hazlexnut Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 I recently had facial contouring done in Korea after wanting to do so for many years. I wanted to give a writeup of the experience because PF has been an invaluable resource for me during my own research. For many years, I had the desire to do facial contouring because of some features that really bothered me, (wide face, prominent chin, among others), that made me feel uncomfortable with my face. After thinking about it for many years and saving up, I had saved up enough to get surgery in Korea. I decided to go to Korea for facial contouring because Korean doctors / clinics definitely have the most experience with doing orthognathic surgery for cosmetic purposes, and I have asian features, so it was an obvious decision. When I began to do research in earnest, I quickly narrowed down the clinics that I was interested in due to a couple criteria: - I did not want to go to a large clinic that does a lot of procedures because I have more trust that a specialized clinic is able to do better work -For jaw contouring, which is a really involved operation, I wanted to make sure that I went to an oral-maxillofacial surgeon for it because it affects your bite and your breathing, etc. so you want a specialist to do it -I had to be able to find some information about the clinic in English (otherwise I would not have the language skills to properly evaluate information about the clinic) Thus, the main clinics that I was interested in an contacted online for consultations were TFD, EverM, and EU. I contacted TFD on Facebook, and EverM and EU through email, whereby I then continued our conversation through Kakao. The online consultation process for all three clinics was pretty similar, where I sent pictures of my face as well as what sort of results I wanted, and then got responses back about quotes, etc. Mainly, I think that this was just a leadup to scheduling in-person consults which was much more important. So, after finally scheduling everything, I worked out the logistics of taking time off work and flew to Korea. There, I visited the three clinics that I previously mentioned. At TFD, Dr. Lee speaks English and is able to conduct the consult in English. At EverM, I communicated through a government translator (40k won / hr). At EU, the English consultant (Kayla) can translate. As for the actual consultation experiences themselves, it was as such: at EU (and the other clinics) the consultation basically works the same way where you talk with a consultant / translator usually prior to arriving the clinic, and then once you go to the actual clinic you take pictures, xrays, and then meet the surgeon to discuss what sort of results you are looking for and what is possible. I think that feeling trust in your surgeon is probably one of the most important things! For me, I ended up choosing EU because I really liked my consultation with Dr. Shin (who was also the one who did performed the surgery). EU is a smaller dental clinic with 2 surgeons (Dr. Kim and Dr. Shin), and an anesthesiologist. I told him about my concerns and he was really friendly, and didn't try to upsell me on anything. He was also very upfront about possible concerns / outcomes I might not like regarding the results, and so I felt like I could trust him. For example, I have a longer midface so I was concerned with the proportions of my face post-op, and it felt like that concern was taken very seriously. He confirmed that that would be the outcome, and didn't try to talk around it, but also proposed that I could get philtrum reduction surgery afterwards if I was concerned, and was able to recommend clinics. Additionally, he always asked if I had any other questions, and demonstrated that he respected my concerns. After finishing all my consults, I decided on going with EU for my surgery because of the great consultation experience (and just a great experience communicating with them in general), and scheduled my surgery for the following week.... -- Prior to the surgery, you are not supposed to drink alcohol / smoke (don't smoke kids) and also stop medication (obviously depending on how important it is to your continued existence). I dutifully followed these guidelines, and on the day of the surgery, showed up, changed into the hospital gown, and then was administered general anesthesia after which I was out for the duration of the surgery. When I woke up, I was back in my (hospital) room, and was given some instructions not to drink water for a certain amount of time, which was perfectly fine since I didn't really want to anyways. I'll probably do a longer write up later about the hospitalization and other post-op care / experience, but basically to sum it up, it is really painful and very physically and mentally taxing, so I would definitely recommend that you can come with someone else if possible. I continued to swell for ~ a week before I started deswelling, and it was very challenging and painful. This was made slightly better by the excellent post-op care that I received during my hospitalization, and the responsiveness of EU through Kakao when I had questions or concerns, but it was still a very difficult process. However, despite all the pain and suffering, I was definitely happy with my results. Since I'm only a few weeks post-op, there is still a lot of swelling, but I am quite satisfied with the overall change in my facial structure. The protruded chin that was my largest concern was shortened through genioplasty, and I also had facial asymmetry that was fixed through the surgery as well. Overall, I'm happy that I decided to get facial contouring done, and was very confident with my choice of Dr. Shin at EU. His results in general are very good and I feel that he takes the patient more seriously than the doctors of other clinics, and communicating with the staff at EU was also fantastic (and shoutout again to the great post-op care). 