Mr Bellringer (UK)

[StartingOver]

I'm strongly considering going to Mr Bellringer for my surgery, and was interested to find out whether there's anyone here who has recently undergone surgery with him at Parkside as a private patient.  How was the experience?  Pretty good?  Less of a production line than his NHS work at CHX?  A nice hospital?

The more I look into things, the less I see the logic behind jetting off to Thailand for a month of surgery and recovery when there's an affordable and competent option right here on my doorstep.  But the Thai surgeons do seem to be far ahead of the techniques in Europe, or is that a bit of a myth?  (A good result from penile inversion would be fine for me).

Anyone got any thoughts on this?  I'd be very interested to hear the decision-making process you went through in working out whether to stay local or fly to far off places.  The monetary cost is about the same, but staying local would be less stressful and easier on the body.

(As an aside, has anyone here got any current info about the mess that is SRS under the NHS?  Has Tina Rashid got up and running yet and started to make a dent in the waitlists, and if so what are her results like?  Or is NHS-funded surgery anytime in the next few years still highly unlikely?)

[Cindy]

I cannot comment on the UK issues but I decided to go to an Australian surgeon (I'm in Australia) rather than travelling overseas for much the same reasons that you state.

I am honestly uncertain of the benefits of particular surgeons. Most comments come of course from girls who had their surgery with a particular surgeon and unless it was a catastrophe (which we rarely hear about) most girls will say their surgeon was the best.

That said I am aware of girls who have had 'failure' from all of the well known surgeons. It is after all a procedure that can have variable results, and of course an individual's dedication to maintenance can lead to unsatisfactory outcomes that is not the fault of the surgeon.

[StartingOver]

Thanks Cindy.  Glad to hear that I'm not alone.  While I'd like to make sure I'm not short-changing myself by staying local, I'm older than many here and really don't need the latest and greatest in vagina technology.  A functional, presentable end result is all that I need, not something that can withstand gargantuan guys and decades of stealth sex.  It's primarily for me and my own peace of mind, not for showing off to all and sundry.

First stop then - consult with the local crew.  If I'm not comfortable with what they can offer and what the bottom line is, then I'll look further afield. 

(Not sure why I asked the question in the first place given than I went local with my FFS and had great results, despite the common advice being to start with the "top" names in FFS...I imagine I can apply the same thought process to my choice of SRS surgeon and eschew the tendency to start by looking at Suporn and Bowers instead of the more practical options closer to home.)

It's a way off yet, but time to start planning.  Although the prospect of a month convalescing in Thailand sounds enticing from a "free vacation!!!" perspective, it's just too adventurous for me.  Although if that ends up being my only practical option, then Thailand it is.  Pragmatic me is adamant that a week in a comfy hospital near London followed by a short trip home and friendly faces to help out is probably the key to a successful outcome.

[emma5410]

I am in the UK and decided to go private. I was planning on going to Dr Bellringer. I did a lot of research and decided I would not do it in the UK. That was my personal decision. A lot of people have had surgery here and are very happy. I went to Thailand and had my surgery in February with Dr. Sangan Kunaporn. The hospital was very modern and the doctors and nurses were superb. I have had no complications or problems and everything went very smoothly. I met two other people when I was there and they are both doing great as well.I have just had my first orgasm so the new equipment seems to be working.
It is a long way away and you have to be there for at least three weeks. When you add in flights and hotels it is not much cheaper than doing it the UK.

There is good and bad news about the surgery situation in the UK. Tina Rashid is operating solo now. I have not heard of anyone who has had the op with her though.  They also seem to have started referring NHS patients to Dr Bellringer's private practice again so that will help the waiting list.
The bad news is that the waiting lists are very long and the last I saw they were still not keeping pace with new additions to it. I think it is still 18 months to two years from referral and the list is growing. Of course, you also need two referrals that will take at least two appointments with a GIC. Not sure if they accept private referrals in the NHS.

