taiwanboy

.

 

When you do your surgery in the US, you obviously need to do your research. You don’t just go with whatever is in your area, you need to see some before and after pictures, consultation, getting to know your surgeon and his experience in the area of surgery you want.

With that being said, if there are two doctors, Dr. Korea and Dr. US, with Dr. Korea if you get a botch job and you take legal action, best case scenario you get your money back. With Dr. US, if he botch up your face and you take legal action, there is a chance he will have to pay 10x-30x what you paid for. Who do you think out of the two doctors would be more careful? I am sure there are good doctors in every country, but statistically speaking, US has less botch jobs than Korea.

Let me give you an example that someone else also pointed out. In this forum and in Korea I have heard many times by people and media reporting failed V-line surgery. In the US the same procedure is called Facial Feminization Surgery, and you don’t really hear much trans people complaining about a botched jaw shaving in the US now do you? This is not to say that Korea will always fail, but plastic surgery is like gambling in a way and if you are gambling for safety go with higher chance of success.

 

When I read your review, I felt like you are my lost sister or something, we both been through similar hardships growing up with a dislike to our jaw. My father is also against plastic surgery and told me for years to accept my appearance, but I just couldn’t. I also took Arnica and it was three days before the surgery. I know how it felt like having to do this surgery behind your parent’s back. It was quite sad isn’t it? We both wanted our parent’s support through this scary surgery, it’s probably one of the most important part of our life, yet we know they will never agree nor support it.

As for Electro Masseter Reduction... they use a small medical needle to transmit high frequency waves through the oral cavity to burn and reduce part of the muscles.

I am happy you got the surgery that you needed!

 

V line with T-osteotomy? How are you liking your new face? Such a huge change right?!

 

I think OP was showing us her face got so small that it was all neck that’s left.

 

You are a very gorgeous woman. It’s pretty amazing what plastic surgery can do! I recently had jaw shaving and chin shaving done in Beverly Hills and I am amazed by my results and would consider rhinoplasty next.

How was Korea? Did you get around easily as a foreigner or did you have a translator?

 

You can do Botox to reduce the size of your muscles or have surgery to shave down or remove some masseter muscle. Although for masseter muscle removal make sure you find an experienced surgeon or else if it heals wrong you won’t look right.

 

You have V-line surgery, I don’t think V-line is meant for everyone. Although having a pointy chin is considered attractive, that doesn’t mean anyone who slaps on a pointy chin automatically becomes attractive.

With that being said, I recently had jaw shaving and chin shaving done, I don’t think a V line works for my face so I never bothered with pointy chin since I am a guy. I believe having proportional and balanced features is key. So yes V-line will work for one person but may not work for the guy down the street. All procedures should have computer simulations done first for realistic results.

 

I personally prefer surgery in the US and definitely recommend people in the US to get it in the US. The risks in Korea is just too high. When it comes to plastic surgery, the result of your success should outweigh money itself. You have one life, value it, and treasure it. Anything that can be done in Korea can be done in the US.

I had jaw shaving and chin shaving surgery done in Beverly Hills and wrote a review about it.

 

I remember sitting on the sofa in Prague four months ago in her living room and she said to me, “You won’t leave me, because you know no one else would want you.”

Now that I look back, I think the best gift she ever gave me was leaving me. If I was still with her, I’d be that man with no self-confidence, feeling like I am inferior to everyone and scared to look at my reflection.

 

After the Surgery
After the surgery, I remember the nurses calling my name and I woke up. A nurse told me that I would love my new face and started to help me get dressed. A caregiver was waiting for me, which I paid $400 for 24 hours. I got back to my hotel with a slight headache from the anesthesia. I was all bandaged up with a drain as you can see from the image below. I would be spitting out blood once ever 30 minutes or so. The first 24 hours was just one of the worse experiences of my life.

