Rhinoplasty, forehead reduction, acculift, buccal fat pad removal, TRC, arm lipo at Namu Clinic

[lia_heart]

phoebebuffey said: ↑

MONEY MATTERS (CHOOSING A CLINIC BASED ON COST? BARGAINING? SAVING UP?)

I wanted to talk about something EVERYONE who looks into plastic surgery will have to face: money! It can influence which clinic you choose or the surgeries you choose to do; bargaining for medical procedures is something new to a lot of westerners; and saving up is something most people face.

MONEY & SURGERIES

I feel like cheap surgeries - or paying as little as possible for surgeries - is glamorized. I totally get the "how much did you pay?" question, because it helps people see if they're being ripped off or how much of a discount they should try for. But I would caution anyone from choosing a clinic or meeting with a clinic just because they fit in with their budget. There are so many more important factors: the doctors, the clinic set up (do they have a full time anesthesiologist?), the aftercare, etc.

I did not get a 'cheap deal' on my surgeries. I didn't go into the process with a modeling deal, so when I compared the cost of my surgeries with other people a few were like, "Wow, that's a lot [of money]." But in the end I was okay with paying slightly over what I originally thought I would because I felt comfortable with my clinic and the surgeries I was getting.

Ultimately, you have to decide the amount you're willing to pay, as well as what you're comfortable with. You can always find a cheaper surgery, a cheaper clinic, a cheaper doctor. A more expensive clinic doesn't necessarily mean better doctors or better surgery results. The best advice I can give is to find the best doctor FOR YOU, your features, your surgeries - and then bargain from there... as much as you feel comfortable with / is necessary.

BARGAINING

There are a few ways you can get a deal/discount on surgery. First is bargaining, and I'll be honest: I am not good at bargaining. When I shopped in Korea, I didn't even bargain at Ewha/Hongdae because the items already seemed so well-priced. And even when it came to surgery, I was hesitant to bargain or bargain too hard. You can get some bargaining awkwardness out of the way if you do it over Kakao, but most clinics will tell you you won't be able to lock in a final price until you do a face to face consult, because the doctor will need to see and assess your case in person.

Second is if you go through a service like Misooda, because on their website they have some surgery promos listed. (Although you could try to take the advertised promo and go directly to the clinic to see if they'll match the deal or cut you a better one.) *I don't know if these promos are actually better than estimates given by clinics, but it's worth looking into. A lot of the promos are on v line / breast implants. Definitely do research into the clinics and don't just take a promo based on price, whether it's on Misooda or directly from a clinic.

Third is if you do a modeling deal, which basically means they will take/use your before and after photos on their website / for advertisements. Big influencers get surgeries for free this way - you can see examples of this from Doc Finder Korea and people like Sonia/Celia Leslie, Jennydear, Jessyluxe, Sacheu... Other people (non-influencers haha) can get huge deals (~half off) with modeling deals.

When I arrived in Korea and had my in-person consultation, I confirmed I wanted to do forehead reduction, even with scarring and the potential need for hair transplant in 1-2 years. Claire asked if I would then be willing to let them use ONLY my forehead before and after photos. I said yes, because I really didn't care about my photos being used since I was planning on posting here / on Kakao anyway. I'm not sure if they'll actually end up using the photos, since they weren't able to get photos of it fully healed... or if they'll even want to use them, but they do have the option. This gave me a 40% discount on just my forehead reduction surgery. So, if you're looking for additional discounts, you can always ask if they'd be willing to give you any for use of your photos.

Over Kakao I was able to get a list of estimates from Linda with a range of prices (ex: 4-6 million KRW for rhinoplasty), and a "max" amount the cost would be for all the surgeries. When I went in for my face to face consult, the final price ended up being more than this "max" amount because I wound up doing additional surgeries and it seemed like some of the estimates were off. So lets move on to...

HOW MUCH DID I PAY?

What everyone wants to know. I originally thought the maximum amount I would pay would be $15,000 total - and I wound up spending more.

First I sent a deposit of $900 to secure my surgery date. So I figured that when I was there, I'd pay $14,100 max. I wound up paying 16.5 million krw, or ~$14,667 for my main set of surgeries (and then I paid separately 330,000 krw or ~$293 for lip fillers on my last day). Why the discrepancy? I had planned on doing:

• Forehead reduction
• Rhinoplasty
• Facial lipo
• Arm lipo

I wound up doing all of the above AND:

• TRC and fat grafting
• Chin filler
• Buccal fat pad removal

In my in-person consult, I met with Claire, not Linda. She tried to stick to my original estimate as closely as she could. Essentially she added buccal fat pad removal at no cost to my acculift procedure because she felt that without buccal fat pad removal I wouldn't get the results I was looking for. I did have to pay for TRC and chin filler, but since I was getting arm liposuction anyway, she added in fat grafting for my undereyes for free - otherwise the TRC wouldn't be effective / look its best. I appreciated this attention to detail.

