What Does the Recovery Process Look Like For Rhinoplasty Surgery?

I do all my surgery here in the office at the Nose and Sinus Institute. We have a fully accredited operating room and work with board-certified MD anesthesiologists. Surgery can take 2-3 hours for a primary rhinoplasty and may be longer if there are functional issues to be simultaneously addressed or if it is a revision rhinoplasty procedure. I do not leave that operating room until I am 150% satisfied and excited about your nose. It is my job to make sure that the appearance of your nose at the end of surgery is as close to the simulated photos as possible. When surgery is done, you’ll wake up and ask me if I’m done yet! 

That’s when the recovery starts. The first 2-5 days after surgery are the most uncomfortable ones – patients don’t generally describe the acute post-operative period as painful, but more uncomfortable – you’re congested, you’re a mouth breather, you’re a little oozy from the front, and back of the nose, you can’t smell or taste that well, you’ve got to sleep with your head of bed elevated. I do not pack the nose. However, I will often use splints that go inside the nose to help with swelling and crusting. By post-operative days 5-6, the swelling on the inside will be improved and the internal splints will be removed. At this point, you’ll feel like a brand-new person and you and I will be friends again! There is an external cast that stays on for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, the cast comes off, and you are what I call “restaurant ready” – anyone who didn’t know you before may not know you had any surgery at all! You will likely feel some lingering congestion, but this typically resolves within the first 2-4 weeks. After 2 weeks, I have all my patients tape the nose nightly as tolerated for an additional 6-8 weeks. There really aren’t many restrictions that I place on patients after 2 weeks – except for not wearing glasses on the nose or doing any deep-sea diving. I want my patients to get back to life – I don’t want them sitting at home, staring in the mirror, watching their nose, and analyzing every aspect of it – that’s like watching grass grow and you will drive yourself crazy! 

Over the first 1-3 months, a lot of the swelling will go down. However, it takes up to a full year for all the swelling to resolve and tissue remodeling to occur. I make sure that patients hear this loud and clear – real rhinoplasty takes time to heal. Every patient wants to be the exception but that’s just not the case. This waiting game is the hardest part of the rhinoplasty journey. Some days you will wake up and your nose will look fabulous. Other days, you’ll wake up and it will look swollen or asymmetric. This can depend on the weather, what you ate, what you drank, if you cried, what side you slept on, exercise, stress, among many external factors. My commitment to you is to be there for you through all of it and to make sure you end with the beautiful, functional nose of your dreams that will serve you well throughout the rest of your life.