r/cosmeticsurgery

One thing nobody prepares you for after major facial surgery is the fact that your entire medical team suddenly becomes deeply invested in whether you’ve had a bowel movement. 😳

By noon on Post-Op Day 2, my caregivers were becoming increasingly concerned about constipation from the anesthesia, pain medications, and decreased activity, so I got up and started walking the hotel hallways.

This is admittedly a delicate topic for me. My children have never even heard me pass gas. Neither has my husband. But after hearing horror stories about people straining hard enough to pop stitches or staples after surgery, I quickly realized this was actually a very important, make or break part of recovery.

Thankfully, all went smoothly. Crisis avoided. Dignity partially intact.

For context, I had:
• deep plane facelift
• deep plane neck lift
• lower blepharoplasty
• parotid repositioning
• buccal fat pad repositioning
• submandibular gland reduction
• CO2 laser around the eyes
• perioral work
• fat transfers

Ironically, the fat transfer from the harvesting on my hips hurt far worse than my actual face, where it was transplanted. The bruising was tremendously worse on the harvest site, too.

I was feeling pretty fantastic on Day 2 and thought I was absolutely sailing through recovery. In hindsight, I was being carried entirely by steroids, nerve medication, pain medication, and optimism.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I’m officially 2 weeks post-op from my lower blepharoplasty with Dr. Gregory Lewen in Miami, and I wanted to share my before-and-after! 🤍

I also had facial fat grafting to my lower lids, mid-face, and sub-brow area. I’m still healing and expect everything to continue settling over the next several weeks and months, but I’m already so happy with how things are progressing.
The first couple of days were definitely the hardest, mainly because of the swelling and needing some help getting around. After that, I started feeling much more independent. I honestly experienced very little discomfort and no significant pain throughout my recovery, which was such a relief!

This is something I had been considering for quite some time, so choosing the right surgeon was incredibly important to me. As someone who works in cosmetic surgery, I was very particular about who I trusted with my own eyes.
Dr. Lewen has an incredible eye for detail and focuses on enhancing your natural features rather than changing who you are. His approach is all about achieving a refreshed, rested appearance while still making sure you look like yourself.

What I appreciated most was how thoughtful and conservative he was with his recommendations. He even reviewed my childhood photos and noticed that I had lost some of the natural “baby fat” in my sub-brow area over the years. Rather than recommending an upper blepharoplasty, he suggested fat grafting to restore fullness to that area. I’m so glad he took the time to look at my features and make that recommendation instead. It really reinforced my confidence in trusting his expertise. 🥹🤍

I’m sharing my photos for anyone researching or considering a lower blepharoplasty. I know how helpful it can be to see real experiences and results when you’re trying to make such a personal decision, so I hope this helps someone on their journey!

Two weeks post-op still healing, but loving the progress! 🫶🏽

Before & after below 👇

I’m 21 and had my rhinoplasty in Turkey exactly about a year ago. I’m from a country where cosmetic surgery is pretty expensive, and I don’t have much money to begin with so I literally worked an entire summer and saved up for the surgery. It was a huge decision for me financially and emotionally.

I asked for something straight and relatively natural. I specifically told my surgeon that I didn’t want a tiny overly scooped “Instagram” nose. I just wanted to keep my general features while getting rid of the things I disliked about my original nose that I disliked a lot

Now it’s been a year and I genuinely still don’t know how I feel about the result

The main thing that bothers me is the tip. It still looks pretty lifted and upturned to me, especially in profile and I was expecting it to drop and become a little more natural as the swelling went down. But it’s been a full year and it’s still very much there. I keep thinking "maybe it'll change a little more" but at this point I'm starting to wonder if this is just my final result lol

And everyone around me seems to have a completely different opinion

My boyfriend actually thinks it’s cute and says he likes my new nose better. My mom isn't really a fan and says she preferred my old nose because it looked more elegant 💀 My sister is somewhere in the middle and basically says that it looks fine and she doesnt see what I'm stressing about.

I even sometimes catch myself looking at old pictures and thinking “was my old nose actually that bad?”, which is probably not the most useful question to ask myself after already having surgery lmao

I’m also scared of the possibility of needing a revision because financially this isn't something I can just casually do. I basically emptied my savings to get the first surgery and still had to go to Turkey so the idea of having to save for another one is a bit scary

So, looking at the before/after pictures do you think my nose looks botched, or does it look like a reasonable rhinoplasty result that I’m probably overanalyzing because it’s my own face?

Please be honest, I'm not looking for reassurance just for the sake of it. I genuinely want to know whether you'd be thinking about a revision if this were your nose.

Like am I the only one who looks at some of these filler results and immediately thinks "what happened here?" Some of the changes are soo noticeable, especially around the lips and cheeks and the whole face can end up looking really different.

It honestly makes me wonder how much of this comes down to the amount used, where it was placed and the technique or just getting more and more over time. Because you'll see one result and think filler looks terrible, then you see someone else with a much softer result and it's a completely different vibe.

Kris Jenner is one person where I actually like how her HA filler and other cosmetic work have turned out. She still has her own overall look. And then you have celebs like Anne Hathaway who always look gorgeous too. Obviously we can't know what someone has or hasn't had done just from looking at them, but honestly, that's kinda the point, when filler work is one well, you might not even be able to tell what changed. Right?

I guess that's why these pics are interesting to me. They kinda show that the treatment itself isn't the whole story. There's a lot that can affect how filler ends up looking and knowing when enough is enough probably matters a lot.

Do pics like these make you more cautious about filler or do they just make you more careful about who you'd trust with it?

I just found these pictures of myself on Dr. Grossman’s website.

I almost forgot I had my breasts done five years ago because they came out so beautiful and so natural. The experience of Dr. Grossman‘s clinic was absolutely nothing short of amazing. I had no pain after the surgery whatsoever. I never even took an Advil or a Tylenol. I don’t believe that I’ve lost any of the fat since I had my surgery. Since my surgery, I’ve had a mammogram which was completely normal and they had no idea. I had my breast augmentation done with fat grafting. I think his fat grafting is the way of the future at least in the hands of my plastic surgeon. I highly recommend the approach to anyone thinking of breast augmentation, but you must do your due diligence and find a plastic surgeon who specializes in fat grafting and after doing my research I found that he is the most experienced in this. I am open to questions about my experience , but I couldn’t be happier with my results.

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