Dr. Shervin Naderi shows how to clean your nose after rhinoplasty without causing bleeding or reopening sutures. Use a Q-tip with hydrogen peroxide to gently paint the nostrils, never dig inside. Lubricate heavily with Vaseline or petroleum-free ointment, especially in the first week, to keep everything moist and protected.
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Hi. I'm going to show you how to clean. I've got a couple of other videos, but I've modified the technique throughout the years. I did it a little bit differently 15 years ago, and then it's changed and now it's modified again. I've seen some people get a little too aggressive with the cleaning, put the Q tip too far, give themselves a nosebleed. Sometimes we have to go back to surgery. So I want to show you a more gentle technique to avoid that. But it's important to keep it lubricated. If you don't do any lubrication, the crust and the scabs are too thick and heavy. So watch how I do this. So we have some hydrogen peroxide. Basically, it's just a bottle.
You can dip the Q tip straight into it or you can dilute it one to one.
But essentially you're getting the Q tip wet and it's just a little bit of rolling action.
You're just kind of gently rolling it around the nostrils and then just a little bit. I mean, I'm not really going in at all. It's really mostly painting the peroxide in around the nostrils.
That's really all it is. You may use multiple Q tips, but that's all it is. Then I'm going to take. This is the most important thing. This is more important than the peroxide. The ointment is really important.
And you have to use a good amount of ointment and just look and see how much ointment I've got. That's quite a bit of ointment. And I'm taking it and I'm smearing it on the base of the nose. Really, the Q tip is not going inside the nose at all. What it's doing is it's covering the nostrils and covering the incisions and the sutures. That's what you're doing for the first week. Now, if you've done this the first.
Week, you can cut back quite a bit.
So once you've done this the first.
Week, you can definitely rely on a more clean nose.
Maybe just a little bit on the inside, like that. But again, you're not going inside, you're not digging around, you're just covering this. So it's basically like icing on a cake.
So that's how the lubrication is. Again, lubrication is more important than cleaning, and that's what you're relying on. So again, don't go too far in. I don't want you putting in the Q tip too dip. I don't want you digging around. I don't want sutures or stitches popping open. It's really about icing it with the ointment and making sure it's nice and moist. This right now is Vaseline. Some people are allergic to petroleum jelly. There is a product called UN Petroleum jelly, which you can find on Amazon or cvs. Has the same consistency, but it's beeswax and coconut oil and doesn't have petroleum jelly. Again, that's basically the cleaning and the lubrication. Lubrication is much more important.
