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Just realized most people confuse recovery time with actual healing time | Plastic Surgery Real Talk - Free To Speak

Just realized most people confuse recovery time with actual healing time

I got my nose done back in 2017 and stayed with my sister in Portland for two weeks thinking I'd be back to normal after that. Everyone kept telling me the hard part is the first week, but they don't tell you about the six months of swelling that comes after. I went back to work after 10 days and my coworkers kept asking if I was sick because my face still looked puffy. Saw a post the other day from someone saying they were fully healed after a rhinoplasty in 3 weeks, and I had to laugh. My surgeon told me straight up, you won't see the final shape until at least a year, and she was right. Anyone else get blindsided by how long the "healed but not really" stage lasts?

2 comments

2 Comments

beth2762mo ago

My face looked like a chipmunk storing nuts for two full months after mine, I'm not even kidding (I went through so much frozen peas). The 3 week healing claim people are living in a fantasy land, probably the same folks who say they love the gym after one visit. I remember showing up to a family dinner six months post-op and my aunt squinted at me going "something's different about your nose... did you lose weight?" Nope, just the swelling finally going down enough that I didn't look like I went ten rounds with a heavyweight. Honestly the puffiness timeline is the real joke nobody warns you about, I felt like a human water balloon slowly deflating for basically a whole year.

christopherw342mo ago

Six months and your aunt still couldn't tell? That's wild to me. I mean I knew the swelling stuck around for a while but hearing that just made me wince. I had people at the grocery store giving me weird looks for like three months after my nose job, asking if I'd had an allergic reaction or something. The fact that you were still puffy enough at six months for someone to notice but not put together what it was, that's brutal. I guess I got lucky my healing went a little faster, but still, the whole year-long deflating balloon thing is way too accurate.