I should point out that Dr Sanguan does the op in two stages separated by a week. Other Thai surgeons do it a single op. I found that being in an hotel for a few weeks was good because I did not have to worry about cooking or cleaning.
Some of the Thai surgeons will have a nurse visit you every day while you are in Thailand. Dr Sanguan did not do that but I had a check up a week later and could have returned to the hospital while I was there if I needed to.

[StartingOver]

Thanks Emma.  Really useful info and I appreciate you sharing.  Do you mind me asking whether the decision to go Thai instead of UK was cost-based, technique, or something altogether different?

One of my concerns in seeking surgery further afield is that all pre-surgery consultations would have to be done via email?  How did you cope with getting comfortable with the idea that you were paying for surgery, flights, hotels and so forth without ever actually meeting the guy who would perform the surgery?  I assume that the information exchanged was more than enough to convince you that the team was competent?  (But I guess that any one of the name-brand surgeons worldwide clearly offers a great service - if not, we'd know about it.)

[Rejennyrated]

I had a long and detailed reply to this typed when the site crashed and I lost it. 

What it boiled down to is this.

1. I know Mr Bellringer, both as a surgical colleague, and because he did a minor cosmetic update to my own sugery (which was done in about 1985 probably while he was at medical school! In my opinion he is a good surgeon. He did excellent work for me, and on the girl I adopted as a kind of foster mum.
2. All surgeons have operations that didnt go so well, and others that went brilliantly, unfortunately what tenda to make people post on the internet are the problems - so dont pay too much attention to the alarmists - its best to approach a few surgeons and ask them your own questions, and then get a feel for who impresses you on a personal level. Dont underestimate your own powers of evaluation, based on personal contact.
3. SRS is a well practiced procedure, but even well practiced procedures do have complication rates. Mostly they involve very minor revisions ,but in general its not a great idea to make those minor revisions into more of crisis than they need to be by having a surgeon who is half way around the world. So my advice is stay local if you possibly can.

I know at least three people who learned the hard and expensive way that a small saving in fees will quickly be eaten away if you have to buy a couple of extra air fares to Thailand. So choose your surgeon with care and try not to let cost come into it.

So yes Bellringer is good, but then so are all the Uk surgeons - so its very much of a personal choice.

[Rejennyrated]

Oh yes - should add - as a medical student I've been present in Theatre at some of these types of procedures and trust me they are done with great care... so have no doubts whoever you go to will look after you to the best of their ability.

[emma5410]

My decision was based on a lot of online research. As I said in my original post I am sure there are a lot of very happy people who have had the op done in the UK.  I do not know any UK surgeons personally so my decision was purely based on the experiences of others.
It is a good point that people are more likely to post negative opinions but they do reflect actual experiences.

As I was paying myself I was able to choose any surgeon in the world and I chose Dr Sanguan in Thailand. One of the arguments against Thailand is that if something goes wrong you have to travel back to get it fixed. That is true but Thai surgeons seem far more accessible than UK ones. They will normally carry out corrective procedures free of charge. The aftercare is also far superior than in this country. That is not just my opinion but also that of a professional involved in TS treatment.

I did not have any concerns pre-op. I trusted the surgeon based on my research. I am not sure that meeting them face to face a year or so before the surgery would have made much difference.  I had email exchanges with both the surgeon and the admin people. Dr Sangaun answers emails very quickly and the admin people are very efficient and responsive.
I have read about pre-op consultations in this country. The two main physical things seem to be how much depth the surgeon can achieve and whether hair removal is required.
The main surgeons in Thailand generally achieve greater depth than they do in the UK. They also do not want you to have genital electrolysis. They remove all the hair themselves as part of the operation.

