Hi,

I wonder why this doctor, Dr. Thomas, is never mentioned as he has done surgery on at least a thousand of women and really tried to improve his techniques over the years, even trying to modify resonance which no other doctor has considered. I've listened to his results and while some aren't very impressive, some are pretty good too.

He's also in the US, so closer to many people.

http://voicedoctor.net/surgery/pitch/feminization-laryngoplasty

He was mentioned several times before. He is apparently a very good surgeon, but his publicized results on the website are not convincing enough for many. His unique surgery method besides doing all other sorts of voice surgery is the reconstruction of the larynx. With this method, the resonance is changed and the vocal chords are shortened at the same time as the whol larynx is taken apart and reconstructed. Apparently however this method has several risks involved, making it probably a good choice mainly for those who really cannot get a feminine voice even with the other surgeries.
The main risks are scarring and excessive tissue production, since cartilage is cut, it heals not really easily. Also the surgery leaves a rather big scar right at the larynx, bigger than from trach shave or CTA. The main issues I know about from patients seem to be a much lower volume, less power in the voice and also hoarseness - if excess tissue is forming, it may have to be removed in a later surgery.
This is just what I heard, so if you consider a more radical appraoch to voice surgery that also changes resonance and thus eliminates the need to train this post-VFS, I think it would be good to ask the Dr himself. It would be great to have some patients choosing him and reporting back here about the results ("good" or "not as expected").

My impression is that if it works , the results can be stunning because the resonance and pitch is changed at the same time, so a natural voice can result, but the risk is probably higher than with for example Yeson to not get an optimal result. (Although one has to remember - Yeson and the others cannot change resonance, so its a different surgery)

Dr Thomas was the first doctor I considered. I went through the voice clips and many sounded far to machine like for me so I decided if that was my only option, I wold be better off to stick with what I had. I think he is a very good surgeon but reconstructing the larynx looked very risky to me. I then found Yeson but cost and distance were a consideration so I found my third option with Susan's/Dr Haben. What tipped the scales in the end was a more informative web site and that he could provide additional pitch change if I needed it. I knew how bad my starting voice was and I didn't want a redo if the doctors procedure was unable to deliver.

It may be worth mentioning as well that Dr Thomas has fixed several voices that other surgeons botched or other surgeons did not create enough change. So he seems to be good at that, but then of course the outcomes of these surgeries is not great - because he already had to work with a broken voice - the improvement to before is great, but the overall result may not be as good as if he could start with an untouched voice. But again - I think everyone here would be happy if someone would collect more information, maybe voice clips or patient reports and maybe after choosing Dr Thomas report to this forum how it went, as others did for the other surgeons. So far no one seems to have picked him, though and written about it.

Quote from: anjaq on April 04, 2016, 03:05:05 PM
his publicized results on the website are not convincing enough for many.

There are many more publicized results of his as opposed to Haben and Kim and I consider his results just as "good" as those from the other doctors, if not, better so I don't see why they wouldn't be convincing.

QuoteHis unique surgery method besides doing all other sorts of voice surgery is the reconstruction of the larynx. With this method, the resonance is changed and the vocal chords are shortened at the same time as the whol larynx is taken apart and reconstructed. Apparently however this method has several risks involved, making it probably a good choice mainly for those who really cannot get a feminine voice even with the other surgeries.

Dr. Haben's methods are also quite invasive and I have noted several downsides (i.e. botox) to having the surgery with Dr. Kim as well. There are risks with any surgery and perhaps, Dr. Kim's approach is less invasive and safer but as regards to Haben, I consider the risks to be about the same.

Quote
The main risks are scarring and excessive tissue production, since cartilage is cut, it heals not really easily. Also the surgery leaves a rather big scar right at the larynx, bigger than from trach shave or CTA. The main issues I know about from patients seem to be a much lower volume, less power in the voice and also hoarseness - if excess tissue is forming, it may have to be removed in a later surgery.

I have seen many of those things also happen with the other doctors.

Anyways, in the end, it's up to the person to decide which is best for them but just thought I would mention him as he seems rarely talked about despite the fact he is quite experienced in this sort of intervention.

