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You will be happy to hear that the external cast or splint your surgeon will place can be removed soon after the surgery. However, your nose may be packed for 24 to 48 hours. The surgeon will probably remove the cast or splint in 7-10 days. You could easily control your initial discomfort with oral medications.
The majority of swelling and bruising subsides progressively over 2 to 4 weeks. Furthermore, your surgeon will remove external sutures if there are any, in 4 to 6 days, while the internal sutures will dissolve on their own, without further intervention. A return to work may be possible in about 7 to 14 days, depending on the nature of your responsibilities. The visual improvements and better breathing should be apparent relatively soon after the swelling diminishes. However, a realistic approximation of your result is evident in 3 months.
The result will continue to evolve and refine for the next 12 to 14 months. Areas of sensitivity or numbness will slowly resolve, and temporary conditions may occur, but will improve over the first several months. Common conditions are stiffness of the tip of the nose, nasal drainage, lumps and irregularities. You have to be aware that a little bleeding is common during the first few days following surgery, and you may continue to feel some stuffiness for several weeks. Some patients also feel claustrophobic and breathless. This feeling widely resembles a head cold or sinus infections, which are common problems.
If you had the cast after your nose job, your surgeon will remove it approximately 7 days post-operatively. You may feel a slight stiffness in the upper lift as the swelling moves downward your face. This will subside in a matter of hours, but you must be very careful not to bump it, as it is vulnerable to breakage. It is not a bone china figurine but it is not as strong as your nose was before the rhinoplasty. However, this should not worry you, because the bones will completely mend within 2 months, after which you can "use your nose normally" again. If you had a rhinoplasty where the surgeon narrowed your nostrils, you will need to have your sutures removed.
When are the results of rhinoplasty visible?
The nose will be very sensitive for approximately a month and a half, but the patient will start to see a difference immediately. You will still have some swelling, however. The swelling starts to disappear about a week after the surgeon removes the cast. Approximately 80% of the swelling and 100% of the discoloration will resolve itself by 2 weeks after surgery. Most of postoperative swelling is gone by two months after surgery and the rest slowly disappears over the next year. Although your nose will have some swelling after the first month, most people would not recognize this fact. The patient himself might not notice this swelling at all. Instead, most patients will notice that the nose becomes more refined with a better definition over the first year. The inside of the nose is swelling for approximately three weeks after the nose job surgery. Nasal breathing may be difficult during this time, but if the surgery’s goal was to straighten the nasal septum, you will experience an improvement in breathing after about 3 weeks.