Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hi everyone! Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I had MTF bottom surgery last November and I wanted to share with y'all the ups and downs of a long recovery that is still ongoing.

Where do I even start? I guess I can just talk about what's happening today.

I've been struggling with over-granulation for months and I've had a hell of a time finding someone locally who can treat it. (For the uninitiated, over-granulation is when the wound gets "stuck" in the middle of the healing process. You get this wet, beefy, red, bloody, stingy mess that never turns into skin.) It has made keeping up with dilation nearly impossible. The granulation tissue is painful to the touch and bleeds very easily, so dilating is at best uncomfortable, and at worst I just can't do it at all.

That means I've lost quite a bit of vaginal circumference. It's not the end of the world; my surgeon assures me I can get it back. And in any event, my partner is a cis woman, and penetration is not the be-all and end-all of sex for us. But it is extremely frustrating and a source of occasional despair that I have this incredibly painful, bloody thing I have to do every day, and sometimes can't do at all because it just hurts so freakin' bad.

My doctor gave me some prescription pain medication to help during dilation, and that's helping a bit. I don't like taking it because I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, but my twelve-step sponsor (who is also a nurse) assures me that I have a strong recovery program and I'm following doctor's orders, and the pain really is that bad. My partner is also in recovery and assures me I'm doing the right thing. And of course I keep praying.

Anyway, that's where things are right now. It's been a very difficult recovery, and will continue to be for some more months at least, but I'm still glad I did this. I have had a few moments where the complications were so bad that I began to regret it, but those moments have been few and fleeting. On the whole, I'd still rather have a bloody, aching vagina than what I had before.

I'm looking here for support, commiseration, etc. How does this compare with y'all's experiences? Any advice or just words of encouragement you can offer me?

cheers,
ginge

Hi Ginge

Welcome to Susan's. I hope you enjoy your time here.

The surgeon says you can recover the depth(great!!) but that isn't much consolation when it makes you feel so yuck. I hope someone can give you a better solution than I can which is simply to say I hope you get it sorted and are feeling better soon.

So you are able to get the very best from being here there are a couple of links we give to all our new members

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ElizabethK
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Welcome to Susan's Place. I had proud flesh (granulation) as well and while it required treatment, I suspect it wasn't as bad as what you are experiencing. I seem to have a pretty high tolerance for pain (though I don't like it) so I went through the entire period after surgery without any pain medication. About the only thing I can suggest is over the counter pain medication which might take the edge off but most likely won't prevent all the pain. You know what you are experiencing the best so you will need to judge the amount of pain medication you require.

On thing that can help is distraction. If you can find something that holds your attention, that will distract you from the pain. With electrolysis, I could concentrate on a problem and that would put the pain in the background were I knew it was there but I could live with it.

Ginge,

You didn't mention whether your Doc treated the granulation of not other than providing you pain killers. Granulation is easy to treat with Silver Nitrate sticks that cauterize the granules. It's painless for the most part since you that area is probably still numb. I had the same issue and my surgeon treated them once, and then gave me a bunch of Silver Nitrate sticks to treat myself for a week. After a week the problem was resolved and I got back to increasing dilation.

You may already know what Silver Nitrate sticks are but for anyone who doesn't they basically look like 6-inch matchsticks. You just rub the end of the stick that has the SN on it and it turns granules white. Eventually, the area will look like it should with a clean wound area. At that point, it will start healing like it should.

Hi Gingerkat and welcome aboard!!!

I'm sorry your healing process has proved so challenging!!!!

I had complications including my a hematoma which turned into a blood clot and a vagina projectile vomiting blood when I dialated but everything resolved well in the end and looks feel and works lI,e it should!!!


I have heard good things about the silver nitrate treatment EmmaLoo mentioned... Definitely worth looking into if you haven't as of yet...

Sending good and healing thoughts your way sister!!!!


Ashley :)

Thanks for the kind words and the warm welcome, everyone! My primary care doc treated me with silver nitrate a few times but we weren't seeing much change and she wasn't comfortable continuing treatment. I'm seeing a new specialist now; she's gone at it with a scalpel (!) and then silver nitrate to cauterize it afterwards. That was extremely effective on the external granulation. The internal granulation is trickier because she can't very well stick a knife up there, but there's someone else at the same clinic who she thinks can take care of it. So there's hope!

My partner has been a godsend through all of this. I'm so lucky to have someone so loving and supportive.

Hello and welcome Ginger.

There was a period at which dilation became very painful. I was on the #4 dilator and then all the sudden dilating with #4 became tearful events with me not knowing if I could take it.

I am close to Papillion and made all my appointments. I was treated 3 or 4 times with silver nitrite. I explained the painful dilation and was told it was scar tissue. I was told to use hydrocortisone cream. That did not help. I was prescribed strong hydrocortisone cream and that worked to relax the scars. I was told they would prescribe estrogen cream next to relax the scars but I do not need it.