Does a Nose Job Change Your Voice?
Dr. Hootan Zandifar, MD FACS, is a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the ZandifarMD in Beverly Hills, CA. A native of Los Angeles, he received his medical degree from the prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He completed his residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and was then accepted... more
Singers and professional voice users who suffer from nasal congestion or want to change the cosmetic appearance of their nose are usually faced with a dilemma. They are often told that have a nasal surgery can change your voice. But is that true? The answer as usual "It Depends". First, lets understand how you nose and nasal cavity can affect your voice.
The nasal cavity is typically a major source of resonance in singers and professional voice users. Often times, singers who have a deviated septum or enlarged nasal turbinates will feel as if there is a blockage in the back of their nose and they are not able to hit the higher registers of their voice. For these patients, nasal surgery will actually improve the quality of their voice. This is similarly true for patients undergoing sinus surgery. But what about patients who want to have a cosmetic rhinoplasty or a nose job.
In these patients if the nose job is done properly, there should be no change in the quality of the voice. A proper nose job should take into account the patients' breathing and should ensure that the internal nasal structures that play a role in breathing and resonance are not disturbed. For this reason, if a rhinoplasty is done appropriately there should be no change in a person's voice.
For a singer, the most important factor to the decision and determination to have nasal surgery should be based on the need for the surgery and also the evaluation of the vocal fold. For this reason, we partner with a professional voice doctor (Laryngologist) prior and after all nasal surgeries for our professional voice users. We rely on their expertise and recommendations in order to ensure that our patient's livelihood is protected and that we get results that are functionally and cosmetically perfect.
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