Rhinoplasty

For patients who are unhappy with the shape or size of their nose, rhinoplasty can help improve their appearance.

DR. KHOOBEHI: Rhinoplasty is a procedure to shape the nose. For rhinoplasty we have patients that come in that they have a flat nose, we have a patient that comes in that they have a large hump, and when discussed with the patient, one of the most important things is to talk to the patient and listen to the patient. You cannot do the same procedure on everybody; you have to understand what is the patient's goal, what the patient wants to look like. I ask them to bring some pictures that they think they want to look like that one. I want to ask them to sit down with me, I take pictures from them, put them in the computer, and we work together to come up with the techniques and also the shape they want to be. And it is both educational for the patient and for me, too, because I don't want to impose my view of the nose on a patient. I want a patient to tell me what they want and with the sit down with them and talking, I'm going to tell them that it's not possible, that's not going to go with your face, or I may tell them that's going to work for you, or we may have to do a little bit different, hang in there. And we sit down together and before surgery we come up with a plan that is going to be including changing the dorsum of the nose, how is it going to be the wide--how wide is going to be the nose, the bottom of the nose, and also we'll talk about the tip and sometimes with this patient, when you take the picture, talk about, you may have to do a chin implant or may have to do a little bit neck liposuction to give the patient the best possible shape and look. The other important thing also is that you want to get a patient functional. You don't want to give a nose that they're not going to be able to breathe, so during the evaluation if you notice that they have some problem with breathing, it can be fixed at the same time. When I do rhinoplasty, I do not pack the nose. I believe that if you do it right, you don't have to do the packing. I put a splint on. Most patients take the splint off in a week and can go back to work. And when I do--even after I do a fractured nose, I do a special way that you don't have that much bruising. You may have bruising for, at most, about a week.