November 14, 2010

Does the Nose Appearance Change After Septoplasty? (Answer: No)

Septoplasty is a surgical procedure to straighten out a deviated septum causing problems with nasal obstruction/congestion.

A common question I get asked is whether the nose appearance will change after this surgery. The answer is no (if correctly done). In fact, if the nasal appearance DID change afterwards, you would also have undergone rhinoplasty nose job... or too much was unintentionally removed.

The explanation for why the nasal appearance does not (should not) change after septoplasty is actually quite simple. The analogy would be a house where the appearance on the outside would not change even though you may knock down a wall between two rooms inside the home.

SO... Here is a side view of the septum. The blue arrow is pointing to the nostril opening and the red arrow is pointing to the lip.

In this picture below, the septum has been removed.



As you can see, the outside appearance of the nose remains unchanged as the rim of the nose is kept intact as shown by the red arrows here:

So that in a nutshell is the explanation for why deviated septum surgery does not change the outside nasal appearance.

Read more about the septoplasty surgery here.




Some nice nose job videos:



Fauquier blog
Fauquier ENT

Dr. Christopher Chang is a private practice otolaryngology, head & neck surgeon specializing in the treatment of problems related to the ear, nose, and throat. Located in Warrenton, VA about 45 minutes west of Washington DC, he also provides inhalant allergy testing/treatment, hearing tests, and dispenses hearing aids.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A septoplasty changed the appearance of my nose, which I did not want to happen. Pretty pissed about it to be honest. I was told it would not change my nose, and it did. Not significantly, of course. But I can tell there's a difference. It's like the tip of my nose used to angle ever so slightly to the left, starting about 3/4 of the way down and through the tip. It looked good with my face. It just looks different now. Not as good. I wouldn't have gone through with the surgery if the doctor had been honest and had told me there was a chance it might affect my nose appearance. Especially since it didn't correct my chronic sinusitis. So I got nothing good out of it, and I became slightly less attractive. That's literally all it did for me.


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