Making an appointment with a plastic surgeon for a nose job will give you an overall idea about what nose plastic surgery means. You may even be shown a trailer containing the main steps that such an operation implies. The doctor will decide which type of anaesthesia is more appropriate to you and will also give you advice on what you should and should not do prior to the operation.
What Happens During The Nose Surgery Procedure?
The first thing that a doctor will give you as soon as you have been comfortably seated in the operation room is an injection. Before local anaesthesia, some doctors prefer to slightly sedate their patients to help them relax. When general anaesthesia is applied, an injection into a vein will put you to sleep. To prevent vomiting after the operation, additional medication (anti-emetic medicine) is provided through an intravenous tube for patients who have upset stomachs.
The incision is usually made on the inside of the nose and is called ’closed procedure’. Thus, no scars will appear to the surface. The other option is an open technique where the incision is made at the base of the nose, across the vertical strip that separates the nostrils. In this case, a small scar will be seen on the underside of the nose but it will fade away in time.
When the incision has been made, the surgeon will elevate the mucosal lining of the nose and start reshaping the bone and cartilage. If a reduction of the nose size is intended, the surgeon will trim the bone and the cartilage to bring them to the desired size and shape. Sometimes an augmentation of the nose is envisaged and nasal structures will be increased by adding pieces of cartilage from the septum or from other parts of the body (such as the ear).
If the septum is deviated, it will be corrected, i.e. straightened - as pieces of cartilage and bone are removed, to improve breathing and only after that will the ’aesthetic’ part of the operation begin. As soon as the appropriate structure and shape of the nose have been decided on, the surgeon will re-drape the nasal tissue and skin and, of course, will close the incisions.
An average nose operation will not take more than one or two hours. Unless any complications occur during the procedure (excessive bleeding, heart dysfunction, etc) the doctor will start packing the nose. Packing after surgery is very important as it provides two functions: while acting as a splint to keep the septum and the nose lining in place, it will also reduce the occurrence of heavy bleeding and internal scarring.
Due to this nasal packing, the patient will be obliged to breathe out of the mouth until the packing has been removed. To make this less annoying, the traditional packing made of yards of material stuffed inside your nostrils has been replaced with nasal plugs; they act like tampons and can be more easily and swiftly tugged out. Packing is removed by most doctors a couple of days after the procedure. In the next ten days, all dressings, splints and stitches will go away too.