HOW TO SAVE UP MONEY FOR SURGERY / KOREA

Here are some tips I have for saving money:

1. Pick up a second job. I worked two jobs for six months, 12 hour days five days a week + Saturday's. It was hard, especially around months 4, 5, 6... I was constantly tired. BUT I was able to save up a few thousand dollars from a second, minimum wage job.
2. Stop going out to eat. I couldn't cut this out completely, so I would allow myself to go out 1x/week, Saturday's after work. It was insane how much money I saved.
3. Zero unnecessary spending. I wrote out all my essentials: gas, groceries, make up / shampoo / etc maybe once every few months... and I stuck to only buying these things.
4. Collect items to sell on Craigslist, selling apps, or Buffalo Exchange. Clothes, furniture, etc. I had suitcases of stuff filled that I left in my car too long and didn't have time to sell... crap! Next time.
5. For every birthday / holiday either request money, or gift cards / things that are necessities (shampoo, grocery gift card, gasoline gift card) that you would've spent your 'essential' money on that month.

Ultimately, I was able to put about half my monthly pay (from my regular job) into my savings account, as well as 100% of my second jobs pay.

When looking for flights, download the Hopper app. I found my flight from LAX > South Korea for under $500! Also, save money on housing in Korea by getting an AirBNB with housemates. I stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment with two other girls. (And I will say: the experience would have been so much harder without company.)

When saving up money, set goals: the goal you want to have saved up, and a realistic monthly savings goal. It's okay if the monthly goal is small, if that's all you can save at the moment. It won't always be that amount... eventually you can get a new job, or an additional job, or a higher paying job. As for the goal you want to save up, you'll need to factor in a few things:

• Cost of flight
• Cost of hotel / AirBNB
• Cost of surgery
• Cost of food / water / transport / etc

Make the goal more than you think you'll need, because there will always be unexpected expenses.

Hope this is helpful with your money questions! Let me know if you think of anything else that would be useful to know.

phoebebuffeydiarypost

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Helpful!! thank you so much

 

[BlossomPetal]

Thanks Stephanie for the in-depth details! I'm glad I found a post about rhino without silicone, cause I too don't want silicone in my nose. I was speaking with Namu and they mention that it cause a sunken area if i did tip projected and no silicone for the bridge.

Maybe I missed it while reading but did you get the bridge width slimmer as well?

 

[didik]

Hey Lady! thank you for such a detailed review!
I'm also planning an acculift procedure, so wanted to ask if you can see good results after it? can you notice less volume and less or more sagging in your face and has the skin tighten up?
From your photos I think you look really good, and sure will look great after swelling goes down

 

[demonize]

BlossomPetal said: ↑

Thanks Stephanie for the in-depth details! I'm glad I found a post about rhino without silicone, cause I too don't want silicone in my nose. I was speaking with Namu and they mention that it cause a sunken area if i did tip projected and no silicone for the bridge.

Maybe I missed it while reading but did you get the bridge width slimmer as well?

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From what I know, if you were to raise your nose bridge or have tip projection done, it can lead to the illusion of a more narrow bridge (in between the eyes) ...it can also make wideset eyes appear more "close" together. Thats just the general consensus of it, not sure if it applies to OP... Just stuff I learn from browsing realself lol.

 

[BlossomPetal]

demonize said: ↑

From what I know, if you were to raise your nose bridge or have tip projection done, it can lead to the illusion of a more narrow bridge (in between the eyes) ...it can also make wideset eyes appear more "close" together. Thats just the general consensus of it, not sure if it applies to OP... Just stuff I learn from browsing realself lol.

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Oh I see. Haha. Well I hope doctors say I don’t need to raise the bridge so I can really avoid silicone. And still get a bit of a narrow bridge.

 

[demonize]

BlossomPetal said: ↑

Oh I see. Haha. Well I hope doctors say I don’t need to raise the bridge so I can really avoid silicone. And still get a bit of a narrow bridge.

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If you have enough cartilage in your ear or even your own nose cartilage, you can use that to build the bridge as well =D this is the same technique I would like to do. You could also do rib, but that is usually more expensive and the pain I dont think is worth it.

 

[BlossomPetal]

demonize said: ↑

If you have enough cartilage in your ear or even your own nose cartilage, you can use that to build the bridge as well =D this is the same technique I would like to do. You could also do rib, but that is usually more expensive and the pain I dont think is worth it.

