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Review + B/A pics: Consults, surgery (primary DES, rhino, chin), post op recovery

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mango-gummy Level 1

mango-gummy

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My review of my consults, surgery with Uvom, post-op recovery

In particular thank you to Maggie, JJ, Audrey, Robin, Yumi, PrettyDiva, and all who either I met in person in Korea or talked with online for help on the KKT group chats (Feb PS group, March/April PS group, and the 2019 rhino group).

Ive split this review into general chronological order.

I live in the US, so I started out doing 2 in-person consults with US docs. Didn’t really find what I was looking for but it gave me a basis of what to expect.

ONLINE CONSULTS

I spent weeks to months reading Purseblog’s forum about which clinics were generally good or not, and what to avoid. I emailed or Kakao-Talked these clinics:

Jw, Banobagi, VIP, Namu, Koko, Uvom, Dr Jin premium nose.

All of the above had english consultants or translators that replied to my emails or Kakaos, with the exception of Koko (Korean and Mandarin Chinese only).

At first I really wanted rib-only rhino. I wasn’t sure though. I kept reading about pros and cons of rib vs septal vs ear cartilage. All I knew was I didn’t want any foreign material. Definitely no donated cartilage. No Goretex, no silicon.

CLINICS I CONSULTED WITH ONLINE:

VIP - I was heavily considering VIP since they like rib rhinos a lot, and seemed to have a pretty good reputation on Purseblog. Their nicely maintained English site gave me a good baseline. However midway through my research I dropped VIP cuz they were really expensive.


JW - Really detailed and thorough online consult via email. They looked at my pics and noticed a lot of small things. I liked them a lot just based on correspondence alone. However their prices were also about as high as VIP. Also dropped due to high cost.


Dr. Jin Premium nose - I emailed rhinoplastykorea, which seems to be an agent that advertises a blog for both Dr Jin and Koko clinic. Just them two. I don’t know if they know each other or something. Dr. Jin personally replied to me a couple days later in English. However I decided to not pursue this further cuz I wanted a clinic where I could do all my surgeries all in one go. Dr. Jin only does or specializes in rhino I think since he is an ENT doc. It’s worth noting that although he’s expensive, he probably doesn’t need the patients. He’s highly published in academia in PS and rhinoplasty, and is a visiting scholar for many international universities, including my old university in the US. One probably can’t go wrong with Dr. Jin. His results look really natural and he seems to specialize in rhino revisions. For anyone not minding the price, he’s probably a very solid choice.


Banobagi - Emailed this big hospital out of curiosity cuz an old college friend went here for her double eyelid revision and her eyes look good even a couple years later. Their response was so copy-paste that I marked them off my list cuz I didn’t want a big factory clinic. I’ve heard some good and some bad things about them on the Purseblog before - makes sense if they have so many patients. This wasn’t what I was looking for.


Namu - I Kakaoed this clinic after hearing a big spike in good hearsay about this clinic on Purseblog. The consultant Claire speaks really good English and is super sweet and honest. I loved asking her questions on Kakao. I ended up doing an in-person consult with them which I will write more on below. Prices were good.


Koko - Dr. Cho Bae Jung. Korean or Mandarin Chinese speaking consultant only. Their English is very very limited. I barely was able to find any reviews on this. However what I found was good. His results looked a little more dolly than Dr Jin, and looked really good at rhinos. I made an in-person consult appt with them as well.


Uvom - I didn’t add this on until a week before my departure date to Korea. I heard JJ and a couple others say good things about Uvom in the chats, and I wanted a third option in addition to Namu and Koko. So I Kakaoed Uvom and they were really nice and responsive so I made an in person appt with them as well. They were my third choice at the time since I hadn’t looked into them as much.


IN-PERSON CONSULTS

Namu - first appointment I had in person. It’s kinda hard to find the entrance. It’s through the side door around the back of the Starbucks building. If you find yourself inside Starbucks you went in the wrong door.

Namu is a medium sized clinic. They use several floors in that tower. The waiting room was very busy, but the staff was nice and they got to me fairly quickly. Did some X-rays and CT since I was interested in genioplasty. They took some pics of the face to put on their computer during consult.

