Rhinoplasty in Men
In my last blog post I discussed the overall approach I take to performing facial plastic surgery on male patients. In today's post we'll focus on performing nose job surgery on male patients. At the same time I'll touch on the question of whether there's an age limit after which it isn't advisable to perform rhinoplasty surgery.
Male Nasal Characteristics
No two patients are identical but there are some general traits that are commonly encountered when it comes to male noses. Let's take a look at a patient of mine who is a great example of this.
The main thing that you notice is the patient's thick nasal skin. As a result of this and his tip cartilages he also has the appearance of a ball on his tip. This effect is exacerbated by a surgery done several years previously to remove a skin cancer from his left outer nostril region. This resulted in weakening and collapse of the nostril in this area.
Bump on bridge
Another common masculine characteristic is having a full nasal bridge. This patient wished to have his profile straightened.
An important point when refining a man's bridge is to avoid over-reducing his hump as this tends to feminize the nose and gives an operated-on appearance. This profile view also illustrates how men often have more tip projection that a woman. In this patient's case if I were to bring the tip in toward the face he would end up with worse tip definition on frontal view as his thick skin wouldn't be able to redrape appropriately.
Correcting External Valve Collapse and Ball On Tip Of Nose Effect
To treat this patient's collapse and weak left external nasal valve I was able to use cartilage grafts to rebuild and strengthen the nose in this area.
This helps to offset the deep crease that is evident in this part of the nose (supra-alar crease) and allows for an improvement to the ball on the tip of the nose effect that we noted on his preoperative frontal view.
The patient's base view shows once again how reconstructing the nostril rims to create strong, straight ala can create a more open nasal airway and help the nasal tip transition more seamlessly to the sides of the nose. In this patient's case I also straightened his right columellar shift which helps to even out his nostril size.
