When you first visit a nasal surgeon, he will let you know that any cosmetic surgery is an elective surgery. That is, you don’t need it right now – as opposed to surgery after an auto wreck or to correct a life-threating condition like a heart attack.
So, all cosmetic plastic surgeons want their patients to be in the pink of physical and mental health before rejuvenation surgery. In many states, that’s why you must first have a physical and some blood tests before going undergoing cosmetic surgery.
Patients seeking a re-do of a botched rhinoplasty often look long and hard to make sure a master nasal surgeon with years – if not decades – of experience does the revision which is more involved due to the damage done in the first nose job surgery.
As you may have read, many more people are developing Type II diabetes, a condition which seems to spread as more people become overweight or obese. Thus, more nose job patients are also asking if they can have a first rhinoplasty or a revision rhinoplasty if they also have Type II diabetes.
The answer? Maybe. It depends on how well the condition is controlled.
In Type II, the cells of the body don’t work well with insulin. In Type I, the body just does not produce enough insulin. In both types, blood glucose is higher than normal.
And how does all that affect cosmetic surgery? Wound healing is where diabetes types 1 & II and cosmetic plastic surgery touch. While rhinoplasty does not involve major incisions, any cuts made by surgeons’ knives are considered wounds. (An exception in nose surgery is African-American nose job surgery when nostrils are slimmed; incisions are hidden in folds and creases of skin.)
To make sure surgery is O.K., the plastic surgeon will check your blood levels for something known as an A1c rate. That’s a measure of how well blood glucose has been controlled over the previous three to six months. Any reading should be under 7 percent. (The highest “normal” reading is 6 percent.)
Thus, if you have diabetes and your A1c rate is over 7, your surgeon is likely to say rhinoplasty revision surgery is O.K. in another six months, after another blood test and a lower A1c level.
You can do your part in going ahead with revision surgery by cutting out surgery foods and drink, losing weight and getting regular exercise.
In some cases, the plastic surgeon will coordinate with the patient’s physician who handles the diabetes.
