GNG and April31 and was therefore not as sure about them.
After I had already decided though, the consultant from April31 however, contacted me again, since he could sense that I was unsure about my choice and asked me to come in again and I agreed. Then he spend a lot of time telling me even more about the clinic and the doctor. I think that what really made me change my mind was when he told me that 80 pct. of their cases are revision cases and only 20 pct of their customer base is international which I supposed meant that this is the place where people go to when they want to be certain about their results - and that they also have a good reputation amongst the locals .I guess that I really wanted this to be my last revision and I could just imagine myself coming again after some time asking for another revision here, so that is why i ended up changing my mind.
After having decided for April I actually also found out that the method that the clinic use to do fat crafting seems like the best of all the clinics from what I can read from their webpages. I hadn't put much thought into the fat grafting since I was more concerned about my nose, but upon researching about FG I learned that, although it varies from person to person, the techniques used to harvest, store and inject the fat is also very important for the survival of it. So this was definitely a bonus!
The surgery
Although my greatest concern was to make the tip shorter Dr. Kim also recommended to change my implant to a softer one, which i agreed to since, as I told you, my first implant was very visible. He kept the height though. Then he actually also suggested to rotate my tip a bit up, which I liked the idea of since my original nose was upturned, meaning that I would look a bit more like myself, without getting a snub nose though.
After the surgery I felt surprisingly well compared to my first time where I was completely a wreck! Although I still had the cast on I could see that I had much less swelling and bruises this time. When I came back to the office, they told me that I could get my cast removed already after 6 days which was really exciting since the plaster was irritating my skin and as I was really excited to see the result!
So yesterday I had my cast removed and although I am still swollen and it's to early to tell, it really looks like Dr. Kim has made a really good result! I think that this is result I would have wanted from the primary surgery, my bridge looks much smoother and my tip is so much softer now! The first time I felt like I looked like an elf/animal right after the surgery, but this time my nose actually just look pretty and normal!
As to the fat grafting I am also really happy about the natural result! I was afraid that I would look like too "fake" in the beginning when the fat has just been injected as I've seen many people with fat crafting that looks really unnatural. But I don't feel that this is the case at all, the result looks very natural and not "overdone". In fact I actually don't think I would have noticed myself that I have had fat crafting done if I hadn't known, yet I can still see that it has improved my face.
So this is my experience so far, which I hope can help you in some way if you are considering to do rhinoplasty or fat grafting as well
I would have liked to share some more details about my whole experience here in Korea and each of the clinics and so on, but I my post is already too long. So if you have any questions feel free to ask
I wish you the best result and a good healing