u/Just3Goblins

i totally panicked around day 5 because one side of my face looked almost twice as big as the other. that was the worst part of this whole process.

before getting the procedure, i read so many recovery posts, and most of them made it sound like swelling is just this general puffiness that slowly goes away. nobody really warned me how disturbing it feels when one side of your jaw and cheek area suddenly looks way larger and harder than the other side. i got surgery from saekim plastic surgery and my left side looked completely awful. by the fifth day, it was visibly firmer and bulkier than the right. combined with the numbness around my chin and lower lip, my brain immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. i was convinced something healed unevenly or that the bone was messed up.

being alone in a hotel room makes it so much worse. when you are stuck somewhere with nothing to do except stare at mirrors and obsess over the swelling, your mind goes to a really dark place. every tiny difference starts to feel permanent, even when you logically know early recovery is supposed to look strange. i went back to the clinic on day 6 just to make sure i wasn't losing my mind. the doctor checked the area pretty quickly and told me the structure itself seemed totally fine. he explained that soft tissue can heal at completely different rates on each side, so it is super normal for one side to hold onto more fluid for a while.

it was a really brief answer, but it was exactly what i needed to hear. i didn't need some long emotional explanation. i just needed someone to tell me that what i was seeing didn't automatically mean the surgery was botched. after that visit, i stopped spiraling so hard. now i'm into week 2. the left side is still holding more swelling, but it is already starting to soften up and look less extreme. my jaw doesn't look perfectly even yet, and the numbness is still lingering, but it no longer feels like a massive disaster every time i look in the mirror.

that reassurance helped my mental state so much. i think one of the hardest parts of this kind of recovery is that your face doesn't heal in a neat or symmetrical way. bone and tissue don't recover like a perfect mirror image. it is something i understood in theory before going in, but it feels very different when you are actually living through it and looking at your own face every single day.

so i really wanted to ask. did anyone else deal with really bad lopsided swelling in the first couple of weeks after getting facial contouring done? how long did it take before both sides started looking somewhat balanced again?

took these while staying in korea and it kinda reminded me how much color just shows up in ordinary spots here. not talking about the big garden places or anything. just walking around residential streets, small parks, temple paths, or random corners where you really aren't expecting much. the seasons change the whole vibe of the streets so fast, and these little patches of flowers suddenly make a regular walk feel a lot brighter.

the sunflower caught my eye first because the yellow looked so strong against the dark green background. it felt bold but simple, like the whole frame was built around that one color. the pink ones had a totally different feel. much softer and less dramatic, but the color spread out in a way that felt peaceful and kinda dreamy. i liked how they looked slightly imperfect up close, with some petals sharper than others and the background slowly fading out.

i ran them through retrica to keep the colors warm and vivid without making them look too artificial. they were already beautiful in person so i didn't want to push the editing to much. that's probably what i liked most about seeing flowers around here. they aren't always in perfectly curated spots. sometimes they're just there during a normal walk, making the day feel a bit more alive.

i took these 3 photos during my recent trip to seoul, and they ended up capturing three completely different sides of the city for me.

before going, i mostly had the usual image of seoul in my head: busy streets, good food, shopping areas, cafes, and modern city energy. those things were definitely there, but the parts that stayed with me most were actually the historic spaces and the older, quieter details I found while walking around.

deoksugung felt grand in a very open and calm way. the building looked almost unreal against the clear blue sky, especially because the space around it felt so wide compared to the rest of the city. gyeongbokgung had a different feeling. it was much larger and more dramatic, but what I liked most was the way the palace architecture, mountains, tourists, shadows, and open stone courtyard all sat together in one scene. it felt busy, but not chaotic.

then there was the old-style shop area, which honestly surprised me the most. it recreated the feeling of korean neighborhoods and small stores from decades ago, with snacks, toys, baskets, wooden shelves, old signs, and all these tiny everyday objects packed into one space. it was not polished in the way modern tourist spots usually are, and that made it more interesting to me.that contrast was probably my favorite part of seoul.