Quote from: KayXo on April 05, 2016, 11:25:32 AMAnyways, in the end, it's up to the person to decide which is best for them but just thought I would mention him as he seems rarely talked about despite the fact he is quite experienced in this sort of intervention.

Also, I'd like to add that choosing a surgeon for any kind of procedure is pretty much a personal thing. When people ask me, "What surgeon did you use for such and such?" I always tell them who I used but with the caveat that their mileage may vary. For example, I didn't use traditional trans-friendly surgeons for my rhinoplasty or breast augmentation so if I recommended one of these surgeons to you, depending on how comfortable the surgeon is with you or how comfortable you are with my surgeon, the results and experience with my surgeon could be just as good or not good at all. Surgeons are not one size fits all even though they may have you believe that they are. A large part of a surgeon's job is managing people's expectations. Making big promises that can't be kept is a sure way of not receiving repeat business. Also, it is very important to pick a surgeon whom you can relate to on some level. Not everyone may jell with Dr. Thomas or Dr. Kim or Dr. Haben or Dr. whoever. Sometimes if a surgeon jells with you really well, he or she will give you a better outcome than a surgeon who sees you as just another step towards paying off his car or house.

Yes, I sure think Dr Thomas is good - not sure why no one here has yet been there and reported about it.

But his method is a lot more invasive than Dr Habens method. Dr Haben does CTA (suturing together two pieces of cartilage) and glottoplasty (suturing together the vocal folds in 1/3) in combination or just the latter. That is mus less invasive than actually taking apart the WHOLE larynx, cutting out a part of the cartilage on both sides to make it smaller, reshaping the vocal folds to match the newly shaped larynx, then suturing all of this together and placing it back into the throat in a higher position than before to further change resonance. This is huge compared to a CTA or an endoscopic glottoplasty. But  in a way I like this approach as it reconstructs the larynx in a female way instead of trying to modify a larynx that has been under testosterone for a long time to be better at making a female voice. Haben and Kim basically do voice supportive surgery for voice feminization and it depends a lot on training - Dr Thomas method - if it works and heals well - truely feminizes the voice without the need to modify anything later on with training except of course rehab training, but not really further voice feminization...

I hope someone goes to Dr Thomas and reports about the procedure and the results.

Quote from: anjaq on April 04, 2016, 03:05:05 PM
He was mentioned several times before. He is apparently a very good surgeon, but his publicized results on the website are not convincing enough for many.

I listened to Dr. Thomas' samples and most of them sound really good to me.

I don't understand the hype around Dr Kim, he has very few results advertised and to me none of them sounds half decent; the voices sound raspy and unnaturally high pitched. The fact surgery with Dr Kim is minimally invasive is a great advantage but the guy literally just puts two stitches on your vocal chords, it's hard to imagine how the results can sound natural.

Good point KayXo. I think its just one of those things, some surgeons get popular and hyped on these forum (and others). Dr. Thomas could have had thousands successful procedures done, with fantastic results, but none of his patients shared their stories, and what not, and posted pics in Do I pass? and fabulous threads... but yet at the same time you had like 10 patients that went to Yeson couple years ago, and they happen to be very active here and post their experience on 100 and how many pages on main Yeson thread, and who knows how many other separate threads.. and many other people look for that and fall for that, and follow example of others, for better or for worse. Its been the same with FFS surgeons... not so much with SRS surgeons, as most reasonable people, who do some research, quickly realize that the rest of the world has some catching up to do.

I have heard some very good and some less than desirable VFS results from all well known surgeons. Maybe the best one from dr. Haben with "triple". 

Another thing is that Korean surgeons seem to invest a lot in advertising. For example, Dr Park at ID hospital does that for FFS and he would only show the patients with amazing results but there are tons of horror stories about him.

Well - thats a internet thing  - if people talk positively about one surgeon then others will follow and talk more - the reason remains that no one writes about Dr Thomas because apparently no one in this forum has been there and had surgery - so no one can report. Only people who had a surgery can report. I do not know anyone who was at Dr Thomas, but if I would, I would point her here and tell her to write about her experiences.

