Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Well, I finally decided to bite the bullet and do it after years of indecision and a traumatic experience with a previous surgery that made me put everything on hold. Just that I wasn't sure about creating a thread until boredom decided to bite me back.


So, 4 days post-op, and I can't see a single soul at the Vertical Suite. ( I decided to pass on the Rama after a previous experience with cockroaches on the cottage and uneducated tourists partying hard on the porch). It's rather weird to have surgery on holidays, but the date was partly due to some quirks with my company when taking vacations, and partly due to wanting to move on with life

To be honest, It feels easy after FFS and BA. For a long time I had been scared about the risk of surgery regret and waking up from surgery saying "I screwed. i should not have done this". A non binary agender self perception and no genital dysphoria really make things complicated. But so far, I'm doing quite ok. not feeling like I am missing anything or stuck with part of my body rearranged in a confusing new way. And hoping I keep the same good mood when I see the "reincarnated" in three days, which is what scares me the most right now.

hey, neat. I actually had my surge the day after yours! Unfortunately, I'm at the Rama Cottages so I dunno if I can really come say hi or anything.

Both of you, welcome to Susan's Place. I remember how boredom set in but consider yourself lucky. When I had my surgery, the only  thing that was on TV was the local farming channel. Combine that with not being permitted to leave the bed for 6 days, near bed sores and you have all the ingredients for a hospital escape.  I hope you get the opportunity to meet  and congratulations on your surgerys.

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Quote from: essen on December 20, 2016, 06:25:29 PM
hey, neat. I actually had my surge the day after yours! Unfortunately, I'm at the Rama Cottages so I dunno if I can really come say hi or anything.

I am kinda regretting not going to the Rama. I went with the Vertical for the added commodity of having my own washing machine and a better equipped kitchen and the fact that right now I'm not very social to talk with strangers, but damn. and save for noisy tourists, the rama is far more peaceful and noise free than the vertical suite (that food court and the karaoke bar..) I guess that once I am allowed to go down for breakfast I may meet more people. And speaking of that, breakfast options are almost identical between both of them. Still, those cockroaches and trails of ants... one important thing at the rama is to buy a lot of insecticide and put it on the window and entrance daily.

Still, one important thing I found is that the driving distance from the clinic to the vertical is much shorter than to the rama, something to take into account when making the trip back to the hotel.


So well, early post-op life. Although the good thing of this time being able to see properly (FFS) and my arms being functional (sub muscular BA) is that you can do a lot of other things on your own without needing a companion. Like holding a 3ds. I just started playing Zelda: A Link between Worlds in the meantime. Just worried about when post-op depression is going to happen. I know myself to well to know that this is something that can happen like 50/50. I'm not taking tramadol, so I really hope pain does not worsen.

The in-room washing machine sounds really nice to be honest. You may have made the best choice just based on that. I'd heard the Rama cottages were great for meeting other trans women and would make being here alone more bearable, but I haven't really met any yet. (It's hard to when you're either sleeping, starving, doing bowel prep, or barely able walk).


ugh. I'm jealous. I bought pokemon moon, Fire emblem and Luigi's Mansion especially for this trip, but then my 2ds broke (or wont charge here?) as soon as I arrived.

Quote from: essen on December 21, 2016, 02:51:17 AM
The in-room washing machine sounds really nice to be honest. You may have made the best choice just based on that. I'd heard the Rama cottages were great for meeting other trans women and would make being here alone more bearable, but I haven't really met any yet. (It's hard to when you're either sleeping, starving, doing bowel prep, or barely able walk).

Truth is, the cottages tend to vary a lot in terms of equipment. Mine was missing half the kitchen storage, no frying pan (I should have bought one) and not even the wall clock or emergency flashlight, but it had its own top loading washing machine, so I never had to go through using the public washing machine. This time I decided that I would have to clean a lot more of underwear. I have seen girls at the rama just handwashing the undies on the kitchen sink for not having to go out to do laundry. And yet, one huge plus of the rama is... safety handlebar in the shower. You are going to need that.

