Op date: 21st October 2020

Surgeon: Dr Giannas

Surgery: Open-septo alar base reduction rhinoplasty

 

I was originally booked in with Dr Andrea Giannitrapani for March 2020, this was cancelled by MYA

and moved to August, and then cancelled again by MYA, due to COVID. MYA contacted me around

September time to say Dr Andrea was still in Italy and his return date was unknown so I looked into

other surgeon options.

MYA suggested Dr Giannas so I was open to having a consultation. I did lots of research on Dr

Giannas as I did with Dr Andrea and I was very disheartened to see the lack of social media presence

Dr Giannas had compared to Dr Andrea. One of my main sources of research was to find pages on

Instagram who are patients of the surgeon as well as before and afters. Dr Giannas isn’t on

Instagram and the only before and afters are on his website and they are very limited. Even on

MYA’s Instagram page every time there was a rhinoplasty post I’d look to see who the surgeon was

and it was always Dr Andrea’s work. I contacted MYA and they sent me the contact details of 2 of Dr

Giannas’ patients (with their permission) and I spoke to them but still, I didn’t feel was enough to

comfort me.

I went into the consultation with Dr Giannas sceptical. I am happy to say after spending a good

40+mins with him I was completely put at ease. He answered all of my questions and was happy to

show me his portfolio of clients on his laptop, especially the ones that he felt where very similar to

my nose. I felt he was a lot more thorough when it come to checking my nose, he felt around and

looked inside, explaining to me it was so he could get a good idea of that he would be dealing with

should I go through with the operation, something Dr Andrea did not do. This is by no means a

knock to Dr Andrea as I know he is an amazing surgeon, I just felt my experience with Dr Giannas

was more ‘bespoke’. He listened with intent as to what I had issues with and was looking to fix. I

was so confident I booked my surgery that day!

Op date was 21st October at First Trust Preston. I was initially down as a day case when I booked

with Dr Andrea however Dr Giannas was very insistent that I stay overnight, something Dr Andrea

was indifferent about. I told MYA I could not possibly afford the additional cost to stay overnight,

especially considering I had paid early 10 months prior! I soon got a call back to say they would put

me down as an overnight patient with no extra cost as they didn’t have any appointments with the

nurses the following day to get my packing out. I thought this was a very kind gesture and looking

back, hugely improved my experience as a whole.

My admission time was around 8am and I was told I was going to be the second op of the day. The

nursing staff at the First Trust Hospital where amazing throughout my whole experience. I went

down about 10:30am and came back round about 1:30pm. Knowing that I could just get my pj’s on

and stay put after my op was so much less stressful than the thought of having to go all the way

home (only 1 hr but still) and then back again the next morning. I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep

so when the nurse came to check on me about 4:30am she asked if I wanted my packing out to

which I was like YES PLEASE because I’ve heard how much better it is relief wise once this is

removed…(they lied! haha) Getting the packing out was probably the hardest part of the whole

thing. I think because I was expecting it to be such an ‘instant relief’ that everyone says it is I wasn’t

expecting it. First off….it burns for a good couple of hours after, secondly you still cant sodding breath anymore than you could with them in so where is the ‘relief’?! HAHA, this is by no means to

put anyone off it’s more just as a bit of reality that I didn’t get and wish I has so I could of been more

prepared. It was still one million percent worth it!!

I had breakfast and everything and then waited for Dr Giannas to see me before I was aloud to be

discharged this was about 8:30am, he was very happy with how the surgery went and explained

there where no complications at all. I was then picked up about 9:30am. I was in no pain at all

throughout it all (except for the packing removal haha), it was just slightly uncomfortable but

nothing unexpected if you’ve done your research.

The only slight thing I wish I’d of been prepared for is the internal stiches, these where visible on me

up until about 6 weeks. I was under the impression they would dissolve/fall out at around 2 weeks.

Thankfully I was working from home (thanks to Covid) so this didn’t effect me but originally I was

only planning on taking 2 weeks off work thinking all the to the eye ‘tell-tail’ signs would be gone but

nope, it looked like I had bogies which I would of been really conscious of.

I am currently 7 weeks(ish) post op and I couldn’t tell you how happy I am. My swelling is so minimal

now, you wouldn’t even know I’d had surgery. After 10 years of absolutely hating my nose it is

finally everything I wanted and more – Dr Giannas is amazing and I couldn’t recommend enough 🙂

Feel free to drop me a message if you have any questions or want to see before & afters to help with your research. As I said I know how hard it is to find sources! Xx