So my 6 weeks post-op day is tomorrow but I thought I'd update today.

Yesterday I took a picture and felt like "Hey, I'm starting to look cute again." so that was a good feeling.

That being said, my nose is still very 'wide' looking with its swelling and I'm still taping it at night.

My cheeks have gone down A LOT and I think that's contributing to the good feelings but the brow are is still kinda pressing down on the eyes a little (causing wrinkles in the eyelids and such). Also the forehead is still numb in areas but I feel like a lot of it is maybe coming back, slow but sure.

Some newer complications though. My vision is being weird. I've noticed a bunch of 'double vision' and having issues keeping focus on things. If I turn my head, it takes a second for my vision to 'catch up' and focus. I find that when I blink, the same thing happens. I mentioned this at last week's checkin with the surgeon and they weren't entirely sure what was going on there. I decided yesterday to make an appointment with my eye doctor for next week.

Other than that, the bumps on the forehead have flattened out A LOT as they promised (they said by the 6th week) but the scar still shows a good much. I've noticed a lot of shorter hairs growing in the scar area/hairline so that's good.

Also weird baldness patches in areas that were not stitched is a little concerning. I assume just general trauma to the head is the culprit. Hoping all that grows back.

Last night I noticed that there was like a zit of some sort in a bald spot area about half an inch to an inch into the hairline in front. I'm really hoping it isn't a stitch being 'spit' because I've heard bad things about that. =/

Still wearing beanies. Hoping next week to maybe start curling my hair more again and combing it over in a faux side bang and see how that goes.

7 week update with questions for the doc. I assume I'll hear back next week after the holiday.

1. a : Nose swelling continues (esp along the bridge) is this normal?
. b : And when should I stop taping it at night?
  c : When should I expect at least the bridge of the nose to calm down a bit?

2. When should I stop using retin-A semi-daily?
3. Some hair growth is happening near the hairline scar but the rest of the hair loss all around the scalp is disheartening. When should I expect hair to start growing back again near the scar itself behind the hairline? Today I've started using a DS Labs hair for women treatment that does not contain minoxidil and I finally got my hair colored this week as well.
4. There's an odd bald spot a couple inches up from the hairline in front and a zit/dimple/mole? something in the middle of it. Is that a stitch coming through or something? Not sure what to make of that.
5. There feels like a stitch or something directly in the hairline itself too that kinda sticks up and I've noticed similar stitches sticking up just inside the right nostril as well. Will those eventually dissolve?
6. Continued vision focusing problems: I saw the eye doctor today and they verified the eye muscles are working fine but they think I can't quite close my eyes all the way so that may be causing dryness which may lead to the vision issues I'm seeing. They prescribed some heavier eyedrops for morning and night. I assume this has to do with continued swelling above the eyes and with the nose most likely? So hopefully as those calm down, the vision problems / dryness will go away as well.
7. Blowing my nose finally and I've also noticed a LOT Of post-nasal drip since doing so. If I remember correctly, you said my nose may be dripping for a good year or so? Is that pre and post-nasal?

Hi Debra.

I too have a few sutures left on the scalp. I asked my doc, and he said they will dissolve on their own. There can also be ingrown hairs in the scars. I too notice hairs growing through the scar already. It's great. 

I also have some swelling with the nose, especially since last week near the bridge. I guess it's normal.

I also have these minor vision focus issues from time to time. Especially when I ride a bike or stare in the distance. I think it's due to swelling indeed, and the muscles that need to settle. Lot's of muscles there.

Quote from: 2cherry on December 22, 2016, 10:19:43 AM
Hi Debra.

I too have a few sutures left on the scalp. I asked my doc, and he said they will dissolve on their own. There can also be ingrown hairs in the scars. I too notice hairs growing through the scar already. It's great. 

I also have some swelling with the nose, especially since last week near the bridge. I guess it's normal.

I also have these minor vision focus issues from time to time. Especially when I ride a bike or stare in the distance. I think it's due to swelling indeed, and the muscles that need to settle. Lot's of muscles there.

Thanks! Really good to know about similar experiences

Doc office responses:

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To answer your questions:

1. It is normal for nose swelling to persist up to 1 year after rhinoplasty. And it usually subsides gradually. You can continue taping your nose at night if you feels its helping, but you don't have to.