Sleeping was especially painful too, you need to sleep at a 30 degree angle so two pillows was required. The next day I went back to see Dr. Lee and he removed the drain from my face. After I got back to my hotel and I was shocked how swollen I was after I removed my head garment.

My swelling continued and it peaked on the early morning of the third day, then it started to decrease. I rinse my mouth with mouthwash twice a day and ate mash potatoes for the first five days. By then I got so sick of it that I went to Cheesecake Factory and ate some nice spaghetti for lunch. Drinking cold smoothies also helps with the swelling and certainly made the face feel a lot better. To pass time, I read more surgery stories an reviews on this forum and watched Netflix with the TV in my hotel room.

I had a follow up with Dr. Lee on the 5th day and he examined my face. We talked about the possibility of inserting a chin implant or having T-Osteotomy done to have the pointy chin. We agreed to decide on it after 6 months once the swelling is gone.

After a week, I could get a faint idea of what the outcome should look like. On the second week, my face size returned to before the operation. Now here I am almost 3 weeks after the surgery. I had a new ID photo taken and the results were already coming out quite nicely. Although I am still quite swollen, its exciting to wake up each day to look in the mirror to see yourself looking more and more handsome! Here is the before and after photos I had the ID photos placed side by side. The right is the before and the left is the after!

I will post more pictures in the future. I want to say a big thank you to my friend Carina for always being there for me through those tough first week. If you ever read this, I want to say thank you! I also want to say a big thank you to Marlee who was there next to me when I had the FaceTime consultation with Dr. Lee! I am really grateful to Dr. Lee and his team for the amazing work. Dr. Lee is an amazing sculptor, he did a great job sculpting my face. If anyone is interested in jaw shaving or V line surgery and wants their surgery done here in United States, then by all means contact Dr. Lee, all consultations are free. I would definitely recommend Dr. Lee, he is by far one of the best doctors in this area of expertise in the U.S. and is especially good with working on Asians.

At first I thought the surgery would be painful, but there was no pain at all. You will feel slight pain and discomfort time to time, but its not to the point where you would need painkillers, although Dr. Lee did prescribe me painkillers.

I believe plastic surgery should be used to enhance a person's looks and not turn into a Gangnam unnie haha I hope my review and experience will help those who are considering this surgery and is scared to travel outside of United States and wants to have it done here. For me, I have gained a lot of self confidence and my friends around me all commented on how great my surgery made me look. I am so happy that I no longer have such a round face anymore and can't wait for all the swelling to die down more! If anyone have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment below and I will do my best to answer.

 

Back Story
I am from Taipei, Taiwan and currently reside in the U.S., I have been reading these forums for a long time. Allow me to give you some back story. I was born with a round/pear shape face. As a guy with a round shape face, I find it difficult for me to look good wearing a hat, I kind of envy people wearing hats, even wearing clothes, especially collared shirts became very difficult to match with my face. This really affected my self-confidence, I find myself not wanting to talk to people much. When I started university in 2009, I saw everyone around me have a smaller jaw and I wanted it badly, however I didn't have any knowledge of jaw shaving and neither did I have the money to pay for it even if I knew about it. Around 2014 I became exposed to KPOP and became aware of jaw shaving surgery and V-line surgery. I started doing a lot of research and every direction pointed towards going to Korea to have this surgery done. Because I was busy with my work, I was unable to travel to Korea and I was also very afraid of going to Korea all by myself, not knowing the language, and the risks of getting a botched surgery was just too scary. I decided to put it off for a while, maybe I would grow out of this "wanting to have smaller jaw" mentality. By 2017, I realized, this wide-jaw really bothered me especially everytime I looked in the mirror, it affected my dating life too, I find it hard to talk to interact with females with such a low self-confidence. I met a girl online and we started dating after we met up in real life. I opened up to her about my lack of self-confidence in my appearance and told her of my desire to have jaw shaving surgery done and explained the risks to her. She got very angry at me and told me never to mention the surgery again due to the risks. When we first started dating, I really thought she loved me for the way I look, because she had told me how handsome I am. As time went on and our love died down, she began telling me how unattractive I look, my round Asian face to her is same as a fat Asian guy.... I became angry and told her I can go ahead and do the plastic surgery and she told me if I did it, she would leave me. My round face gave me a feminine look, a young boy look, I am 27 and I look like a teenager because of my face, even her parents said I look so young.... I remember riding on the subway in Prague wearing a scarf and looking at my reflection in the window and thinking to myself how ugly I look with such a wide round face and a scarf. My girlfriend and I were in Budapest one day walking down from Castle Hill, when she pointed at an Asian lady and told me how feminine I look, I guess it was her way of telling me how unattractive I am. My self-confidence and insecurity were once again returning. A couple months later, we broke up.