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jessicala Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 Thanks for sharing Would you mind sharing your results ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hazlexnut Posted November 4, 2019 Author Share Posted November 4, 2019 I’m not super comfortable with sharing my pictures publicly, but can share the scans if you’re interested (pm me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jessicala Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 Sure thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellegiselle7 Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 I would appreciate it if you sent me your scans too since I'm also choosing eu.get well soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmcnm19 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 When are you doing your surgery? I'm also having a hard time choosing between EU and TFD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jessicala Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Tfd prices are more fair and dr lee speaks English fluently But eu consultant is the kindest Korean girl I met Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellegiselle7 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 I'm trying to find a solution with my job etc but in the next 6 months I'm going to be there.tfd and eu are two clinics with good reviews but you can never be sure about which is real or not so I'm going to make up my mind after my consultation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmcnm19 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 I went to see them and some other places last week, yet it's still very hard to decide kkkk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellegiselle7 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Could you please tell me about it?where you went,what you're getting done? maybe pm me?i would really appreciate it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmcnm19 Posted November 6, 2019 Share Posted November 6, 2019 PMed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellegiselle7 Posted November 6, 2019 Share Posted November 6, 2019 Thank you so much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hazlexnut Posted November 11, 2019 Author Share Posted November 11, 2019 Now that I've been post-op and deswelling for longer, I wanted to give another update and also talk a little bit more about my experience with 2 jaw surgery. When I got my procedures done, I didn't really have too specific of what I wanted in mind with regards to zygoma reduction as in I didn't really want any specific shape, but rather just to reduce the perceived size of my face in general. I would say that the cheekbone shaving is a much more subtle change than 2 jaw surgery (which I expected), and overall I am quite happy with how the zygoma reduction turned out. The procedures that were much more important to me in terms of final appearance and also changing my appearance was the 2 jaw surgery and the genioplasty. Even when I was really swollen up right after the surgery, I was quite happy with the changes to my chin from the combination of the two procedures. I was looking for a more dramatic change, considering my starting point, and really wanted to reduce the squareness of my jaw and my prominent chin by quite a bit. At the beginning, when I was really swollen, the overall effect was less visually appealing since my neck and chin were also quite swollen so it kind of made me look like I had no chin. However, that swelling disappeared relatively quickly compared to the swelling in my face, and I am really happy with how my chin turned out now. Dr. Shin also asked me what sort of vline style I wanted during my initial consult, which was really helpful because I didn't want a super pointy vline (since I don't think it would work with my face at all), and opted for a more natural vline instead. Now that the swelling has somewhat subsided, I feel like the angle of my face towards the chin has definitely become much sharper but still seems very natural and I really love the aesthetics of the result. However, even after nearly a month, I still have a lot of swelling in my face, so I have a good idea of how my face has changed since I can see the trend towards what it will look like in terms of deswelling, but I obviously don't know what the final result will be. However, despite the slow process of deswelling, I am quite happy with my results as of now. I will probably update further at the 2 or 3 month mark since the deswelling should be almost fully done by then.Aftercare / after-surgery I feel like even though there are a lot of posts describing the experience of getting surgery and the immediate aftermath, I didn't really have much idea what regular life in the post-immediate recovery but not back to 100% phase would be like. One thing is that your diet still remains restrictive even after you have been recovering for a while. You are supposed to only eat soft foods, and are not supposed to brush your teeth with toothpaste, which also restricts your diet since I try to avoid foods which might be more damaging for my teeth due to this restriction. Also, caring for my teeth in general has become much more difficult. With the (temporary) loss of feeling in parts of the upper palate and parts of my upper lip, I need to be really careful to make sure that nothing I eat is really hot, because otherwise since my lips are numb it is really easy to burn my skin. Also, I was told that orthodontic treatment is necessary in my case to make sure that my teeth are properly aligned after 2 jaw surgery. I had braces previously, and from the wafer I can see that the alignment is still not bad, but it is still necessary to find an orthodontist (in my area) to follow up after surgery. I was told by EU that the timeframe for doing so should be 1-3 months after surgery. In terms of overall physical state, I found that it wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be. After ~2 weeks when I was able to breathe regularly again, it pretty much just felt like the brief decrease in physical ability that you get after being sick for a while. Overall, not too much impact in terms of general health as far as I can tell. However, the jaw is definitely less mobile and has less abiltiy for motion after surgery. EU also gave me several exercises to perform multiple times during the day to ensure range of motion. The number one thing that I was least prepared for was how to respond to other people that I know. I assume that if you are interested in getting double jaw surgery for cosmetic reasons that you want a somewhat dramatic change in some part of your face, since I definitely don't think that such an invasive procedure is worth it for really subtle results. But due to a combination of the surgery change and also the swelling, I found that I had to field a lot of questions from people that I know through work/activities/friends, etc. who I probably didn't want talk about PS with, so I came up with a couple of different reasons / stories to avoid those conversations. This is something that I would recommend people at least consider, because it was very inconvenient for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellegiselle7 Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 Thank you so much for updating us,we all wish you the best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kara-nathaniel Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 How are you doing now? Are you happy with your result and is the numbness gone? Any side effects? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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