I could meet somebody at the Dusit Princess, though. It's at walking distance of the Vertical and I can even see it from my room. Although I will be stuck in the hotel at least until the catheter comes out.

Well, In fact I think I came overloaded with stuff in case plan A failed. The 3ds, the laptop with WoW, Owlboy and my steam library, Kindle, an hdd full of series.... And even a japanese course. Although I have to say, wifi at the vertical is just a bit a lot better than the rama, so it's better to have a backup plan. You won't be able to always rely on Netflix / Prime Video

Tomorrow the packing is coming out, and tbh I'm more thrilled about resuming normal diet and being able to poop something other than liquids than dilating / seeing it.


charger or DS broke? 3DS chargers don't seem to be power switching, so if you came from the US or another 110W country it may have blown. Here they use 220W, so these things can be a bit tricky. And I haven't seen a single video game store in the whole Seacon Square.

Yeah, I can definitely relate to the food thing. I've spent the last week salivating over all the pizza and chips I'm going to eat after my packing is removed friday. The new part thing is definitely secondary to that. I'm happy that you get to start eating the good stuff soon, though! hope the results are everything you want them to be.

Oh I see, that might have done the trick. I dont know anything about electricity, so I figured itd be fine when all of my other plugs seemed to work ok here. Should have stolen my girlfriend's 3ds usb charger. It's cool though, I've no shortage of books and podcasts to catch up on. And netflix seems to work well enough.

essen, life gets a lot better once the packing is out and you can move around much easier.  You just have the dilating to do then. Good luck to you.

Packing is out. Quite painful, but actually constipation pain. They probably hit the accumulated heavy stool on my colon.

Things were quite nasty. I have a real problem with people touching me specially down there, and I also seem to be ticklish as heck. Dilation? Weird. more like putting a cilinder inside a wound. As for the aesthetics.. I'd say it's on the "Give it time" category, which is what I was expecting. Like a black hole sucking the skin or a Nurgle abomination without teeth. The innards looked meaty, though. Which I guess it's good.

Depth? 6". Not espectacular, but it's not like I could influence this. It's much better than I was promised with the old penile inversion, so I guess it's ok. A bit diappointed about not hitting 6.5-7, but it's better than the alternative. Just to be diligent as heck with dilation because I don't want the mark to go down.

First dilation actually happened... and absolutely not fun. It was scary to see how much it had shrunk in 24 hours of removing the packing and doing the demonstration. Which I suppose serves as a cautionary warning of what happens if you don't dilate, and nurses count on this to happen so that you learn an important lesson.


One thing I need to mention is that "Chettawut's day off" is still in effect. There's one day of the week when nurses don't visit, and if it happens in a crucial moment, you are on your own. With FFS I was left unattended the day after  surgery, with a bottle of stuff and q-tips to clean my own sutures. With SRS, I have to do my second dilation on my own and unsupervised, despite the paperwork I received stating that the nurse would tell you when you were ready to do it on your own unsupervised.

Well, I better remember all of it tomorrow, because damn. Apparently a switch in posture needs to be done for the dilator to reach full depth. Then... wait. I better get my kindle near by. I'm going to need "one hand entertainment", which after SRS takes a whole new meaning (pun intended).

Quote from: apsharas on December 23, 2016, 05:35:01 AM
One thing I need to mention is that "Chettawut's day off" is still in effect. There's one day of the week when nurses don't visit, and if it happens in a crucial moment, you are on your own.

You can still contact them if you have a problem I hope?

Quote from: AnonyMs on December 23, 2016, 05:42:03 AM
You can still contact them if you have a problem I hope?

You can still call the clinic. But from what I have read, the process of making calls from the Vertical Suite is more complicated than the Rama. I heavily recomend buying a prepaid sim card for emergency calls (what I did not do because I'm paranoid about having to hand my passport to buy one(thing are complicated after the coup). It will also be useful for using services that require a phone number for verification, such as ordering froom Food Panda or doing an online grocery shopping at tesco lotus. Of course, none of this applies if you bring a companion.