Searching for a Doctor
After such a disappointing experience in life, I decided that at the age of 27, it is time to let the past insecurity go... It was affecting how I interacted with others and I needed to build my self-confidence. I spoke to my friend from Germany who encouraged me to fulfill my dream of having a smaller jaw. I frantically searched for a doctor, I contemplated again to go to Korea now that I have the money and can take better care of myself. I read a lot of what you guys wrote, about ID Hospital having ghost doctors and read about people having botched jobs. I realized Korea doesn't have the same standards as the U.S., if a doctor messes up your face in Korea, the best that will happen to you is maybe a refund or another revision, who knows what the results will be if they already botch it up already once. You only have one life in this world and one face, if your bone is cut, it is gone forever, no money in the world can bring it back. The result heavily outweighed money for me and I decided the safest route was to find a doctor in the U.S. My research led me to Dr. Charles S Lee in Beverly Hills. Since I was not in California, I was able to do a FaceTime consultation within 24 hours. At first I wanted Zygoma Reduction (cheekbone) along with Jaw Shaving, however Dr. Lee told me that I really don't need a Zygoma reduction and told me to do the Jaw Shaving surgery. He showed me some pictures from his Instagram and gave me a realistic expectation of what my surgery outcome would look like. Dr. Lee was not pushy and patiently listened to any concerns I had.

After the consultation, one of Dr. Lee's nurse gave me a call about the pricing and I told them I wanted the surgery as soon as possible. We set the surgery date on November 8, 2018.

Preparation before the Surgery
Three days before surgery, I was taking pills that would help reduce the swelling. I drove to Beverly Hills on November 7, and bought several things that I needed such as Hydrogen Peroxide, mouth wash, straws, and soft food. Soft food is especially important because that is the only thing you will be able to eat after the surgery. I bought several boxes of mash potatoes from Walmart and stuff them into my hotel fridge. I was not able to eat or drink for 8 hours before the surgery.


Day of Surgery
On the day of surgery, I took an Uber to Dr. Lee's Enhance Medical Center. The place was very nice and clean, really love the place.


I was there filling out some paperwork and was escorted to the restroom to change into the operation gown. After changing I was being seated and waited for Dr. Lee to show up. Dr. Lee took pictures of me from different angles and then made drawings on my face. After he finished drawing, we went to his office where he loaded the pictures into a simulator and we discussed what changes we wanted to do on my face. I felt like Dr. Lee wanted me to keep my natural look and from the simulator I saw very subtle changes. I asked him to cut more bones from my jaw and he showed me the limit that he can do. As he was showing me the changes, we decided to do another procedure, chin shaving. Personally I feel like for maximum results a person should have both jaw and chin shaving done to balance the entire face. Usually Jaw shaving only reaches to the corners of your lips and stop there and would look awkward if you have a wide or big jaw. A nurse came in and took my payment for the chin shaving since it was an additional procedure and she informed me that the surgery time will now increase and after taking my payment I was escorted into the operating room. I laid down and a nurse tied me down while an anesthesia doctor was there putting this IV thing into the back of my left hand. I don't remember anything else after that.