Surgery · Nose
The contracted nose, and the second operation that has to undo the first
Gangnam, Seoul | Board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Jonghwan Choi
KHIDI-registered for international patients · Apgujeong Rewind
Revision rhinoplasty
The short answer
Revision rhinoplasty is a second operation on a nose that has already been operated on. Rewind lists the reasons people come for one: a tip that dropped, a nose line the patient never accepted, a nose that stayed crooked, a hump or a bulbous tip that was never resolved, inflammation, an implant showing through the skin, and a contracted nose. The contracted nose is the case the clinic singles out. It describes it as inflammation arising around the implant from the first operation, after which the skin of the nose hardens, so the problem becomes functional as well as cosmetic.
Source: Rewind's Korean page on nose revision surgery. That page publishes no anaesthesia, no operating time and no recovery timetable for revision work, so none appears here.
A second operation is never the first operation repeated. It begins with scar tissue, a foreign body that has been in place for years, and soft tissue whose blood supply has already been interrupted once. That is why the question below is answered in months and why Rewind refuses to time a revision by how impatient a patient feels.
Before & After
Case photography for revision work has to show the same patient at the same angle under the same light, and Rewind has released none for this page. The frames below stay empty until it does; nothing here is a stock image or a case borrowed from another procedure.
Revision results are harder to photograph fairly than first operations, because the starting point is already a surgical nose and the change can be structural before it is visible. When cases are released, every caption will name what was removed, what was released and what was rebuilt. Individual results may vary, and scarring, asymmetry, altered sensation and prolonged swelling remain possible after any second operation.
Why noses come back
Rewind's page names eight reasons for a second operation. They fall into four groups, and the group yours belongs to decides how much of the operation is removal and how much is reconstruction.
In sequence
Rewind publishes revision as three steps, and the middle one carries the whole operation. Set out in the order they happen, with the timing decision in front of them, the sequence looks like this.
Swelling and inflammation from a first operation settle over six to twelve months, and the clinic recommends waiting until that window has passed. Operating earlier means operating on a nose whose final shape nobody has seen yet.
The first published step is the same as for a first operation: design the ratio of the nose to the face. The difference is that the drawing now has to account for what the previous surgery took away and what the scar tissue will allow.
The second step begins with removal of the implant and of tissue damaged around it. Removal is also its own listed item at Rewind, which is how a case that only needs the implant taken out can be quoted without a reconstruction attached.
The same step then releases the contracted soft tissue. This is the part that separates a revision from a repeat: until the shortened envelope is freed, any new structure placed inside it is fighting the tissue that shortened the nose in the first place.
With the envelope released, the structure is rebuilt and the bridge and tip are completed to the design. Which graft material does the rebuilding is not published on the clinic's page; its price sheet does carry donated costal cartilage as a separate line, so a cartilage framework is one of the options examination may settle on.

Why here
In a revision the diagnosis is most of the operation. What sits inside the nose, how thin the skin has become and how far the envelope has shortened cannot be read from a photograph, and the person who reads them has to be the person who then works through them.
Dr. Choi examines the nose himself and separates the shape complaint from the tissue problem. Where a contracted nose is the finding, the clinic's position is that this is the case where a second operation becomes necessary and no longer optional.
Each is priced on its own at Rewind, including removal of an implant placed at a previous operation. Because they are unbundled, a plan can stop at removal, or continue to a full rebuild, and you see which of the three you are paying for.
A revised nose is watched for longer than a first one, because the tissue it was rebuilt in has been operated on before. Follow-up stays with the operating surgeon, support runs in your own language throughout, and Rewind holds KHIDI registration for international patients.
In the operating room

Fig. 04 — The operating room during surgery, Richro Building, Apgujeong

Fig. 05 — A consultation room, where the revision plan is drawn
Rewind is a single-surgeon practice on two floors of the Richro Building in Apgujeong, working by appointment only, with consultation hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday until 19:00 and Saturday until 16:00. For a revision that structure matters twice: the surgeon who decides whether to operate at all is the one who will be inside the nose.
Board-certified plastic surgeon
Korean board certification in plastic surgery, ten peer-reviewed publications, and sole responsibility for every operation performed in this clinic. Rewind is a KHIDI-registered institution for international patients — Reg. M-2025-01-08-09288.
Pricing
Revision is quoted from a different column of the clinic's price sheet. Against each nose procedure Rewind lists a separate revision rate, set above the first-operation rate for the same work, and the individual steps of a rebuild are listed on their own.
List prices, VAT excluded, with the anaesthetic fee already inside each figure. A revision quote is built from the steps your examination calls for, which is why it is written out only after the nose has been looked at. Where a plan needs items with no listed rate, the clinic quotes them at consultation instead of publishing a figure it would have to revise.
Suitability
When, and what after
The timing rule is the one piece of the revision pathway Rewind publishes in numbers, and it is worth more than any recovery promise. A first nose takes six to twelve months to stabilise, and both the shape complaint and the functional complaint are judged only after that.
A second operation carries the risks of the first and adds its own: scar tissue from the previous surgery, skin thinned by an implant that sat under it for years, a blood supply already interrupted once, and the possibility that the rebuilt structure still needs further work. Bleeding, infection, asymmetry, altered sensation, visible scarring and prolonged swelling all remain possible, outcomes cannot be promised, and they vary between individuals. Bring your operative record from the first surgery if you have one.
Every operation at Rewind is carried out by one board-certified plastic surgeon, and revision cases are where that matters most: the diagnosis, the decision to operate and the reconstruction all belong to the same pair of hands.
Rewind,
Rewind's Doctor
Dr. Jonghwan Choi Medical Director
A second operation is judged by
what it can safely undo.
A board-certified plastic surgeon with ten peer-reviewed papers indexed under his name, published across craniofacial and aesthetic surgery journals.
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Questions
Reservation
Send us what was done at your first operation and when, and we reply within one business day, in your language.
Scientific evidence
These papers cover the contracted nose and secondary surgery as a class: the capsule that forms around a nasal silicone implant, correction using conchal cartilage and dermofat, rib-cartilage frameworks with an auricular composite graft, costal cartilage after a complicated silicone rhinoplasty, and a regional review of revision for contracted noses in Asia. They report the techniques and settings of each study, they are not studies of Rewind Plastic Surgery, and they do not predict what a particular nose will do.