John M. Hilinski, M.D., a facial plastic surgeon in San Diego, Calif., says that while rhinoplasty is a reasonable request for a teen who has a large or misshapen nose, it’s not for the teen that wants to hide his or her ethnicity, or for someone who wants to change the way they look, drastically.
“I’m not that kind of guy to take somebody’s nose and make it mismatched on their face,” he says.
And some teens need to wait to have surgery, simply because they’re still growing, Dr. Hilinski says.
“You shouldn’t operate on a male nose at around 14 or 15 [years]. Usually, with males you should wait until they’re at least 17, or when the last shoe size change was a good year ago. Females, we’ll operate as young as 16 years,” Dr. Hilinski says.