I was met on my arrival in Thailand and driven to my hotel.  On the day of my admission I was collected from my hotel and taken to the hospital in Phuket. It was very modern and I had a private room. The nurses and staff were very professional and I was really taken care of during my stay. On the day you are admitted they do an ECG, chest x-ray and a comprehensive blood test.  I had a consultation with the surgeon as well. We had already discussed depth. If there had not been enough material to give me the required depth he would have done an additional skin graft. To be honest things had shrunk considerably down there and I expected that I would need the skin graft but he managed to achieve the required depth without one. In fact my depth is actually greater than agreed.
They take care of all transport to and from your hotel and also back to the airport when you are going home.

I can only speak for myself and say that I was not comfortable with having the operation here. I am very happy I chose Dr Sanguan. I am by no means the only person that chooses Thailand. People go there from all around the world. It was about 3000 cheaper than having it done here but I flew business class and stayed in a four star hotel for greater comfort so it worked out about the same.

I am not saying that you will not be happy with what is done in the UK. It is very likely that you will but I would also not have any worries about going to Thailand. People always throw in that UK surgeons have to fix issues from Thai surgeons. UK surgeons seem to spend a lot more time fixing their own issues although they seem reluctant to concede they are ever at fault. It seems to take a lot of badgering to get them to do a fix. Imperial College, who are the body responsible for providing the surgery to the NHS, have an allowance in next year's budget for corrective surgery.

[Rejennyrated]

Yes well I very carefully did not make any comment about UK surgeons fixing Thai work because that would be unprofessional of me and indeed there is no evidence that I am aware of to support that claim. My point is only that in choosing a surgeon the op should weigh it all up as you did and make her decision based on her personal confidence and ease of mind with the surgeon she chooses. My only point is that it should not be an automatic choir one way or the other and it certainly should not be based solely on cost.

As for depth well I can only speak for myself and my surgery was done over 30 years ago in the UK but I've never seen anyone including the best Thai results who can beat me on that. So that can be just as much about your own anatomy as it is about surgeon choice. Likewise the old chestnut of genital electrolysis - Mr bell ringer does not routinely ask that of his patients - like I said, best to do  your research based on direct contact and not rely overly on second or third hand info (including me).

[StartingOver]

All good info girls - thx!

The whole long distance travel thing is what's worrying me.  But Thai has some real nice prices on business class from BKK to LHR - like reeeal nice - and it's a direct flight that's only a few more hours than Philly and about the same length of time as Montreal (which generally requires a stopover).  California is as far away as Bangkok from London.  With a lay-flat seat in business on a nice new A380, the trip from Bangkok is certainly doable.

There's also issues of technique that I'm interested in exploring.  The old penile inversion might be tried and trusted, but I'm certain that it's not the latest and greatest that surgeons can offer.  The Thais really seem to have thrown themselves at the problem of mastering SRS, leaving the west behind.  Then again, as long as it looks like a vagina and functions as a vagina, I'm not sure I really care that much. 

All questions for Bellringer that I need to ask.

But one question I do have: NHS post-surgery care seems to be, well, primitive.  Non-private rooms, disgusting food, all very 1950s.  When going private with someone like Bellringer, do you get a higher quality of service all round?  I don't really like the idea of paying five figures for NHS-level care.

[Jenna Marie]

I chose to go with a "local" option who was technically out of the country (I live in the US and went to Canada), but was only about a 5-hour drive from me. I did find the relative nearness of the surgeon to be a comfort in the immediately post-op period, and I have to admit that even the 250-mile trip home was a bit of a stretch right after surgery.

I also had penile inversion and got excellent results - adequate depth, self-lubricating, orgasmic, and the aesthetics are good enough that I've had someone with a speculum assume I was cis - so I'm personally of the opinion that the difference between "excellent" and "superlative" is fairly minor. But again, that depends on priorities; for someone who wants depth well beyond the average cis woman, the Thai surgeons do seem to be more likely to manage it.

[StartingOver]

the aesthetics are good enough that I've had someone with a speculum assume I was cis

Someone from the medical field, I hope, rather than just a random pervert with an unusual fetish?