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Yeah, I also heard there can be complications with being ‘bumpy’ with using cartilage. So maybe I’ll try to avoid making it higher. Haha. I just want it thinner.

 

[honii]

Your review is super detailed, thank you so much! Your forehead reduction results look amazing if you remember, how much did forehead reduction alone cost? Thank you so much!

 

[kattym0601]

Thank you for the detailed information! Really appreciate it, as I’m planning to go SK for PS.

 

[luv-dogs]

KattyM0601 said: ↑

Thank you for the detailed information! Really appreciate it, as I’m planning to go SK for PS.

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I’m planning to go in mid Sept. I’m from Singapore, Asia. Want to go together?

 

[kattym0601]

Luv Dogs said: ↑

I’m planning to go in mid Sept. I’m from Singapore, Asia. Want to go together?

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Ah i’d Love to meet. But the only available slot that I’m able to take 2 weeks leave is mid Jul. All the best to your surgery! =)

 

[big-dream]

phoebebuffey said: ↑

DO YOUR RESEARCH

I'm a big believer in self-education. I get a little annoyed when I see posts like "please tell me where to go for rhinoplasty, this is the kind of nose I want." First of all, we all have different assumptions of adjectives (dramatic / natural mean different things to different people) ... we don't know what you look like ... and we don't know the things most important to you (doctors bedside manners, price, aftercare, etc). All people will be able to tell you is what they've read on PF/Kakao ("a girl went to Jewelry and liked/disliked her results") or their own personal experience. And personal experience is valuable, but you need to look into so much more than that.

The best thing you can do is a ton of research. People do so much research on a new car, or on what handbag to buy... so why wouldn't you want to vet your own research on surgery to your face?? Don't trust someone else to do it for you.

I started a Google Doc and gave each clinic its own page. Under each clinic I linked to posts I had found on PurseForum, SoYoung, RealSelf, or other relevant sites. Then I listed necessary info: website, contact information, address. The pro's and con's. Information on specific doctors and their specialties. As I spoke to clinics I could make notes on this document... the price estimate for surgeries, things I liked/didn't like, the doctor's, the aftercare.

Don't just research the clinic - also research the procedures you're looking to get. Before leaving I knew almost every detail of my ideal rhinoplasty: I didn't want a silicone implant; I wanted some kind of osteotomy or bone shaving to make my bridge thinner; tip plasty; alar reduction. I knew the techniques I wanted and what would be suitable and realistic for my nose. When I met with the doctor he commented that I seemed well-educated about my surgery and what I wanted. (As a total teacher's pet, this made me smile.) The things I didn't know were things I didn't realize: I had a slight hump on my bridge I had never noticed before that he shaved down, and besides tip plasty, I could also do short nose correction to have less nostril show from the front. Still, I was educated enough to know what these procedures were; if he had suggested something unnecessary I would have known to question it.

Don't blindly agree to what doctors/clinics suggest because "they know best." Ultimately it's your body/face and you need to be educated and an advocate for yourself and your surgeries.

Because I decided to choose my clinic before meeting them face to face, I prepared a huge list of questions... questions for the doctor, the anesthesiologist, the translator. I felt more comfortable making my decision after having these questions answered - but if you're able to meet face to face before deciding on a clinic, I will always suggest that. You can find my list of questions below.


For the doctor:

• What percent of your practice is devoted to rhinoplasty?
• What is your protocol in the cast of unexpected surgery complications?
• What is your experience with noses like mine?
• Do you feel you can create the type of nose I want?
• What is your policy on revisions?

Rhinoplasty
On implants:

• Do you think my bridge height needs to be raised, or should my bone just be narrowed with osteotomy?
• If my bridge height needs to be raised, what implant will you use? If silicone, is it ultra soft?
• What is the risk of extrusion or infection? How often do you see this in your patients? I’m very worried about this because I won’t easily be able to come back to have it fixed.

On alar reduction:

• How will the alars be reduced? On the outside of each nostril, or inside next to the columella?
• What are the potentials of scarring?

On bulbous tip correction:

• How will you correct the tip of my nose?

On functionality:

• Are there any risks to the functionality of my nose? Breathing, structure, collapsed nostrils, thin skin, etc.

Other worries:

• What are the challenges of rhinoplasty on a nose like mine?
• What are my responsibilities to have a successful rhinoplasty and healing?

Facial lipo

• What are the differences between facial lipo and acculift? What would you recommend for me?
• Can the look I want be achieved via liposuction?
• Is there any possibility of nerve damage to my face, or other health issues?
• How long will swelling last?
• Do you think I can achieve the results I want without a thread lift?