2. Retin - A is a great skin care product that not only helps with acne and sun damage, but also slows collagen breakdown and makes your skin look healthier and younger. You can stop it if you don't like it, but you can use it for the rest of your life.

3. Your hair will start growing back in about 6 months.

4 and 5. Your hair line and nose sutures are starting to break down. If you see or fill one, you can trim it. And yes, they are dissolving. I'm not sure what that red spot is. It could be a zit or ingrown hair. Or a suture being spit out, however it is unlikely at this point. Just watch it for a few days.

6. Is your vision improving? It is because of the swelling and as a result of tugging on the nerve and will resolve. If you feel you can't close your eye all the way, keep practicing. This will fire up eye muscle and help with recovery. I'm sorry it is taking such a long time.

7. Your nose will be draining for a year.

Then I later asked and she said that using retin-A weekly for the rest of my life was fine haha.

8 weeks post-op today.

I'm more comfortable not wearing beanies but definitely still using concealer on the scar. Ripple in my forehead is pretty much gone.

Swelling: again I'm kinda surprised at HOW MUCH swelling is still going on. Up close, selfies seem ok sometimes but farther from the camera, my eyes seem to drown into my forehead/cheeks/nose...giving the appearance of like an allergy or something. Forehead and nose-bridge swelling are contributing to this I guess.

Surgeon's office says most of the swelling will go down by 3 months post-op but that the nose swelling will take the full year. When I asked a gf about her nose bridge swelling when she had her FFS, she said it was like 6 months before the nose really started to take its shape. Surgeon's office says I can tape my nose at night or not.....I've read a lot of things online that say taping doesn't really help and it's kind of a PITA.

Hair loss: It abides. Nothing new I don't think but not a lot of new hair growth yet. Some in the hairline but the balding areas including the shaved area where the scar is behind the hairline. Surgeon's office says I can use minoxidil if I want ...or not. I started using a non-minoxidil treatment for hair thinning for women. We'll see how that goes.

Happiness level? Not great....I mean I'm trying to be patient. My profile looks amazing but for the front, I think the real happiness factor will have to be checked in next November when a year has gone by. Guess we'll see where I am in 3 months and 6 months along the way.

Debra, it hasn't been two months yet, don't most say it takes about a year for everything to be normal?

Be patient hun, you're gonna look amazing!

I was looking good 5 months post op (type 3 forehead & rhino); there was still swelling but that is when all of the bruising was gone and the results were looking really good.

For me, the 3-month mark was when everything really started working. 

Thanks everyone. Good to hear everyone's experiences. Just really surprised at HOW LONG it all takes....just to look semi-normal again heh.

Really hoping by 3 months I'll feel better about things.

2 months post-op today.

Feeling mostly normal, pretty confident without makeup and such and looking not bad with makeup too. The scar sometimes hides well with concealer and sometimes not. Kinda annoying.

Middle of the night I can kinda feel the swelling a bit still in the nose and forehead. Can't wait for both to calm the EFF down. 2017 will be the year of healing for me, I can tell.

I do go see Dr D-B again for a checkup in late February (3 month checkup) so we'll see how that goes.

Just a quick update.

I started seeing a massage therapist for Lymphatic Drainage Massage on my face. I had it last Monday and felt a little better for most of the week but then Thurs and Fri, couldn't sleep very well because I could literally feel the tension from the swelling and laying down. I wonder if the massage is helping but is short term or something? I plan on asking her when I see her again tomorrow.

The scar is still annoying AF trying to hide it. For some lighting and some pictures, I feel like it doesn't look like much, maybe like a stray hair or something....but even when covering it up with concealer, the indentation kind of shows in certain lighting. Kind of annoying. Still putting the scar cream on it though, 2x a day.

I go to the gym with full scar showing and hair pulled back, dont care haha. THen the other day I got my nails done with it bare as well. Still throwing either concealer on it or covering with a beanie at work though.

Slowly getting back to a feeling of normalcy when I look in the mirror. And I've seen a few pics where someone caught a shot of my profile and I was really happy with that.....even tho the nose has a long way to go yet.

Numbness? I get a lot of tingling/itching on the top of my head where itching doesn't help. It's crazy annoying lol. Top of head is still pretty numb and I guess I've just gotten used to it mostly.

My forehead is mostly all back now, full eyebrow muscle control and feeling but still a little tightness on the forehead area and my left temple area is kinda numb? I can feel the surface but not deeper, kinda weird. Lots of progress though.

