I'll echo what a few others have said-- jaw surgery is no joke, and primarily it is not for aesthetics. There was a section in my surgeons consent forms that explicitly explain how soft tissue changes can not be predicted. In my experience going through this myself (twice!) and helping other patients out through it the last 3 years, there are times when not only do you not get much change in the aesthetics and soft tissue, but you may end up not liking the changes at all, especially the changes with the nose.
This is an incredibly risky and difficult procedure. When it goes badly, you risk being in a really bad place if you were doing this only for aesthetics. My opinion is that this surgery get reserved for only the most severe of cases. Cases where you are in so much pain, can't function, and have reached rock bottom and have nothing to lose by gambling on this surgery and it's associated risks. My advice to patients who are doing this for mostly aesthetics is to learn to love yourself first. Even if you go through with this. You need to be in a good place before proceeding, because if you are not, then that will continue even after the physical you is changed.
I think you are beautiful, but I know we are each our own worst critics and at the end of the day it matters how you feel.
By that reasoning, thinkingme and I should just continue the camouflage route. BTW thinkingme, my chin looks aligned with my lips now but it took a 12mm projection chin implant
. My pre-plastic surgery profile looks almost identical to yours.
So if I were to agree with you Lyra (because I kinda do), no one in my thread told me to avoid jaw surgery for aesthetic reasons, while everyone here is telling her to avoid it. Maybe it's my skeletal malocclusion that people agree should be fixed with bimax, but camaflouge orthodontics with little to no medical repercussions downgrades that issue back to one of simple aesthetics. I never claimed to be at rock bottom or anything of the sort, so why would people unanimously recommend I go through w/bimax?
It seems like there's a camp of people who do bimax purely for aesthetics, because they have retrognathia and can expect an improvement in profile if nothing else, and then there's everyone else that saves bimax for serious medical reasons as you described. Am I right in assuming that? I've also heard bimax is the foundation upon which you can then benefit from plastic surgery.... which to me sounds like a money pit and hell on earth to do SO much surgery and risk so much on a perfectly functional, and maybe not absolutely grotesque looking face.
But maybe I'm overly cynical and cautious because all it took was a simple chin implant to ruin my only good feature, that being my smile (lower lip paralysis).
The rhinoplasty was one step forward, 2 steps back from either loss of facial fat or osteotomies causing me to lose some mid-face support.
To the OP, I also don't see how you'd benefit from bimax. Have you gotten a ceph x-ray done or even shown us a side profile shot? I think you need to reevaluate what it is exactly you don't like about your face. Bimax is a whole other world of hurt compared to what you've experienced so far with plastic surgery. I actually prefer you without the heavy makeup, fake eyelashes etc.. you look really good in all your shots, and judging by your collar bone show you are also in reasonably good shape. Dig deep and contemplate why you need to put all you have going for you at risk with more surgery, especially the nuclear option (imo) of bimax surgery.