Forehead reduction

• Are there any risks to forehead reduction?
• Is it possible to get hair loss?
• Is this a common procedure for you to perform?

Arm liposuction

• Are there any risks to liposuction?
• How does liposuction cause “bumps” or “unevenness” in fat or skin? Is this preventable?

For the anesthesiologist:

• Do you have a full time anesthesiologist? Will they be there for my entire surgery?
• What type of anesthesia will rhinoplasty, facial lipo, forehead reduction, and arm lipo be performed under?

For the translator:

• Will you be there before and after my surgery?
• Can I meet the doctor before the surgery to make sure we’re on the same page?
• What is the aftercare for these procedures? Are there any de-swelling treatments?
• Does the clinic provide transportation to/from surgery?

phoebebuffeydiarypost

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phoebebuffey , your advices from your experience should be in a book or something like,
actually, it is detailed, helpful and comprehensive advices.
thanks.

 

[luv-dogs]

KattyM0601 said: ↑

Ah i’d Love to meet. But the only available slot that I’m able to take 2 weeks leave is mid Jul. All the best to your surgery! =)

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I see. What procedure are you doing? I am in my 40s and now my lower cheeks are heavier. Sad. Thinking of acculift but fear it might cause sagging.

 

[sayuriii]

KattyM0601 said: ↑

Ah i’d Love to meet. But the only available slot that I’m able to take 2 weeks leave is mid Jul. All the best to your surgery! =)

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Hi there, which surgeries are you going to be done? I am looking for best doctor for forehead reduction surgery... I am going to stay in apgujeong, gangnam. did you plan your travels yet? I am coming from LA

 

[tvxqgirl]

phoebebuffey said: ↑

Last night a troll created 12+ accounts and began posting and re-posting photos of me and another PF member, writing over our photos. I / my surgeries were described as "botched" / "ugly" / "pig faced" and "she looks like she has down syndrome."

Besides the obvious anger and embarrassment I felt, I was so sad too. First of all - my younger sister has down syndrome. To use her features that I love so much as an insult was heartbreaking, and just served to remind me that there are still people in this world who use "retarded" and "down syndrome" as insults.

I created my account on PF to begin my research into rhinoplasty in South Korea. Even though people said PF was going downhill as clinics hire marketers or random people to shill themselves, I found it helpful. I could see through most fake posts with a little investigation, and PF lead me to Helen (who convinced me to reach out to Namu), Kakao, and two girls who I ended up staying with in Korea. I decided to document my surgery process here because I knew a lot of people weren't comfortable posting their photos online, and I felt okay doing so. I thought writing in depth on the surgery process / aftercare / and posting regular updates of progress to show how HEALED RESULTS actually look would be helpful to people, no matter where they decided to go.

I have never tried to convince people that they *need* to consult at Namu. In fact I wrote about the cycle of popularity of clinics and said that Namu seems popular right now because they're new and a few people wrote about good experiences there. In hindsight, I should not have listed my clinic / doctors at all, because it just opens a firestorm of accusations about being fake or getting cheap surgeries in exchange for reviews. As I stated in a previous post, I did not get deep discounts. I paid a 1 million KRW deposit (~$900) + 16.5 million for my surgeries (~$14,567) + 330,000 for my lip filler (~$291). I was told by other people that I was ripped off or that I overpaid.

After spending a lot of time crying last night and trying to report all the accounts that kept popping up, I tried to pinpoint why I felt so hurt. The photos they used were directly after surgery, and my nose does look very piggy and upturned - I even wrote that in posts on here. Maybe it was the fact that they called me ugly, because I don't think that's something anyone can get "used" to hearing. But most of all I think it was just embarrassment... I was embarrassed people I know and have talked to (and yes, strangers too) would see photos with "pig nosed" and "ugly" all over them, setting me up for ridicule.

I've decided to take a break from social media altogether. PF, Kakao, even my personal Instagram/Twitter. (If you followed me on my PS Instagram, I'm sorry - I removed all followers who I didn't know.) Let this be a warning for people not to share their photos on PF. I do feel that if the admin/mod team had a better handle on the situation it wouldn't be so risky, but when all of this happened there were no admins online to help and the one mod who was online doesn't have access to this board. And, they refuse to delete my post (this post) even after I asked them to multiple times.

I know it's easy to make comments about other people's appearances, especially online. But we're all human, and I think anyone who comes to a plastic surgery board for information knows what it feels like to be insecure about something.

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I just discovered this thread and wanted to say thank you for sharing your PS experience with us. I feel bloody furious that trolls would do that to you. Trolls are nothing but cowards hiding behind a screen.