Nose Surgery – Possible Complications of Rhinoplasty Surgery

Mr Mike Tyler, UK Specialist Surgeon in Rhinoplasty  of the Aurora clinic explains the Rhinoplasty Procedure. In this video he explains the possible complications associated with this particular surgery providing full information for patients considering this treatment. For more information or should you consider having this procedure, please call us on 01844 214362

Nose Surgery – Possible Complications of Rhinoplasty Surgery

Hello. My name is Mike Tyler, and I’m going to talk to you about the complications of an open rhinoplasty. We’ve already discussed the reasons why you might want to have an open rhinoplasty operation, and we’ve also discussed what you have to go through when you have a rhinoplasty operation. So I’d like to just talk about the risks. It’s very important you understand the risks before undergoing any form of voluntary surgery.

The risks can be divided really into two groups – those that are associated with any operation because you’re having a general anaesthetic and those that are specific for a rhinoplasty operation. Now those that are associated with any operation because of the anaesthetic can be very, very rare. Most anaesthetics are very safe. However, the most common and perhaps one of the most significant that I always mention to patients is the risk of a DVT. DVT stands for deep venous thrombosis, and it’s the same as economy class syndrome that you may have heard, and it’s basically a clot that you get in your leg from result of immobility. You can get it for a number of reasons travelling economy class, hence its name, to America. You can get it travelling on a bus, and you also can get it when you’re pregnant. But anaesthetic is known as a known risk factor. We take precautions against that. We give you flight stockings. We give you calf squeezers, but we can’t get that risk absolutely to zero. So that’s a small risk that I think you have to take on board.

The rest of the risks of the anaesthetic are extremely rare. Having an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic or underwater bends, and I’m not going to discuss those any further although if you have any specific concerns about anaesthetics, then obviously please feel free to contact us so we can discuss this with you.

Now those risks that are specific to the rhinoplasty operation itself, again, I’m going to divide into those which occur immediately and those which perhaps occur with a bit of time. In the first instance, the nose is a very vascular structure, so there’s always a risk of bleeding. That’s why we keep you overnight, because if you do get any bleeding after the operation, the nurses and the surgeons, myself, all the team can deal with the bleeding. It would be very rare, but it has happened that we have to take you back to theatre if the bleeding was sufficiently large. Again, that’s very rare. It’s not something that I, personally, have had to do yet in my career, a touch bit of wood.

The other risks associated with a rhinoplasty, there’s always a risk of infection. Infection is most common around about day five, and you notice the infection because the nose will get very swollen, very painful, probably your eyes would also puff up. Infections can range from a little bit of redness that I give you antibiotics for that settles very quickly to serious infections. Very, very rarely there are people that have had significant infections in the base of the nose after a rhinoplasty operation, and that is something that we know is available and that’s something that we’d wish to treat. That’s why we wish to treat any infections long before it gets this serious. But out there in the world, there are patients who have had serious infections after a rhinoplasty operation, and, again, it’s something that you just have to be aware of.

Wound healing is another complication of any surgery. Thankfully the nose is very vascular and therefore it usually heals beautifully, but occasionally patients do have some areas which take a little bit longer to heal. Very rare that this actually affects the end result. People also notice different amounts of swelling, and although everybody gets swelling, some patients will get more swelling than others and it takes longer to settle down. So swelling is another risk that you’ve got take or prolonged swelling. The nose will be numb, so again, it is possible to injure the nose especially in exposure to strong sunlight you can get sunburn without noticing it or you can injure it, perhaps, in other ways. So one has to be a little bit careful. That’s another risk factor.

I think one of the other main things is to take up with rhinoplasty is that the effect of the operation cannot be absolutely guaranteed, and it’s very important to be aware of what the surgeon is trying to achieve and make sure that corresponds with what you wish to happen to your nose. So most plastic surgeons that do rhinoplasty operations have a revision rate. In other words, a number of patients who come along and there’s a little aspect of the operation that needs to be changed. Thankfully, if you have surgery as we do at BMI Hospitals, any change that we do within a year is done free of charge on the original price. The sorts of things that I have had to do myself in the past for patients and perhaps if I’ve had a patient with a very large nose who I’ve made smaller will wish to have it smaller still, and we did that as a revision. The other things that I’ve noticed occasionally, if you have little bits of cartilage that we’ve involved, they can get little hard edges. So occasionally I’ve had to go back in and do another rasp just to notice a little bit of imperfection on the dorsum of the nose. We obviously take a great deal of care in making sure that when we discharge the patient they’re as happy as we can possibly make them.

Those are the main risks. Obviously, that’s not an exhaustive list, but I think those are the key factors that you need to be aware of. Obviously, we’ll be giving you more information if you decide to go ahead with an operation. If there’s anything you’d like to ask us about, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Thank you.