What is Rhinoplasty?

Rhinoplasty simply means changing the shape of the nose.


What are the benefits of Rhinoplasty?

Benefits are what you see  that you get. If you have a nose that gives you any kind of displeasure, there is no reason to go through a whole life with that displeasure. As far as I think, if a teenage girl has any kind of hump or hook on her nose, it is the most important thing that the parents can gift to their 15 year old daughter when she graduates from high school. The girl will pass through the right strata of society where she will marry well and will be much happier for the rest of her life, and it is all due to Rhinoplasty.


Who is a good candidate for rhinoplasty?

Anyone who is unhappy about their nose, if there is anything that you would like to change about it, Rhinoplasty is so simple, quick and easy, it takes less than an hour. For many people it is not just a new nose, but it is a new life. There is nothing that can change a young girl’s desirability as well as a Rhinoplasty. Not breast implants, not liposuction, not anything else. Rhinoplasty is number one.


What are the risks associated with Rhinoplasty?

Actually none, when it is done at the hands of an expert. Every plastic surgeon has to be begin somewhere. Every plastic surgeon has to do his first Rhinoplasty, then a second one and so on. When the plastic surgeon has done his 1000 rhinoplasties, he is finally beginning to understand the procedure. When I was beginning as a plastic surgeon, I went to visit an expert in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 40 years more experienced than me, and he did 3 Rhinoplasties in just two and a half hours, and it took me that much time to do just one rhinoplasty. Each one of his was absolutely perfect, and he explained to us young residents at that time that you don’t really understand the nuances of rhinoplasty until you have done ten thousand. Guess what, I have done 10,000 now, and I understand the nuances of rhinoplasty. Because there are 11 different parts of the nose and we change different amounts on different people depending upon what they have to begin with, and what they want to end up with. We get an idea of all this even before the surgery begins. We do it with the help of video imaging. We can change the nose right on our computer, with the patient sitting right next to our shoulder. The patient can say I like that, but how about a little bit more here and a little bit more there. We can tweak it until the patients get exactly what they want. In modern plastic surgery we individualize every patient, and give them what they want. I have had some really far out requests. I had this W.C. Fields impersonator who would use an artificial nose to resemble W.C. Fields, but the nose would fall off in the middle of his juggling acts on the stage. He came to me with a perfectly normal nose, and wanted me to make it look like that of W.C. Fields. After I was convinced that he was really a bonafide actor who was just trying to do his job well, I designed an implant for him. He brought a full-page picture of the original W.C. Fields and we made several implants to see which one matched his requirement perfectly. After the procedure was done, he was so successful at his act that he got a Hollywood movie contract, and it changed his life. I once came across a woman who was a tarot card reader, which is a legitimate profession. The woman wanted a witch’s nose. We understood her request because it would have helped her in her profession. So I created a hump and a hook on her nose, and she was so happy after it was done. It is an example of every rhinoplasty is different, and everybody gets exactly what they want. 99.9% of the cases patients want something that looks so natural that nobody would notice the change. That is exactly what we are good at doing. We can make a nose look like it is God’s work.


What does a Rhinoplasty procedure involve?

First of all the patient is put to sleep, and the nose is numbed. All the work is done up inside the nostril, so there is no scar on the outside whatsoever. The stitches that go inside the nostril are dissolvable stitches that do not need to be taken out later. But it takes a full 3 months for the nose to gain its new shape, and the results to finally reveal themselves fully. So even though 90% of the result is visible within one week, the remaining 10% takes 3 months to come around.


How long does it take to recover from rhinoplasty?

Everybody is up and around within the next day. A little bit of packing that we put around the nose is taken out in the evening after the surgery. So the patient can breathe through the nose the very first night while they are sleeping. The splint stays on for a week. But people who do not have to work in public, and have a desk job, can go back to work the next day. Those who have to work in public, will look normal after 7 days, even though it takes 3 months for the full results to reveal.


How long can I expect the results to last?

They last for a lifetime. The lower half of the nose continues to grow the whole life long. But when we trim the cartilages of the lower half, it stops growing. It stays in the shape that we made at the time of the surgery. So, probably the results of Rhinoplasty last longer than anything else. In facelift, you may need an additional procedure after 10 or 15 years. But in rhinoplasty the results don’t change. What you see is what you get. It lasts forever.

Safety Record

We have a perfect safety record. This is not a puny record. This is 40 years, and 40,000 surgeries, without a single life threatening complication of any sort and without a single patient who had to go to hospital for any reason. But that is not because we are lucky. It is because of our pre-op exams. We have come across patients that had life threatening conditions. Three had cancers, some had bad heart conditions, or high blood pressure, ulcers, serious diabetes, and all these conditions we discover prior to surgery, and of course we postpone the surgery, and send the patient to first get the problem cleared up. Many of such patients have come back after getting their problem cleared up, and had a safe surgery after that. We could say that we have saved 25 lives by discovering life threatening problems, and helping them nip in the bud. Ordinarily speaking, cosmetic surgery is not considered life preserving, but we do save lives.