Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hi

Do weight affect the healing process and the cosmetic outcomes of GCS

What if the person is 40+ pounds overweight her idea weight does it affect her surgery ?

My friend having her surgery soon and she is overweight and she is worried that it will affect her surgery cosmetics outcomes

Her BMI is in acceptable levels for her surgery

I'm not sure anyone can accurately answer that question without knowing the person involved. There are too many variables that can impact that the situation. Being overweight is subjective. If her BMI is acceptable for surgery than she can't be that overweight. Then there's the question of where the weight is she's concerned about and the state of fat redistribution she's had since starting HRT. When you toss in the different surgery techniques and the person's midsection proportions it's a difficult call. Typically the GCS site itself is below and between significant fat distribution locations (belly. thighs) but there is a quite a bit of tension applied during the inversion process and you feel it afterward. 

The easy answer would be, Yes, of course, it does, just like losing 30 lbs will impact your FFS results. A better approach would be making sure she fully understand the mechanics of the surgeon's technique and how her body proportions may adjust to any weight loss in that area. It's critical that we, as patients, understand the details, risk, and potential impact of the surgeries we put ourselves through. Otherwise, we set ourselves up to becoming slaves to more corrective procedures and financial drain.

I read somewhere that fat has less blood flow than other tissue, and is more likely to lead to necrosis. Necrosis is bad.

There is a strong consensus that obesity worsens prognosis following surgery.

Quote...a higher BMI is correlated with increased infection rates in trauma patients [55]. Compared with nonobese surgical patients, obese patients have an increased incidence of surgical complications, including atelectasis, thrombophlebitis, mortality, wound infection, and wound separation [3, 10, 19, 30–32, 34–39, 47, 48, 56–62]. Clearly, there is strong evidence indicating the association between obesity and poorer surgical outcomes, especially in relation to wound healing. However, the mechanisms responsible for these outcomes are not well known nor understood.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950544/

I don't think there is literature suggesting someone with a BMI between 25 and 30 necessarily has worse outcomes. So I wouldn't be too worried.

It didn't affect my results, but I was very fit and healthy. I am unconvinced that obesity is necessarily the risk factor per se ("the mechanisms responsible for these outcomes are not well known nor understood" is more or less what I would say as well); it seems more likely that there is an underlying issue for both obesity and poor outcomes, such as fitness level. In fact, my GP said my pre-surgical test results showed that I was healthier than many skinny people he sees, and he wrote a letter stating that I was an excellent candidate for surgery.

Brassard does not have an explicit weight limit, nor is BMI a very good measure of obesity, so he was fine with the fact that I was significantly overweight but in great shape. Brassard also assured me that he could easily take weight into account the way he did swelling when it came to designing a good cosmetic outcome, and he appears to have been correct, as my results are excellent.

But, as other people have said, it likely depends on the person and their specific body, too.

Obesity tends to slow healing and increase the risk of blood clots and breathing problems post surgery. Also, the more extra fat you carry, the more the doctor has to try and work around it and it can make it difficult to access some areas. I don't think 20 extra pounds or such is a huge problem, but I've been trying hard to keep my weight as close to "ideal" as possible and have been working out a ton in preparation for my upcoming SRS.

I used to believe that weight affected the recovery from srs. However, my foundation has now assisted over half a dozen of tg in srs and I know many others who had srs that I have been in contact and it does not seem to be the case. My hardest recovery patient with bad swelling and necrosis was a young lady who was slim and fit. None of my somewhat overweight and older srs patients have had problems. I know the Drs look at weight as a factor but I guess every person is different and of course I feel that excessive BMI is not healthy and may affect recovery.

Whilst unlikely to directly effect surgical outcome, obesity is a complication when it comes to General Anaesthesia, with a BMI of 30 or over leading to increased issues - cardiovascular issues being the most common. A surgical outcome may be effected if surgery has to be cut short or rushed due to a cardiovascular incident.

So saying that there are "no issues" with being overweight and surgery is incorrect. It does mean that your anaesthetist needs to be experienced and alert for any issues.

BMI is not the greatest measure of obesity, but it is better than some other options.

Kelly, that is a good point. I didn't have general anesthesia, so it never came up for me.

I didn't know it affect anesthesia


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My BMI was a 24 when I had GCS. Dr. McGinn requested I lose weight because fat has a poor blood supply and there would be a need for more anesthesia.


The BMI was derived just from height and eight. I have a lot of leg muzzle so it was not fully accurate.

Quote from: Rachel Lynn on April 28, 2017, 04:34:50 PM
My BMI was a 24 when I had GCS. Dr. McGinn requested I lose weight because fat has a poor blood supply and there would be a need for more anesthesia.

Are you saying she wanted you at 24 or she felt 24 was too high?

Quote from: Rachel Lynn on April 28, 2017, 04:34:50 PM
My BMI was a 24 when I had GCS. Dr. McGinn requested I lose weight because fat has a poor blood supply and there would be a need for more anesthesia.

You had to lose weight with a BMI of 24??  I need to lose six pounds to get to her stated BMI limit of 28, and she didn't even bring it up.  Although she did say, "You could really benefit from some body sculpting", lol.

~Terri

She wanted me to lose weight and I was at a BMI of 24 and I have a lot of leg muscle and some torso muscle from working out. I lost a few pounds but not much. She inspected my genital area 4 times before GCS and each time she asked me to lose a little weight.

I had very small genitals and a lot of fat in the genital area. She did a very good job on the GCS and they have taken extremely good care of me.