I was in the same position as you on the first day after the demo. I wasn't expecting to have to go solo the very next day.  Just take it slow.  Lots of lube too. I was very tight and was only able to squeeze the No: 0 in (a wrapped candle at the time).  Regarding the change in direction once you start, I seem to recall Chet says to start at 45 degree angle then flatten out and point it towards the base of your spine...sorta ... Or something!  You will be fine! I didn't need to switch posture so much but I wasn't positioned correctly as I was lifting my knees up too high which stresses the sutured areas a bit much.  Sri fixed that when she observed me a few days later.  When she visits next, ask her to observe you dilating just to check that you are doing it right.  That was the only time she actually watched me dilate.  Her visits were very fast and were a bit random timing wise.

Have a nice Christmas Day tomorrow. Last Christmas, I was still in Chet's clinic. The only Christmas I have spent without seeing daylight! 

Love Emma




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Quote from: EmmaD on December 23, 2016, 11:45:47 AM
Have a nice Christmas Day tomorrow. Last Christmas, I was still in Chet's clinic. The only Christmas I have spent without seeing daylight! 

Thanks.

More or less I'm getting the hang of this. At three times per day, first dilation is the worst and the next ones get easier. The bad news is that despite being a week here already, I am still not allowed to go down to the breakfast until the catether is out, the nurse says. I told her I had seen something donw there with the urine bag, but they toldme something I could not get well. Maybe they don't like it at the hotel or somebody had a leak.  The receptionist freaked out a bit when she saw the tip of it coming from under my dress (I had to go down since I needed to split the payment due to credit card limits). But at least they changed my breakfast to "american", so I should be getting solid food and meat instead of onion soup. I just hope they keep sending fresh fruit, I don't want to end malnourished and I am running out of my stash of apples.

Life keeps going on. The swelling has started to go down, and my diarrhea is starting to be under control. I am not taking painkillers and although I get pain from time to time, I save the ones I have left for a bad night. Just that I want to get the F out of here and go to starbucks, have some japanese food... instead of cooking basic stuff when i feel like it and most of the time doing a diet of canned food.

First time feeling bad pain and having to take a painkiller. Then feeling pretty sick the next morning. In the end I disconnected the phone. No mood for answering when you are going through crap. i had to go straight for bed and crank up the AC before being able to get up and go down for breakfast. As a reminder, I can't take tramadol, so I have to deal with pain with just paracetamol, which I am running out of.

No catheter. On the second dilator (#01)

Quote from: apsharas on December 31, 2016, 12:17:16 AM
As a reminder, I can't take tramadol, so I have to deal with pain with just paracetamol, which I am running out of.

I've read somewhere another women saying she got morphine sulfate from Chett, and I expect that's stronger than Tramadol. Perhaps you can get Idarac as well (which Suporn prescribes), as it may work better than paracetamol.

I will talk with the nurse tomorrow to see what they can give me, and inform them that pain is making a comeback. I'm also having what probably is menopause like symptoms, like nausea in the mornings, after two weeks without any kind of sex hormones. I've been off HRT for a month already, but T helped staying functional.

Again, I don't know about Chett, but I've read Suporn lets most women go back on HRT after they get out of hospital (about a week post-op).

Quote from: AnonyMs on December 31, 2016, 01:19:00 AM
Again, I don't know about Chett, but I've read Suporn lets most women go back on HRT after they get out of hospital (about a week post-op).

I know, but I was stupid enough to play by the rules and do what the surgeon asked me. Not bringing any HRT to prevent blood clots on the plane back home.

Quote from: apsharas on December 31, 2016, 01:43:04 AM
I know, but I was stupid enough to play by the rules and do what the surgeon asked me. Not bringing any HRT to prevent blood clots on the plane back home.

Perhaps you could try asking if they can provide it?

Freely available there just send someone to the local pharmacy

Quote from: AnonyMs on December 31, 2016, 01:58:33 AM
Perhaps you could try asking if they can provide it?

