Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So I've been wondering is this is a good idea or not? Since the dr says he can do the brow bone reduction surgery, but would it not be a good idea if he doesn't routinely operate on transgender patients? I'd personally rather do this than travel too far or spend an outrageous amount of money on an overrated FFS surgeon!
What do you all think?

Quote from: clawdeenwolf on September 29, 2017, 08:57:45 PM
So I've been wondering is this is a good idea or not? Since the dr says he can do the brow bone reduction surgery, but would it not be a good idea if he doesn't routinely operate on transgender patients? I'd personally rather do this than travel too far or spend an outrageous amount of money on an overrated FFS surgeon!
What do you all think?

Here in my little berg, we have a very highly regarded plastic surgeon.  Celebrities fly in to have him work on them.  Obviously he is good at his job for cis folks.  He is not on my list for my FFS.  Transgender FFS, to me is a skill set that a regular plastic surgeon does not have and I am not wiling to give my face and money to an inexperienced one.
But it is worth a phone call.  Be straight up with them and see what they say.

Hi Clawdeen....

You want to always be cautious with this stuff... Have you had a set of X-rays to determine the approach to be used?... I have seen girls with a bad contour from the grinding only approach ...some have filler like hydroxy appetite added

I had a type 3 recontouring where the bone is cut out and regrafted in to re-make the contour... I had four surgical procedures ( 2 endoscopic and 2 coronal incisions with skull bone work ) to repair complications that arose afterwards with my frontal sinus not draining... The fluid and pressure would force its way out through the bone graft and it would cause reoccurring swelling in the middle of my forehead and around my eyes... It was a battle to get everything working correctly again and I am still dealing with the aftermath of having been on anti biotics long term... All this with some of the best doctors in the FFS field

Do your homework, be informed, be confident in your choice of surgeons and then move ahead!!!

Onward we go brave sister!!!!

Ashley :)

Quote from: clawdeenwolf on September 29, 2017, 08:57:45 PM
So I've been wondering is this is a good idea or not? Since the dr says he can do the brow bone reduction surgery, but would it not be a good idea if he doesn't routinely operate on transgender patients? I'd personally rather do this than travel too far or spend an outrageous amount of money on an overrated FFS surgeon!
What do you all think?

Dr. O was one of the half dozen most experienced and highly trained craniofacial surgeons in the world in 1983-1985 when he did the first FFS surgery.  10 years earlier, he had studied for a year under one of the two surgeons in France that invented and perfected craniofacial surgery in the 1960s and early 1970s

He started, and for many years, was the head of the craniofacial program at  UC San Francisco.

After he had done a few of his first FFS surgeries,  he had to stop doing them until he could figure out why they were not turning out as well as he thought they should.  So he then did a detailed anthropology study on the bone structure of male and female faces of different ethnicities and different ages.  After that, when he started doing FFS surgeries again,  he was able to consistently get the kinds of results for which he then became justifiably famous.   At the end of his career, he spent two full years as the assistant in the operating room for his successor,  who was then already an experienced (also trained in Europe) craniofacial, jaw, and plastic surgeon. 

Even if your local CF surgeon is a whiz,  he probably is not, today, as experienced nor as well trained as Dr. O was in 1985.

Do you really want your local CF surgeon to begin that same learning curve - -  from scratch,  with you being  "Patient Zero" ?

PS .   If you have not read Dr. O's book on FFS,  you might try a Kindle download and give it a careful read.

Dr O was one of my surgeons! and yes!! I also recommend his book... I had read the whole thing before my consult

Onward!!!

Ashley :)

If your doctor has some training in FFS he can most likely do it as a cranio facial surgeon. In case he is a maxillo- facial surgeon as well they do daily all kind of jaw surgeries. There is no difference between doing chin surgery to a normal and transgendered patient. Also they often operate on the orbital rims and solve frontal bone fractures with exposed sinus cavity. They don't do it to feminize somebody's face but the approach is the same really. I don't see a reason why a cranio facial surgeon can't do FFS.

