Home/Blog / Changing Your Nose

Changing Your Nose

Your nose is such an important feature of your face, dominating perceptions. If it’s out of balance with your other features, it can really become a focal point when a person looks at you. This is obviously the case with certain celebrities, pretty much all men, who’ve used bulbous noses to create memorable faces. The actors Jimmy Durante and Karl Malden come to mind.

But for rest of us, a nose that has an unwanted bulge on the bridge, flared nostrils, or any other unwanted feature is something we hate seeing in the mirror every morning.

That’s where nose surgery with Dr. Herte comes in. Dr. Herte can reshape your nose to create the profile and balance that you seek on your face.

Changing your nose

Clinically termed rhinoplasty, nose surgery removes, rearranges, or reshapes the bone or cartilage of the nose to correct irregularities. In 2015, half a million people opted to have rhinoplasty to change their nose. That’s a lot of people who decided they didn’t have to look at the same old nose every day.

But Herte doesn’t have “stock” changes that she pushes on her patients, her individualized approach to nose surgery seeks to keep some features that make your nose all yours, removing those that detract. During your consultation, the two of you will discuss your goals, along with what you like and don’t like about your nose. Her goal is a natural, balanced result, usually opting for more subtle changes.

Benefits of rhinoplasty

These are some of the issues we correct with nose surgery:

The Procedure

Thanks to its three-dimensional nature, nose surgery presents special challenges that don’t necessarily arise when simply seeking to lessen signs of aging on the skin, for instance. Nose surgery is complex and delicate. That’s why her patients trust Dr. Herte’s extensive experience with rhinoplasty.

Patients are put under general anesthesia for our nose surgeries, because the surgery can be quite involved. An “open” approach in most common. This is the method where the incisions are created across the tissue between the patient’s nostrils. It allows more significant changes to things such as overall nose size. If the goal is to reduce the nose size or shape, or to straighten it, the skin covering the underlying bone and cartilage will be separated, allowing the cartilage and bone to be reshaped. Once this has been done, the skin is then re-draped over the surface. Flared nostrils can be narrowed by creating an incision at the junction between the nose and the skin of the upper lip.

If the situation is right, Dr. Herte uses the “closed” method where all incisions are made within the nose itself. This method is used when smaller refinements are sought.

Recovery

After your surgery, in most cases Dr. Herte will place a protective nasal splint or “cast” on your nose. This will stay there for up to 10 days. You’ll have bruising and swelling, but use of the compress we provide helps. You’ll need to sleep with your head elevated for at least the first week. Subtle refinement will happen over the course of a few months before the complete results are seen.

You don’t have to live with a nose you don’t like. Call Dr. Herte at 702-732-9600 and let’s talk about changing your profile.