Susan's Place Transgender Resources

hey guys

i'm about to receive my inheritance which is enough to cover the all the costs of top surgery and after care, which puts me in an unexpected position as i never expected to be able to do it so soon.

it's exciting

the only thing that stops me from being totally certain that i want top surgery is the loss of sensation.

i'm a C cup so i'd have to have double incision...

here's my question

what's the pedicle technique like in terms of keeping sensation?

has anybody had it? does it work well?

and which surgeons do it?

i'm not so concerned about erotic sensation, it's just that the idea of having permanently numb spots on my chest makes me gag. it's a mental block i have.

i have one lower groin incision from 2008 and one from 2009 and both still have areas of numbness around them so presumably any cutting will sever nerves that may or may not reconnect?

are there any lesbian websites that deal more directly with breast removal surgery?

hi lilacwoman

i don't know much about anatomy, but the point of the pedicle technique, as i understand it, is not to sever nerves. or, at least, to sever as few of them as possible.

i'm not sure that any lesbian sites would have anything about breast removal surgeries

I just had a consult with dr. garramone who is the surgeon who will be doing my top surgery. And he said that it is possible to get tactile sensation but not erotic. So you won't necessarily just have 2 random numb spots on your chest. Also I was under the impression that you can't have the pedicle technique while also having DI. But the best person to ask about this is a surgeon. Most will answer these sorts of questions if you email them.

I had the pedicle technique because I don't tend to heal well and I wanted to be SURE to retain erotic sensation in my chest. Numb spots just drive me nuts, too.

It worked well. I had nipple sensation right away and didn't have to wait for the numbness to recede. My areolas/nipples are too large, but that's a separate issue. Anyway, the sensation is great. I just wish I had a sexy guy to enjoy it with.

My local surgeon doesn't have all that much experience with trans guys, but he does pedicle. That's one reason I didn't seek out another surgeon. I do remember seeing a guy in another city, maybe Chicago, who does it. I don't remember his name, and I can't be sure of the city, but I found him through Google. I used the word "pedicle" as part of the search.

Damn, what was his name? >:(

BTW, you might want to specify the general region where you live. Then people can give you more useful references.

hey arch, thanks for the helpful reply!

i live in melbourne australia, but i'm pretty sure i want to travel to the US to get surgery since i've never seen a result from an australian surgeon that looked good enough for me to go to them.

i'd be much more ok with large nipples than with small, numb nipples

so you DO still have erotic sensation? as well as tactile?

retaining erotic sensation would be great, but even if i could just be sure of tactile that would be enough.

did you have DI?

if you don't feel comfortable answering just don't, but what cup size were you? i'm about a c cup (i think i said that) and i'm just trying to get an idea of how similar your surgery was to how mine would be.

who was your surgeon?

and carson, thanks as well.

do you mean it's possible to get tactile sensation but not erotic with the pedicle technique? or with free nipple grafts?

I was talking about with the nipple grafts because that is what I am getting.

I keep thinking this surgeon's name was Friedman, but I don't think that's it. I'm pretty sure it was a name with an "ie" or "ei" diphthong, and I'm fairly certain that the name had a German or German-Jewish ring to it.

Anyway, the areola thing had nothing to do with the pedicle technique; I just should have given the surgeon a precise measurement, one inch across, or something like that. The nipples themselves are probably hard to deemphasize with the pedicle surgery; he was supposed to scrape out some of the excess tissue from behind the nipples to flatten them a bit, but I don't think he wound up doing that.

Yes, I have erotic sensation.

Technically, I don't know whether you can call this DI. He made a hole higher up on my chest and brought the areola through.

No idea what cup size. Didn't wear a bra for a quarter century. I was a B when I was in my late teens, and I got bigger and bigger. Maybe a large C/small D? I had tons of droopage by then.

God, I hated the things for so many years...

My surgeon was Eichenberg in Temecula. He did a number of trans guys before me, but not really very many. He's been getting quite a bit of local business since my surgery nearly eighteen months ago, but he does not have the experience of the "known" guys like Brownstein or Meltzer.

hey arch, thanks. you've been so helpful.

i can't find any pictures of chest's Eichenberg has done, so i think my next step will be to email some more well known surgeons and ask if they do the technique.

was your surgery like DI but just with the pedicle technique on top of it? did i understand correctly?

i guess i will post whatever i hear back from surgeons on this thread since there doesn't seem to be much info out there about it.