They are pretty adamant on no HRT. Chett is paranoid about safety. No HRT for risks of clotting, no heavy pankillers for risk of serotonin syndrome (in my personal case due to a med combination). I suppose they were ok since I never complained of pain, but tomorrow I will tell them. In any case, I was supposed to have a baseline bloodtest after going back home before starting HRT again.

I will see if there's a pharmacy inside seacon square.

Close to two months post-op...

Things are looking better. Swelling is slowly coming down, I can walk for longer periods and I am a bit less dependant on the donut pillow. Dilation was only delayed by two days due to the plane trip and having to recover the diameter.

In the end no depth was lost during the plane trip (managed to keep the time without dilating to 20 hours), and I even have a bit more than the official measurement. I'm on dilator #3 (29 mm) and I have ordered the soul source ones for 35 and 38 mm, in case I want to get closed to what it would take for standard penises / strap-ons).

After so much, it looks none of the perineum hair ended between the labia majora and the entrance. I just have one hair and the point where the labias touch the perineum that it's almost outside and should be easy to zap.

And damn, I can't wait to start doing cardio again. Once the swelling is down and I can ride a bike, it's spinning time. Overal post-op life is pretty annoying until month 3. Too much dilation, too tired, can't get too far away from home and I need to be always calculating to fit the dilation, and not do it very late or I risk falling asleep.

Things had to start getting weird sooner or later...

I'm 12 days away from the 3 months mark, and on saturday I began using the final and biggest dilator. Painful the first time, no issues during the following dilations, so it was pretty much the same as with #2 and #3.

On monday I found bright red blood on the liner, maybe a 1x2cm patch. i had dilated at 6:00 AM and found it much later when I arrived home. I wondered if maybe I had not put enough lube, or I had hurt myself from sneezing with the big one it. I kept carefully checking the liners, but nothing else happened... Until yesterday on thursday.

Having Dilated at 6:00AM, When I got home at 16:00 and peed, the toilet paper came with blood diluted in the urine. It also happened during a second pee, then stopped. I began looking inside to find if there was blood, unsure about if it was coming from the vagina or the urethra, and found tat the urethra was all red, looking a bare muscle and almost looking bulging if I made a "poop effort". I started getting scared about wheter it had torn or something, took some pictures and sent them to Chett to see if this is supposed to look normal.

I began dilating fairly late at 17:30, and after that I found the same blood again after peeing, although less. I decided to skip the bedtime dilation to give it time to heal. After the next morning dilation, blood again. Maybe I should have checked with the paper before peeing, to know where this is coming from.

So I'm not sure if I am hurting myself in some way with the biggest dilator, I have torn something inside, or I have hit my bladder from inside. I usually don't check a lot since I go straight from the toilet to the bidet, so who knows for how long this has been happening. Today I will go to the hospital, since it will be a long time until I can get an appointment with the gynecologist through my GP. Right now I am paranoid checking if it is bleeding again. I can understand blood after dilating, but not that time when it happened 10 hours after dilating...

At 3 months it's time to have your bottom examined. It's very likely you have some proud flesh/granulation as the result the surgery that needs to be treated. That type of tissues injures easily so stepping up a dilator size could be enough to disturb it. This is a pretty normal issues and most of use have it to some degree. Some heal enough that it's not a problem but others like me need several treatment to get it cleaned up. As long as it's only a small spot, it's not a huge problem but it still needs to be checked out.

Treatment involves using silver nitrate stick to treat the problem area. This is done in the office and takes a few minutes every few weeks until you are cleared.

I ended going to the hospital today. They sent the local SRS surgeon to check. Apparently I have a 7-10mm tear at the entrance. I will have to go down a size (back to #3) for a few weeks until it heals properly. And to see if Chettawut can advice something.

Talk to Chettawut ASAP. I was treated for granulation yesterday and afterward asked my surgeon how I should adjust my dilation schedule while healing. I was told not to adjust my dilation's, continue on as scheduled. She said the skin will contract while it heals and you do not want that to happen. I may need additional treatments but I am to continue normal dilation.