Meeting Claire the consultant in person was great. She’s super sweet and honest about what was realistic for my face and goals. We talked for about half an hour and then the docs came in. First Dr. Jeong, the rhino doc. He’s wild and very friendly and nice. Lovely guy. He gave his opinion and then Dr Kirk came in. Dr Kirk is a quiet calm doc, which I liked. He does the eyes mostly. He tried out some creases on the eyes. I liked his style a lot. Claire translated for us during the doc consults altho the docs knew some English too. After the docs left, Claire cleared up any qs I had. I left Namu with a good impression. I think it would have been a solid choice as well. Currently this was my second choice. Koko was still #1 for now (I meet them tomorrow).



Uvom - My second in-person appt. Currently this was my third choice. But when I went in person, the quality of the consult blew every clinic I had consulted with out of the water. It was 2.5 hours of productive discussion. I was super impressed. And from what the other members on Purseblog have said, this is pretty standard for them. X-ray, CT done. I appreciated their attention to super small face details.

The consultant Eunice and English translator Choi spent 2 hours with me. Eunice was amazing. I’d be lying if I said Eunice wasn’t a main reason I decided to go with Uvom. She’s attentive and intelligent and very kind, the type of person I would trust with my face. People have said that we should make decisions based on the docs, not the consultants. But I think the consultant and clinic staff are very important to consider as well - if you come vibe well with them then that is the best. As an English speaking patient, the majority of your wishes and questions will be conveyed to the docs via the consultant. Choi is also super sweet - she translates for the consultant and the docs. I feel like her English was very good and she was able to convey everything I wanted to say or ask.

The docs came in for probably a total of 30 min combined. Dr. Kang would do the eyes and nose. He tested out a number of different crease heights and we picked a crease height that wasn’t too large. I wanted a parallel crease and medial canthoplasty since I look a little cross eyed sometimes when looking straight on. Dr. Kang said we can cut a little of the medial corners but not too much since that would make the eyes look too close together, since my eyes already aren’t far apart.

Dr. Lee would do the chin reduction, sliding genioplasty, bottom lip reduction, and jaw fat repositioning. The jawline fat repositioning was something suggested by Eunice during the consultant part of the appointment when I mentioned having a lot of cheek fat near the jawline that I didn’t like. Dr. Lee agreed and said we can purify/process some of the removed fat and then rearrange it into the nasolabial folds where I had mentioned was something I wish could be smoothed out. The chin bone would be reduced in length (I wanted a shorter chin but it was also weak) and then slid forward for a sliding genioplasty. There would be notches where the cut chin bone doesn’t match up anymore with the jawline, so the solution would be to shave the jawbone a little to smooth that out.

They offered a discount for deciding that same day. But I declined, cuz my deposit was still with Koko so I needed to see that through and wanted to know what Koko would be like tomorrow.



Koko - ok this place is a tiny tiny clinic. One doc only, he’s also the owner. A few staff members. Mandarin Chinese was the Consultant’s second language, as was mine, so I wasn’t able to fully convey my wants I think. Dr Cho spent the most amount of time with me than any of the other clinics (minus the US ones). Could definitely tell he was a doctor first, business second, which I liked a lot. Ethical as well...he told me to wait until I was 40-50 years old to get double eyelids since it would likely not stay even if he did it. So I liked that he was honest. But I really wanted my eyes done so I took a chance - I gave up my deposit and went with Uvom instead.

I texted Uvom back to ask what their first available surgery date would be. They replied right away and were able to fit me in for 3 days later after rearranging their schedule.



SURGERY AND RECOVERY:

Surgery day.

At one point on the operating table when they were prepping everything, I had a momentary “What am I doing omg” feeling. IV went in and then the sleeping anesthesia for eyelid surgery first. I saw fractal art XD it was a lot of fun. But then the visual stuff went away and I was half aware of the eyelid surgery stuff, thank god it was quick. It’s a bit uncomfortable cuz you feel the pressure from the needles. Opened and closed eyes after that when Dr. kang asked, to check the positioning etc.

And then I don’t remember anything after that since it must have been general anesthesia time.

I woke up probably about 8 hours after surgery started in their post op recovery room. Waking up from general anesthesia is weird. I think I woke up once or twice but fell back asleep, and then I was aware enough to stay awake but was dizzy so I didn’t get up until half an hour of staying awake. Sitting on the edge of the bed will help stabilize blood pressure. I did that for a bit and then walked around a little. Then Choi and Eunice came in and said everything went well. I felt ready to go home so the IV was removed and they took me to the taxi.

