Dr. Toriumi Evaluates Your Skin

Patients with Thin Skin

If you have thin skin, your case requires the highest level of attention as you are at risk for visible or palpable irregularities.

Dr. Toriumi may recommend keeping your nose on the small side with a lower dorsum. Your nose can be made smaller as your skin is more likely to contract and accommodate the underlying nasal framework.

Patients with medium thickness skin are ideal as their skin will contract to some extent but will camouflage the underlying cartilage and bone better than thin skin.

Patients with Thick Skin

If you have thick skin, Dr. Toriumi may recommend keeping your nose slightly larger (higher bridge and increased tip projection). Your nose will always look narrower and more defined when it's more projected.

To avoid problems with skin redraping or formation of a polly-beak deformity (when the tip droops below the bridge) Dr. Toriumi recommends keeping your nose larger on lateral view. This allows for expansion and a better frontal view formation. 

A Patient Example with Thin Skin

This patient suffered from nasal obstruction and nasal deformity. She had a crooked nose and over-projected nasal tip.

Special care was taken to straighten her septal deviation to correct her airway obstruction. Her nasal tip was de-projected (brought closer to her face) and her dorsum was reduced. She also had a small radix graft placed to raise her radix (the root of the nose, between her eyes). Her thin skin redraped well leaving her with a good improvement in nasal contour.

The photographs demonstrate a one year postoperative outcome.