Hair growth in / around the scar is doing pretty well, I see a LOT of small 1+ inch hairs in that area but nothing that would really cover the scar.

So yeah, that's it for now. I have a picture of my skull all patched up that the doc took when my head was still open. It's not bloody persay but it is kinda gross looking. Not sure if that's something I'm allowed to post or not. I thought it was kinda interesting at least.

Yeah, the scar can take several months to settle down, for me it was six.  The good news is that after it's healed (it's white, not red), there are long-term strategies to deal with it -- I went with a combination of permanent makeup to help it blend in, plus a round of hair transplants since there were a couple of "corners" in my hairline I wanted filled in anyways.  Can't see it anymore. 

In the meantime, one thing that really helped for working out is a hairband (which is also better for your hair than ponytailing it up).  A nicely positioned hairband will give the appearance of a very feminine hairline without the hairline, keeps your hair out of your face, and they're cheap. 

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Between 2 and 3 months postop is when I started doing a lot of "mirror work" -- I'd close my eyes, make a facial expression, open them up, and see if the image I thought I was creating was the one I actually was creating.  So interesting how "off" my proprioception actually was!  I had to re-learn how my face worked, basically.  But this was a fun exercise to do, because for the first time looking in the mirror was actually a pleasurable experience and not a dysphoria-inducing one. 

Quote from: Sophia Sage on January 16, 2017, 07:34:04 AM
Yeah, the scar can take several months to settle down, for me it was six.  The good news is that after it's healed (it's white, not red),

Good to know. 6 months isn't too bad considering I'm halfway there now. Once it turns white, I feel like it'll be much less noticable.

Quote
there are long-term strategies to deal with it -- I went with a combination of permanent makeup to help it blend in, plus a round of hair transplants since there were a couple of "corners" in my hairline I wanted filled in anyways.  Can't see it anymore. 

Hoping to avoid doing hair transplants again. My hairline is great now and it was such a long recovery and VERY noticeable.....and NOT hidable (can't even wear a hat or you'll kill the transplants) so if i can avoid that I probably will.

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In the meantime, one thing that really helped for working out is a hairband (which is also better for your hair than ponytailing it up).  A nicely positioned hairband will give the appearance of a very feminine hairline without the hairline, keeps your hair out of your face, and they're cheap. 

Yeah I tried the hairband thing. it's not a great look for me. Maybe some thinner ones, just wide enough to cover the scar could help though.

Quote
Between 2 and 3 months postop is when I started doing a lot of "mirror work" -- I'd close my eyes, make a facial expression, open them up, and see if the image I thought I was creating was the one I actually was creating.  So interesting how "off" my proprioception actually was!  I had to re-learn how my face worked, basically.  But this was a fun exercise to do, because for the first time looking in the mirror was actually a pleasurable experience and not a dysphoria-inducing one.

Interesting. I may try this exercise. I don't feel like there's a whole lot different (I only did upper face) but I will need to make some adjustments now. I got so used to tilting my head to one side because my nose was crooked and now I don't have to do that.

So almost 3 months post. Wow time does fly when you aren't paying attention.

I posted a thing about jowls.

Essentially I've noticed some saggy skin at the jawline on both sides of my face.....I know for sure it was not there before. I can only assume this is an unintended consequence of messing with the face but I admit I'm surprised since I didn't do any lower face work. A friend has told me that a face lift or bella fill could fix it but both seem scary and ugh I am so done with surgeries right now lol.

Been doing lymphatic drainage massage for swelling AND the massage lady has massaged my scar a bunch too and that has helped A LOT in the breakup of scar tissue. I'm glad for that because I've noticed it's not just the color of the scar that's noticeable but also the topography of it...the fact that it's like an indented area means that in certain lighting, the light hits it differently making it visible even with concealer, at times.

I fly down to see the doc for a 3 month post-op appt (it'll be closer to 4 months by then) at the end of Feb. I'll be asking more about the jowls thing primarily.

Thought I'd share a pic of the jowls....the truth is it's not like CRAZY sag or anything...it's just something that was not there before the surgery.

Almost 4 month post-op update.

Friday, I flew down to SF for a 'day trip' to see Dr. Deschamps-Braly. His PA brought me in and took pictures and then we went into the doctor's office and he setup the before and after pictures of both profile and front. I watched as he messed with the proportions to make sure the pics all matched up correctly.