The next couple of days were super hard to sleep cuz of the nose packing that stays in until approximately post op day 2. You breathe via your mouth but your throat is sore from the general anesthesia. I slept sitting up at an angle. Pain was surprisingly ok. It was more the breathing discomfort that made the first couple of days hard. And the swelling - my eyes were puffy. I used ice packs on my face and that helped so much.

I had bottom lip stitches that were not fun to deal with cuz the mouth breathing made them really dry and the lip was swollen and it was so hard to drink water.

So maybe if you want to get lip reduction do it separate from a rhino procedure.

Post op day 2 or 3: they removed the nose stuffing. I can breathe again.

Post op day 6: was nose cast removal, eye stitch removal, columnella stitch removal (all the externally visible stitches).

Post op day 9: was removal of 60% of the sutures inside the mouth (bottom lip and gums). Mouth sutures are no joke. Luckily it’s all over in 30 min. I was thinking “why did I do this”. There was some blood/bruising accumulating in the jaw so Dr. Lee tried to drain some of it.

Post op day 10: Dr lee wanted to see me again so I was back. He removed the rest of the gum sutures and more of the lip sutures. Pain again was bad but they have a plushie you can hold. It helps. Dr lee and his nurses were very nice.

Post op day 11: My last full day in Korea. One last appointment to remove the last few stitches in the bottom lip, and also the visible sutures in the nose. It was all bearable today. Those nose stitch removal was just uncomfortable but not really painful. I was so relieved when they said everything is done now. The rest of the nose stitches are dissolvable and will dissolve by themselves in the next few months.

The docs came to check up one last time and everything looked good.


I flew home the next day. By this time I had been done with the 7-day course of pain meds and antibiotics for about 4 days now. I still took over the counter Tylenol post op days 8-9 but today I didn’t need any. It’s mostly the chin swelling and numbness left. Still sleeping sitting up. It’s less uncomfortable to wear the compression face mask now. I can chew most normal foods except meat or super chewy/hard things.

The bruising around my eyes is mostly gone now. The jawline bruising is still there but a lot less.


Post op day 14: I’m a lot less swollen now, and people back at home said it gets better by the day. The nose is a huge difference from before surgery and I’m super happy with it. The eyes also, I look so much more alive now. The jaw and chin made a huge difference and looking at before and after pictures you can definitely tell it helped a ton with my overall appearance. The lip is healing and more feeling is returning to my lower face by the day as the nerves heal. I’m overall super happy with how everything went and how everything is turning out. I would definitely like to go back to Uvom again when I want anything else done.

The photos attached are of me before and after at post op day 14.


Screen Shot 2019-03-31 at 9.38.53 PM.pngScreen Shot 2019-03-31 at 9.39.07 PM.png


If you have any questions, feel free to ask. However I am not able to answer for you questions like “what is the best material for __procedure”, “what is the best clinic for x and x”, etc. Those are personal decisions to make between yourself and your surgeons.

Good luck to all. I hope you find what you are looking for!
 
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kokokiki Level 1

kokokiki

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Your results look amazing! I am considering Uvom for fat grafting. How did you like their results for the fat repositioning in your nasolabial folds? That is one area that I have some sunkeness.

Also, which Dr. did your rhino? Was it Dr. Jeong or Dr. Kang? And do you know if they are good with revisions? I would love to get a revision rhino! Thanks
 
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kokokiki Level 1

kokokiki

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Hi Mazikeen!

Just PM'ed you about Dr. Kirk. I was thinking of going to him for FG...Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance !
 
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mango-gummy Level 1

mango-gummy

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Update:

The swelling is improved a lot, and the nose side view is exactly what I wanted. Most people can’t tell that I am swollen from surgery anymore when I see them in person. Under the jawline is still a little sore sometimes but I’m mostly feeling back to normal now. More feeling has returned to the nerves everywhere in the face. The double eyelids look great! It makes a big difference to how my makeup looks. The nose tip is still deswelling but it is still only at the 2 month mark. I forget to take my bromelain and arnica vitamins often though. Looking back at my old pictures I’m very glad I did the surgeries. It’s a huge improvement in my opinion. I feel l made the right choice and I’m super grateful to Uvom and all the doctors there and staff!

A before pic (where I'm wearing the black shirt). And an after pic at the 2 month mark (wearing the white shirt) Screen Shot 2019-05-04 at 7.47.32 PM.png
Screen Shot 2019-05-04 at 7.47.40 PM.png
 
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