I don't know if this applies to a tear or not, but it makes sense that you don't want the skin to contract, it will probably just tear again.

I would just stop with the #4 and keep it in 29 mm width. 4 was not fitting well at all since I began with it in saturday. and was still slightly painful. I should stay on the safe #3 for now. I'm not going to get that thing again. and cause more bleeding.


They say it's nothing serious and everything is healing ok. The bleeding is pretty minor and it should heal on its own if I don't try to stretch it more than it is now. I have sent an updated email to chett, but he may take his time to answer.

Well, this is trickier than I thought.

By saturday I had it controlled, then on sunday morning the wound reopened. I'm having to be extra careful, finger lube everything inside before inserting the dilator, and doing it extra slow. I also cut my fingernails for added safety.

10 days left to cutting dilation to two sessions, although reducing dilation is risky right now. The more it contracts, the higher the risk of reopening the wound while stretching everything again. There is a difference between dilating every 6 hours and every 12.

Chettawut answered... Same thing as the other surgeon. Take it easy, get a break on #3 and lots of lube. He just wanted to know if I had been prescribed an antiseptic in particular.

No bleeding has happened again, although constipation made dilation miserable. Today I decided to go again with #4, and it was surprisingly easy and almost painless. I have seen other people having issues with #4 here, even other girls that were with me in Thailand and I still keep in contact with. This the advice I can recommend to others:

- Don't start with a new dilator in the morning. It will be too tight and it will be painful. It's better to leave it for the evening, 6 hours after the first dilation.

- The day you start a new dilator, do it on a weekend and switch back to three sessions. With less time for your neovagina to close it, it will make things much easier until your body gets used to it

- Relax, relax, relax. What I have found is that the initial ring of muscle is the hardest part of a new dilator. The way I managed to do it was to get the tip pressing against my vagina, and have my hand closer to holding it than doing pressure. I closed my eyes, and I started breathing deep and slow. Little by little, it began to open and enter effortlessly.

- If there's anything that can startle you (like living in a noisy place), consider using earplugs, noise masking (like a marpac dohm) or active noise cancelling headphones. Any interruption can surprise and make you tighten.



Ok, some more general advice from my experience:

- Don't dilate too late. When I started getting too sleepy, I tend to suddenly wake up with a spasm. Pretty painful when you have a dilator in.

- Have water with you. The last thing you want is a cough when dilating

- Make sure you empty both your bladder and rectum before dilating. Nothing worse than peeing yourself while you still have to be in bed for 15 minutes, or a bowel movement moving the dilator (or making it extra painful)

- Consider switching to a high fiber diet: Hard stool is not good during dilation, and can make things very painful due to the shared space between vagina and rectum. I had constipation recently and it was hell.

- Comedies aren't a good idea while dilating. Laughing will also hurt.

That is all I can think off for now...

This will be my last message in this thread. 3 months later, I have reached the point were dilation is less of a chore, and I can go back to work out. A gyno will have a look next week to confirm that everything is ok.


As for the final answer to "Was it worth it?":


No, it was not.


I am not going to have sex. Nor dating. My dysphoria has not changed at all. The results are pretty meh and the technology simply is not there yet. This is closer to a frankenstein monster or something straight of the Human Centipede, and completely fake. I feel like I am amputated rather than having a vagina. It's just a reshaped chopped penis, it will always be. I also lost all libido, sensation and ability to orgasm. Nothing in my life has really improved, I just lost quality of life and added more health issues and concern. There's no point to having SRS if you are not going to have sex and your genital dysphoria is mild. I would have probably been better with an orchiectomy and spent the money in something more useful, instead of 3 months of hell just for nothing. Benefits from SRS that actually apply to me do not outweigh all the negatives.


Well, the only way I can take things now is "Deal with it". Meh. If anybody is going to ask, there will be more therapy for my mental well being. But this is the end of the story.