How long does healing take after Rhinoplasty - Washington DC - Dr. Shervin Naderi

As far as downtime, there's different phases to downtime and healing. Typically, for one week, the patient's wearing a small splint on their nose. That one week. Most patients don't want to be seen out in public, so that's one part of the downtime. At the one week point, the splint comes off. If there's any sutures through an open approach, they come off. If it was a closed rhinoplasty, there are no sutures on the outside. They'll just fall out on their own for one additional week. I ask patients not to go to the gym, not to raise their blood pressures or heart rate excessively, to prevent nose bleeds. At that point, really at the seven to ten day to two week point, you're pretty much done. You're supermarket ready. You can go to any grocery store. Most people shouldn't be able to tell you had any kind of surgery done. You look good. However, it's not the final result. Next week, next month, next year, two or three years later, it gets better and better and better. The nose is really going to heal the way it wants to. The nose is never done healing. Even though we arbitrarily say one year as the final point. 5, 10, 15, 20 years later, it continues to heal and change because scar tissue continues to mature. However, the true downtime really is about one to two weeks.