For those insecure or unhappy about the shape of their nose, rhinoplasty surgery can be the answer to their concerns. Many patients in Toronto and Mississauga have had a nose job and experienced terrific results, gaining balanced facial features and confidence they may have been missing.
If you’re considering rhinoplasty, you may be worried about some side effects and how they’ll affect your experience. We’ll discuss here what to expect following rhinoplasty, and how it works.
How the nose, eyes, and mouth are connected
Your senses are interconnected, and to understand how rhinoplasty can affect them, you must know how they usually work together. Your nose and mouth are connected by your throat, which sits behind the nose and mouth and connects both. Your nose is connected to your eyes through countless tiny, delicate blood vessels running through your skin and even into the eye itself.
When you breathe through your nose, the nerve endings detect scent as the air moves past them. From there, those same air molecules pass through your nose and to the back of your throat, which is how taste buds can connect scent to taste. When you’re congested, you may notice food is less flavourful. That’s because the nerves and air passages in your nose and throat are blocked.
How rhinoplasty can affect the senses
Rhinoplasty is what many surgeons call a one-day surgery, a procedure where a patient arrives at the hospital, undergoes surgery, and departs all in one day, often within hours. It’s a minimally invasive surgery. Patients can expect bruising and swelling in the first couple of weeks, but many patients report feeling better than they look. Considering how interconnected the senses and facial features are, how can you expect your other senses to be impacted by a rhinoplasty?
Sight
While every rhinoplasty patient is unique, your vision won’t be affected. Most patients experience no loss of vision, even temporarily, barring an extreme circumstance, such as a pre-existing condition. However, rhinoplasty patients can expect redness, discolouration, or swelling around the eyes. Because the skin around the eyes is thin and delicate, any disturbance in the area can trigger swelling and minor discomfort.
The redness in the eyes is like a bruise. The clear barrier of the eyeballs is thin, meaning that any broken blood vessels underneath that barrier may look alarming, but like the bruising around the nose itself, the redness will fade in time.
Taste
Similar to being congested and food tasting less flavourful, you can expect some temporary loss of taste following surgery. Rhinoplasty requires significant changes to the structure of the nose, and it’s normal for the body to need time to adjust and heal. The nasal tissues can commonly swell and become inflamed, blocking the air from getting to the back of the throat to influence taste. Like the rest of the swelling, this will pass soon after the surgery.
Scent
Your sense of smell is likely to be most impacted by the surgery, and healing will take time. Expect the nasal tissues to be swollen and inflamed in the first one to two weeks following the surgery, and expect a loss of smell in that time as your body readjusts to your new nose.
Senses should fully return to normal not long after that, and no lasting or permanent damage should occur. Patients who undergo rhinoplasty to improve breathing even report an improvement in their sense of taste and smell.
Normal side effects versus those to follow up on
Like any surgery, rhinoplasty carries the risk of complications and side effects, which can be reduced by picking the best rhinoplasty surgeon to maximize your chance for the best outcomes.
Typical side effects following rhinoplasty include swelling and bruising, with swelling lasting for up to a year after the surgery. Congestion, or feeling stuffed up is also expected, as is some bleeding. Expect short-term discoloration and swelling around the eyes two to three weeks after the surgery and redness of the eyes themselves. Moderate pain is normal.
If you experience extreme pain or excessive bleeding, contact your health-care provider. If your vision is impacted, contact your healthcare provider immediately.
To learn more about what side effects to expect and how they may impact your rhinoplasty recovery, consult a doctor known for excellent patient care and who is skilled in the most complicated rhinoplasty procedures. Contact Dr. Richard Rival for a consultation today.