It's funny because he pulled up the first front pic and my first thought was omg what's wrong with my eyebrows and then I realized that was my before pic from last year and that I had filled in my eyebrows weird or something haha! He pulled up the 'after' pic and that was more what I was expecting to see.

I had forgotten I had worn makeup for the before pictures and I had not worn makeup for the afters so that probably played down the results a bit. Since FFS, I've gotten eyelash extensions and microbladed eyebrows such that I no longer feel like I need to wear makeup on a daily basis. It's been really great.

Anyway, looking at the pictures I brought up my concerns about the bridge of the nose still kinda being wide and there being almost a 'webbing' feel covering the inner corner of my eyes. He said that it is possible that because they took so much from the bridge of my nose that the skin can't pull back anymore. He talked about some ways they could possibly fix it like adding some more cartilage back on top so that it pulled that webbing in, etc. But in general that issue seems to be an unintended consequence and I've seen the same issue (wide-bridge-nose) in other patients of his.

He did notice a bump on the nose slightly up from the tip and he was more concerned about that. He said it could still be swelling but if not, it would be something he could try to fix at no charge but we'd see after the 1 year post-op mark. (Note: No-charge only includes surgeon fees, usually you do still have to pay medical/hospital and anestheia fees)

I'm still hoping both the bridge of the nose and this bump thing will calm down by the 1 year mark, personally.

The scar seems good and he said to keep using the scar cream even if only for the SPF in it. I asked about continued facial massage and he shrugged his shoulders. I'll probably just start doing it only once a month for a few more months.

The jowls. From the profile before/after view, I could see the jowls in the before as well....so I think it was just something I didn't notice before....maybe the forehead was just so prominent that I didn't notice it and now that it's not such a big issue, the jowls are more noticable now? Or maybe I just look at my face a lot more now LOL.

The other thing weird is the eyes. Pictures taken from farther away, I've noticed that my eyes seems much smaller than they used to be...which seems odd to me because we've taken out the brow ridge and the orbital rims so I'd think that would open things up more....but what seems to be going on is the orbital rim area kinda pushes down on the eyelids or something.....again hoping there's still some swelling going on there too maybe....but not really so sure about it.

One thing to note is that in the before pic I had eyeliner on and the after pic I didn't and this can make the eyes look smaller too....that with not having gotten very much sleep....my eyelids look droopier in the after pic too.

All-in-all, the appointment helped confirm that I still need to wait till the 1 year mark before really looking at results. And I'll probably at least throw in some eyeliner before the next 'after' photos I take for a better comparison too.

I could probably share the before/after pics with certain people on here, I just don't want to post them publicly so if you're interested, PM me.

PS ~ I have to admit I was a little depressed about the eyes getting smaller thing and well the nose bridge and bump maybe not being good to the point of needing further surgery to fix them. But between my bestie and hubs talking me down from that and then having complete strangers compliment me on my eyes and seeing another cis-girl with almost the exact same nose I have now....I'm feeling a bit better already haha.

Unless something is drastically wrong you may want to proceed with caution if you are chasing perfection since subsequent surgeries increase the risk of complications and you could also have a worse result than what you started with, especially with the nose if adding or removing cartilage is involved.

Quote from: kittenpower on February 27, 2017, 12:26:41 PM
Unless something is drastically wrong you may want to proceed with caution if you are chasing perfection since subsequent surgeries increase the risk of complications and you could also have a worse result than what you started with, especially with the nose if adding or removing cartilage is involved.

Agreed. I've had so many surgeries over the last 7 years. I'd really like to just be done at this point.

It occurs to me that despite my complaining and dissatisfaction throughout recovery, I feel pretty good about the results.

As I said in my last update, I recently started doing eyelash extensions as well as micro-blading for my eyebrows resulting in not really feeling like I need to wear makeup at all on a daily basis.

I really don't think I would feel that way without this surgery.

Quote from: Debra on March 11, 2017, 11:40:03 PM
It occurs to me that despite my complaining and dissatisfaction throughout recovery, I feel pretty good about the results.

As I said in my last update, I recently started doing eyelash extensions as well as micro-blading for my eyebrows resulting in not really feeling like I need to wear makeup at all on a daily basis.

I really don't think I would feel that way without this surgery.

HI Debra,


  How are your results with Deschamp? Any regrets? dissatisfaction?