one moment you are looking at huge palace buildings with mountains in the background, and later you are standing inside a small vintage shop that feels like someone preserved a piece of ordinary daily life from the 70s or 80s.

i did some light editing on these because I wanted the photos to keep that slightly nostalgic travel mood. i used retrica for a few shots since I remembered it from years ago and wanted something simple, not a heavy editing app with too many settings. it gave the photos a bit more depth and an older tone without making them look too artificial.

seoul was much more layered than I expected. the major palaces are absolutely worth seeing, but I would also recommend leaving time for smaller exhibitions, old alleys, and random quiet corners. those were the places that made the trip feel more personal.

i wanted to share my 13 month update since i spent literally hundreds of hours lurking on this sub before making my decision. my hairline was receding pretty bad and the crown was thinning out too. i was tired of using hair fibers every morning just to go out to the grocery store.

i ended up flying out to seoul and went to modi hairplant. the consultation was honestly a bit exhausting because the doctor was almost too obsessive. he literally spent like 40 minutes just drawing and erasing the hairline with a ruler and taking photos from every angle. my neck was getting stiff and i was getting kind of impatient just wanting to get the surgery started, but looking at how natural the symmetry is now, i can't really complain about him being a perfectionist.

the surgery itself was pretty smooth. they also did a stem cell treatment during the procedure which they said helps with graft survival. booking the whole thing was slightly annoying just because of the 14 hour time zone difference, so we were playing text tag on whatsapp for a few days trying to lock in a date, but once i got to the clinic their english translator was super helpful and stayed by my side the whole time.

the recovery went fine. the first few nights sleeping elevated on a neck pillow sucked, and the shedding phase around month two made me look terrible, but that is just part of the process for everyone.

now at 13 months, the density is crazy. my biggest complaint right now is that i actually have to wake up ten minutes earlier to style my hair with clay. for the past five years i just buzzed it short or threw a baseball cap on in two seconds, so having to actually learn how to use hair products again and texture it is a weird adjustment lol. i am still taking 1mg finasteride daily to keep the rest of my native hair from falling out. if anyone is thinking about making the trip to korea for this, just do it. it is totally worth the long flight.

used to take photos and then spend like 20 minutes trying to fix the vibe in lightroom or whatever. colors never came out the way i wanted, always felt like i was chasing something i already missed.

started shooting with the filter on before i take the shot instead. sounds obvious in hindsight but it actually changed how i frame things you're composing for the final look, not guessing at it later.

these three are from the past month or so. philippines street shot, a lake somewhere with ducks that just wandered in, and one i took lying on a rope playground out of boredom. none of them were planned, just had my phone out.

the retrica filters lean pretty heavy vintage which isn't for everyone but it matches the kind of stuff i've been gravitating toward lately. the real-time preview is the part i can't go back from honestly, trying other apps feels annoying now because you're always fixing after.

not a photographer by any stretch, just messing around. curious if anyone else shoots this way or if i'm doing it wrong.

I was looking at this rainy day photo I took recently and really wanted to give it that specific 2014-2015 nostalgic, moody vibe. You know the one, high contrast, slightly desaturated greens, a bit of grain, and that perfect vignette.

Back in the day, my go-to was vsco. I remember spending literally 10 minutes on a single photo just tweaking the exposure, messing with the temperature, adjusting the HSL, and trying to get the grain *just* right. It felt like a whole ritual just to post a simple aesthetic pic on Instagram or Tumblr.

But honestly? I got kind of tired of the manual editing process. I recently re-downloaded retrica just for the nostalgia trip, and I was actually surprised. I completely forgot that their live filters basically do all of that heavy lifting instantly. Just swipe, find that perfect moody retro filter, and it gives the exact same aesthetic without having to play around with sliders for 10 minutes. Cause it's totally invented at that time! The photo attached is exactly what I mean, it just has that effortless vintage digital camera feel.

It made me realize how much time we used to waste trying to be "professional mobile photographers" when one-tap filter apps were doing it just fine.

Did anyone else go through that intense vsco phase where you manually edited everything, or were you always team one-tap filters like retrica and B612? I’m genuinely curious what everyone’s editing routine used to be back then.