Great to hear that everything worked out well for you - the case for modern penile inversion is growing with each positive report I'm hearing.  Brassard was one of my top choices until the issues with travel started to get involved and make the endeavor something rather more expensive than I had originally planned for; I'm paying for both me and two others to travel with me, and even if they sit at the back of the plane there and back and I sit/lie in business on the way back, it's crazy expensive.  London to Montreal is a surprisingly difficult trip to make direct, and there's no airlines that can do a good business class return at anything even approaching a sensible price.  Not sure why Thai can manage it.  With local surgery, at least my folks and friends can be with me for as long as they need to, and can travel back and forth if they don't want to stay, and I can have follow-up appointments with the doc as and when needed.

I have no desire to engage in any kind of sexual activity that would necessitate superhuman depth - no boyfriend packing an honest 8" for me - and penile inversion certainly is capable of producing the aesthetics that I like from what I've seen (which is a neat, small outer appearance, not one of those very elongated versions that I'm not actually very fond of - too much information?)  Provided there's a strong chance that I'll be able to fit into normal girl's clothes, urinate properly, orgasm, and once in a while use it for getting railed (in that order), locally-performed penile inversion is the logical choice.

[Jenna Marie]

Ha! Yes, it was a gynecologist. Short version is my new insurance demanded proof that I needed HRT as an under-40 woman, so I went to a gyno for a quick exam to document why. I assumed she knew, since my GP set up the referral and all. Instead, I got a copy of her letter to the insurance company stating that I was "a woman who had had a complete hysterectomy including removal of the cervix"! (And she would not have tried to spare my feelings there; lying in such a capacity could have threatened her career.) So I had to call back and tell her I was trans, and she was shocked and almost seemed like she wanted to argue, though  maybe she was embarrassed that she couldn't spot it. This was a gyno who'd been in practice for decades, so I assume she knew her stuff...

I wasn't pushing Brassard for you personally, but I am confident that any experienced PI surgeon can consistently offer similar results.   Also, yes, the penile inversion method does seem to produce smaller, neater-looking inner labia, so I definitely recommend it for anyone who likes that look (and against it for anyone who likes the big labia, obviously). Going purely from pictures, the outer labia often seem a bit more anatomically accurate in PI vs. the Thai method, as well - they, um, angle inward towards each other more.

[emma5410]

I think Brassard would be an excellent choice as well. I am not sure how much difference the technique makes. The Thai surgeons  seem to provide more depth generally.  People also claim that their results are aesthetically better but I do not know if that is true or not. It may be significant that the main Thai surgeons all seem to be plastic surgeons and, I believe, that the UK surgeons are urologists.

Dr Bellringer does require you to have genital electrolysis if he will need to use scrotal tissue but his website says that this is not usually required.

I would definitely recommend business class. The journey home was very comfortable because I could lie down. Not to mention going through check in and security faster then economy. I should point out that I do not normally travel business class but it was worth doing.

I did not choose Thailand based on cost. The operation was cheaper but I assume that had more to do with the pay rate and cost of living in Thailand. The facilities were excellent and the staff were very professional. I felt I was in very safe hands. Medical tourism is big business to Thailand. I read that over 2.5 million people travelled to Thailand for medical treatment last year from all over the world. The Thai people are very friendly with smiles that just melt you. I fell in love with the place and plan to go back for an holiday.

I am sure going private in the UK is much better than the NHS in terms of room, food etc. Dr Bellringer works at a private hospital as does Dr. Thomas.

I would highly recommend Dr Sanguan but at the end of the day as long as you choose one of the main surgeons then you will probably be okay wherever you go. I think it is very important that you choose a surgeon you are happy with wherever in the world they are.

[Deniz]

(Not sure why I asked the question in the first place given than I went local with my FFS and had great results, despite the common advice being to start with the "top" names in FFS...I imagine I can apply the same thought process to my choice of SRS surgeon and eschew the tendency to start by looking at Suporn and Bowers instead of the more practical options closer to home.)

Hi StartingOver

Who did you have FFS with?