I'm rather aggravated only because I'm having a rhinoplasty done with someone who specializes in noses as my nose is quite large and I strongly dislike it. However I was told you should combine forehead and nose together, but the surgeon doing my nose doesn't do brow bone reductions. I don't want to pay for the nose all over again if I have my brow bone surgery at a later date. I'm also in CT and Dr S is closest to me, but I don't feel he is even worth 40k or whatever he has charging now a days.  :-\

Quote from: clawdeenwolf on October 01, 2017, 06:13:31 PM
I'm rather aggravated only because I'm having a rhinoplasty done with someone who specializes in noses as my nose is quite large and I strongly dislike it. However I was told you should combine forehead and nose together, but the surgeon doing my nose doesn't do brow bone reductions. I don't want to pay for the nose all over again if I have my brow bone surgery at a later date. I'm also in CT and Dr S is closest to me, but I don't feel he is even worth 40k or whatever he has charging now a days.  :-\

HI Clawdeen...

The forehead recontouring can have an affect on where the nose angle breaks ... Don't rush in if you feel the planets aren't aligned in the manner you would like and don't let doctors pressure you!

At the end of the day... If you don't get what you want ... The doctor will have their $ and you will be unhappy as you find yourself looking at how much you'll need to pay to get things where you wanted after the first time around!!! ... Be informed and get what you want!!!

Onward we go brave girl

Ashley :)

Quote from: clawdeenwolf on September 29, 2017, 08:57:45 PM
So I've been wondering is this is a good idea or not? Since the dr says he can do the brow bone reduction surgery, but would it not be a good idea if he doesn't routinely operate on transgender patients? I'd personally rather do this than travel too far or spend an outrageous amount of money on an overrated FFS surgeon!
What do you all think?

I don't know if it is fair to say that those with higher fees "overrated".  There are many factors which influence the cost of procedures including exchange rates, local malpractice and operative costs, type of anesthesia, and particularly, whether the procedure is outpatient, inpatient, or some hybrid of the two.  Reputations tend to be earned in a well connected world, but the situation is not so simple as reputation = price.

I had FFS in a local office yesterday.  I will be posting my experience soon, as I get through the peri-operative period, so that I can give more of an end-to-end perspective.  I will say that the local surgeon in my case trained in craniofacial reconstruction in a major hospital system and that he subsequently did a fellowship in FFS. 

Local matters a lot to me, but it wasn't a slam dunk that I was going to find a viable local option when I started my search.  I consider myself very lucky in how it worked out.  But as always, YMMV.

I wish you the very best in your search.  I recommend that you consider multiple options.

Quote from: rmaddy on October 01, 2017, 09:52:01 PM
I don't know if it is fair to say that those with higher fees "overrated".  There are many factors which influence the cost of procedures including exchange rates, local malpractice and operative costs, type of anesthesia, and particularly, whether the procedure is outpatient, inpatient, or some hybrid of the two.  Reputations tend to be earned in a well connected world, but the situation is not so simple as reputation = price.

I had FFS in a local office yesterday.  I will be posting my experience soon, as I get through the peri-operative period, so that I can give more of an end-to-end perspective.  I will say that the local surgeon in my case trained in craniofacial reconstruction in a major hospital system and that he subsequently did a fellowship in FFS. 

Local matters a lot to me, but it wasn't a slam dunk that I was going to find a viable local option when I started my search.  I consider myself very lucky in how it worked out.  But as always, YMMV.

I wish you the very best in your search.  I recommend that you consider multiple options.

Yes well most FFS surgeons in the USA are outrageously expensive. Which is fine I suppose, but I don't think FFS should cost your entire life savings. I saved up enough money after nearly 10 years only for DR O which is now retired and realize now I need 20 thousand more because the prices have gone up twice as much. My only hope now is going out of the country, but I need to get my nose done by someone who specializes in noses only because most FFS surgeons aren't that great for noses alone. But then that will most likely mean I'll have to get the whole thing done again when I get the brow bone done? I might as well just forget it because it's too much money all together and I've already paid the $1,000 to book the surgery for the nose. >:(