Thick Skin Rhinoplasty

Thick vs Thin Skin

Skin thickness dictates the outcome of ethnic rhinoplasty. Since, individuals from ethnic backgrounds bring various types of skin types, thus only a skilled surgeon can read and adopt rhinoplasty procedure accordingly to offer desired results.

Since both thick and thin skin around the nose have their pros and cons, thus assessing it can make or break the entire procedure.

Effects of Thin Skin

Thin skin is ideal for rhinoplasty as it aptly displays the bone and cartilage changes to the nasal tip. However, it will also display minute irregularities of the surgery.

Further, our plastic surgeons generally use temporalis fascia technique to create a smooth nasal bridge and craft a symmetrical tip. This procedure has produced stunning results even for paper-thin skins. It involves using a tissue from temporalis muscle to build a symmetrical nose.

Effects of thick skin

While thicker skin covers any asymmetries and surgical problems, it usually camouflages the changes made during rhinoplasty. Since, thicker skin patients generally have thicker nostril rims and broader nasal tip, thus making nasal refinement harder to achieve.

Therefore, a specialist would emphasize and exaggerate the nasal tip to achieve desired results. Further, they may also stretch the skin to make it thin before proceeding with rhinoplasty.

What Makes Nasal Skin Thick

Nasal skin is quite different from the rest of the skin on our face, especially with ethnic individuals. It generally has more collagen and thus becomes thicker. This results in posing difficulties with the invasiveness of any cosmetic surgery including rhinoplasty.

Here are key factors that cause the nose skin to get thicker.

• Genetics

Genetics are the major cause of skin thickness. Some individuals are born with thick skin, mainly due to the natural composition of their elastin fiber. If you come from a family with thick nose skin, there are good chances that you, too, will have a thick skin.

• Aging

With aging, we start losing skin elasticity due to loss of collagen. This starts making our skin thick, including the nose part. Further, aging also tends to sag or wrinkle our facial skin.

• Ethnicity

Family roots also play a vital role in making your skin thick. For instance, people hailing from Africa and Asia tend to have thicker skin as compared to individuals from other parts of the world.

• Medical Conditions

Certain medical conditions such as diabetes, hypothyroidism or growth hormone disorders can also force your skin to get thicker.

• Environmental Factors

Another major cause of nose skin to get thick is exposure to environmental factors such as UV radiation, pollution, harsh skin care products or excessive sugar consumption.

Thick Skin Rhinoplasty – A Step by Step Guide

Rhinoplasty, as discussed previously can easily help reshape your facial expression. However, thick-skin rhinoplasty requires special expertise and experience. Luckily, we have a team of experts who are capable of handling and delivering required results even if you have the thickest of skins.

With the right approaches of care of thick skin patients before and after surgery, we can easily manage challenges of the thick skin rhinoplasty.

As with patient’s of thick skin, their own cartilage is not strong enough, thus grafts are generally taken from other parts of the nose, ear or rib cartilage.

Pre-Surgery Guidelines

People with thick skin can get the results if they get their skin prepared for rhinoplasty. As we know, it is a challenge to have the right outcome out of such a skin type, thus getting it ready can help with surgery.

Here are pre-rhinoplasty guidelines for patients with thick or bulbous tips.

• Weight control can yield numerous benefits
• Skincare prior to surgery
• Removal of fatty tissues under the skin
• Dietary changes to support surgery
• Maintain a realistic expectation

Thick Skin Rhinoplasty Procedure

Rhinoplasty procedure almost remains the same for thick skin, as it is for other types of skin. However, determining skin type is vital in the entire surgery procedure.

Therefore, having a doctor who can correctly determine your skin type and do the best job in delivering desired rhinoplasty results can save you cost and time.

Here are general steps included in thick-skin rhinoplasty.

Step 1: Consultation

You can easily consult our experts through a visit, as it will help them to discuss your goals, concerns and medical history. Our board-certified surgeons will determine your skin type and suggest the right type of rhinoplasty.

Step 2: Examination

The most important part of the procedure is the examination of your skin. Our surgeon may request you to go through certain medical tests (e.g. CT Scan and Rhinomanometry) to determine nasal structure, skin thickness and breathing function.

If you are determined to have thick skin, the doctor may advise certain precautions to help you get in the best shape for the procedure. These generally include stop smoking, facial exercises or avoiding blood-thinning medications.

Step 3: Surgery

Once the surgeon is satisfied with your skin, they will proceed with the procedure. It includes making an incision on the columella (skin between nostrils). The incision could be internal or external, it allows them to access soft tissues in the nasal framework.

Step 4: Grafting

Once bone and cartilage modifications are done, they will be grafted to enhance nasal structure. However, this could take more than normal time as thick skin requires time to set it into the desired shape.

Likewise, the surgeon will refine nasal tips, bridge and nostrils as per gathered impressions.

Step 5: Closure

Once completed, the incision is closed with sutures and stitches. You may feel slight pain or swelling, but it is normal and will fade away.

Post-op Precautions

Since people with thick skin may not see the desired results right after rhinoplasty. Therefore, they should remain calm and let the skin settle down.

However, they need to ensure below mentioned steps to elevate recovery and produce desired shape.

• Recovery: The recovery time for thick skin rhinoplasty is relatively longer. Generally, patients with thin skin recover between six to 12 months. Contrarily, individuals with thick skin may require up to two years completing healing.
• Nasal Splint: Wearing a nasal splint stabilizes nasal structure, which helps with achieving the desired outcome.
• Pain Management: Follow your doctor’s advice regarding pain reduction. Generally, rhinoplasty is a painless procedure.
• Follow-up: Stay in contact with the surgeon and pay follow-up visits to keep recovery in check.
• Stitches Removal: Get your sutures or stitches removed between 5-7 days post-op.

Benefits of Thick Skin Rhinoplasty

Although tough, rhinoplasty can bring numerous benefits for individuals who have bulbous nasal tips. The right surgeon can perform wonders with your thick skin.

Here are key benefits to expect from rhinoplasty for thick skin patients.

• Customized approach for better results keeps ethnic features intact
• Addressing unique challenges of thick skin noses
• Improved nasal definition and refinement
• Enhanced facial harmony
• Improves nasal function
• Reduces social anxiety

Challenges of Thick Skin Rhinoplasty

Thick skin can pose challenges of getting the details out of the procedure. Additionally, it can also have numerous other drawbacks, which are discussed in coming lines.

• Protracted Healing – Recovery time for thick skin is almost the double when compared to thin skin
• Cartilaginous Weakness – Nasal cartilage is generally weak under a thick-skinned nose
• Tip Ptosis – Thick skin weighs more, which pull nasal tip downward to add extra stress to framework
• Prolonged Edema – Swelling takes time to fade especially after revision rhinoplasty
• Delayed Outcome – Surgery results will take more than a year to fully appear
• Drug Resistance – It require special care, as routine preoperative Accutane (Isotretinoin) does not work with thick skin