rachaelrosen

It still looks masculine to me. It still looks like it fits your face to me, it doesn't look too white, and it doesn't look like the product of plastic surgery.

But dude... This is literally a list of things not to do. Always make sure you're on the same page with your surgeon before you pay or consent to surgery. They're skilled doctors, not mind readers, and their talent doesn't mean they can give you what you want if you don't communicate clearly.

"I loved my nose before, it fit me very well, but wanted to correct small imperfections" it's very difficult to make small changes. I know this might seem paradoxical to people, but small changes require a great degree of precision to not go further than intended. A tiny bit too far on a large procedure is a drop in the bucket, but a tiny bit too far on a micro procedure might mean going 50% further than intended.

 

Update Here's from another study:

"Verweij et al.39 reported that hypoesthesia following SSRO occurred in 4.8% of patients aged less than 19 years, in 7.9% of patients aged between 19-30 years, and in 15.2% in patients aged 31 years or older. Although the rate of permanent hypoesthesia that persisted until one year after SSRO was low, the mean recovery time from hypoesthesia was relatively long for older patients. In other words, old age is a risk factor for permanent hypoesthesia. The rate of inferior alveolar nerve injury varies from study to study due to the lack of standardized assessment and reporting methods. Therefore, a majority of assessments of inferior alveolar nerve injury performed to date has used subjective methods. An international consensus meeting must be organized with the purpose of establishing standardized methods of assessing the degree of nerve injuries40.

de Vries et al.41 reported nine cases of facial nerve paralysis among 1,747 patients who underwent SSRO. The rate of facial nerve paralysis reported by other scholars varies from 0.17% to 0.75%."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5342970/#__sec7title

Notice that these numbers are much lower than the previous study's.

"An international consensus meeting must be organized with the purpose of establishing standardized methods of assessing the degree of nerve injuries."

Different studies report nerve damage differently. In this study, https://www.ijoms.com/article/S0901-5027(17)30455-1/abstract doctors describe how 71% of patients report numbness, but only 32% of patients were found to have objective neurosensory deficit and only 7% said it significantly affected them, with 70.9% of patients stating it did not affect them at all.

 

From a study on patients from 1998 to 2005 in Korea, which followed 301 patients:

"The most frequent postoperative complication was sensory impairment, seen in 196 cases (65.1%), followed by respiratory difficulty in 63 (20.9%), neck pain in 25 (8.3%), anterior open bite in 12 (4.0%), and gastrointestinal disease in 4 (1.3%). Other complications were fever, headache, and infection. Table 4 summarizes these results.

Sensory impairment in this article refers to the patients who experience unexpected, unpleasant sensations and have difficulty performing common activities with the face and mouth.21"

"Inferior alveolar nerve numbness was present in 96 cases (73.3%) of sagittal split ramus osteotomy only. Walter and Gregg34 followed mandibular osteotomy patients for 6 months and reported that all patients showed mental nerve numbness immediately after surgery and 84.6% of the patients exhibited neuropathies after prolonged observation. They also reported that the numbness persisted in patients older than 40 years of age."

This is post operative, so while only 1.3% of patients experienced nerve exposure during the operation, almost all of them experienced numbness after surgery, including in prolonged tests.

Source: https://www.joms.org/article/S0278-2391(07)01633-3/fulltext

I've heard it quoted multiple times that permanent nerve damage is very rare, but I have only been able to find sources following patients up to six months after the operation. Does anyone have a source on long term nerve damage?

 

Probably. America has fantastic plastic surgeons for lots of procedures, but doctors in America don't do double jaw very frequently. They might perform the surgery once a month. But there are doctors in Korea who specialize in it, and perform the surgery ever day. Ghost doctors are scary, but don't seem to be a problem outside of very large clinics. The two places that interest me the most right now, EU Dental and The Face Dental just don't employ any other surgeons to switch out with. The Face Dental employs one oromaxillofacial surgeon and EU Dental employs two, both with similar quality work.

I guess another problem for me is just that it's so difficult to find high quality reviews online in english for Korean clinics. I can hardly tell if the online review someone has for restaurant is going to applicable to me, much less if someone's review of plastic surgery applies.

 

Do you still think it's worth it for you then?

 

It's a lot harder to sue for damages as a foreigner living outside of Korea if something goes wrong. Those of you who aren't from Korea, are you worried the doctors might not take your surgery as seriously knowing there isn't as much recourse if something goes wrong? And if something does go wrong, the difficulty in collecting damages means you take on more risk as a patient.

Does this worry you?

 

gmcnm19, could you dm me how much you paid for your Zygoma and Vline?

 

Unless it's in writing, clinics don't really have an obligation to keep prices. But that might be a good thing in this scenario. If demand/wages contract after coronavirus, prices will fall.

 

preventing me from getting plastic surgery on time

 

My mom hates it lol

Which is flattering. She thinks I'm pretty and don't need it. But she also trusts me to make decisions with my own money.

 

Okay, perfect!

 

Once I get to a clinic, I'm confident there will be a few people on staff with who I share a language. Worst case scenario, I can always hire a translator.

However, I'd like to call around to a few places to get prices and set expectations about when I can get surgery done. How should I go about asking to use English on the phone? How should I go about things if they don't give that option? Moreover, I'm not super versed in Korean culture and I'm nervous about accidentally being rude.

What is the polite way to advocate for myself and voice concerns?

 

gmcnm19, do you speak Korean? I don't but I do speak English, so I'm wondering how to navigate setting up consultations and getting prices from EU Dental with the language barrier. If I call them, can I use English to get through the conversation?