Nose LINE ON

Your nose is already fine and surgery feels like too much, or you’re worried about surgery, the recovery time, the cost or the side effects.

In photos, you wish your bridge were a little higher or your tip a little more defined, and you’d like a subtle refinement rather than a big change.

If your nose needs to be made smaller, or the shape you want is very different from your current shape, we recommend surgery instead.

We also don’t recommend it if you’ve had nose surgery before, or if the skin of your nose is very thick or tight and doesn’t stretch easily.

We examine your nose and stretch the skin to see how far it gives, then talk through the shape you’d like and what’s realistic. The treatment takes 5–10 minutes. You can choose between local anesthesia and IV sedation.

We use at least 4 and up to 6 LSCO threads. Two are placed to the depth of the third marker on the cannula to lift the lower cartilage of the nose. Two more fill and support the nasal tip directly with their folded L-shaped ends. Filler is added only if needed, and only a small amount (no more than 0.5 mL). Depending on the shape of your nose, we adjust the marker depth to either increase the angle between the nose and upper lip (the nasolabial angle) or fill only the tip.

Right after treatment, your nose is a little more swollen from the anesthetic and the immediate effect, and it looks its fullest. A small protective dressing (DuoDERM) stays on the tip for 3–4 days.

Early on, before the threads settle, they can shift. Please avoid expressions that move the nose, such as scrunching it, for 1–2 weeks. You can return to daily activities the same day. Please avoid alcohol for about a week.

If the look right after treatment is 100%, it settles to about 80% over 2–4 weeks and about 60% over 3–6 months. This result usually lasts 6–12 months, and longer for some people.

We recommend waiting at least 6 months before repeating the treatment. If you’d like a small correction before then, a touch-up is possible (charged separately).

A common misconception is that nose threads never dissolve. Threads dissolve more slowly in the nose than in many other parts of the face, and when a nose is opened during surgery, thread is sometimes still there. If you like the shape the remaining thread gives, that means the result lasts longer. If you want it completely gone, it may need to be surgically located and removed.

You may hear both that nose threads last more than a year and that they last less than a month. That’s because older nose threads worked differently on the bridge and the tip. On the bridge, the thread fills space and makes the bridge look higher, so the effect lasts. On the tip, older threads lifted the cartilage to hold it up, which usually didn’t last long.

LSCO is designed so that its folded L-shaped end fills the nasal tip. This means the tip, too, can hold its shape longer. It is an absorbable PDO (polydioxanone) thread. Because it is a solid, not a gel like filler, it doesn’t spread, and it breaks down gradually over time.