And yes - "just putting in two stitches" can be a pretty complex task if they have to be done with precision in a certain way and exactly parallel in a distance of 2mm from each other. And while some of the patients sem to have voices that sound a bit unnatural, most seem to not have that and I was several times in real life, not regarding those stupid rainbow recordings, told that my voice sounds very natural but feminine. The biggest risks with voice surgery is to get an unnaturally high pitch (although some trans women seem to crave that and push their voices there) or to get a hoarse/breathy voice wil low volume or no volume at all. And those risks seem to be minimal at Yeson , low at Dr Haben but more substantial with Dr Thomas larynx reconstruction method. In Germany that risk is even higher with some of the surgeons here.

But one thing I agree - it is very very hard with surgeries to get an objective picture. former patients love it or hate it - the surgeons only put up the good results of course and the number of people posting about it is too small to get a good statistical picture of the success rate. So in the end its always intuition and luck

Quote from: Marina325 on May 20, 2016, 08:31:59 AM
I listened to Dr. Thomas' samples and most of them sound really good to me.

I don't understand the hype around Dr Kim, he has very few results advertised and to me none of them sounds half decent; the voices sound raspy and unnaturally high pitched. The fact surgery with Dr Kim is minimally invasive is a great advantage but the guy literally just puts two stitches on your vocal chords, it's hard to imagine how the results can sound natural.

QuoteAnother thing is that Korean surgeons seem to invest a lot in advertising. For example, Dr Park at ID hospital does that for FFS and he would only show the patients with amazing results but there are tons of horror stories about him.

Marina,

Welcome to the site. While we like to share reviews on some of these threads, we do not allow bashing of Drs, no matter how little you think of their procedures. If you would like to share a personal experience, please do so.

I also wanted to share some links with you. They have some welcome information as well as rules. If you have not had a moment to read through them, please do so:

Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By	Standard Terms & Definitions	Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar)
Reputation rules	News posting & quoting guidelines	Photo, avatars, & signature images policy

Once again welcome to Susan's. I hope you find what you are looking for here.

With warmth,

Joanna

Do your own research. Check out results with Dr. Kim, Dr. Haben and Dr. Thomas. Make your own conclusions. That simple. No doctor bashing needed.

I personally think voice surgery can still be improved very much so I decide to wait. To each their own.

Yes - at least for Dr Kim, Dr Haben as well as (even if a little less public) Dr Thomas and Prof Remarcle, there are voice samples out there to listen to. Some are good, some not so much, sadly often there is no followup after a year or two except for those who have a youtube channel and you can listen to them anytimes (like J-Mi or Brittany).

I believe as well that there is still improvements to be made, the same is even more so true for the other procedures, especially GRS - with all the talk about growing organs and buccal cell cultures fpr vaginas and possible ovary/uterus transplants or growing them from stemcells - one can imagine in 20 years things will be very different. But one has to make a choice at some point, knowing that science and medical technology will progress always, we still have to decide if we want to wait for it or not. It depends a lot on our present situations, if we can live with it or if we want it to change rather sooner than later.

For me it was like this as well. I transitioned 18 years ago. I decided back then that voice surgery is way not advanced enough to do it - with lots of people loosing their voices completely or mostly , others getting too high pitched voices or getting only temporary changes... so I discarded that thought and waited until I really had enough of living with that wrong voice and looked back into the issue now, finding that indeed there is a lot of progress compared to 1998 - so I decided to not wait any longer but go for it now - otherwise I would have dragged along with that voice for another 10 years or more until I am in me 50ies or 60ies and then I probably would tell myself I am crazy to do that surgery at that point even if it is better then. I prefer to have my voice now and be able to benefit from it for 10 or 20 years rather than wait that time for better technology. You also never know how fast things progress - at least in Germany and in respect to GRS, things did not significantly progress for 10 years after I had mine done. Just now in the past years there is one surgeon here who took some of Dr Suporns technique and implemented it, all others still do the same thing as 20 years ago with minor modifications  - so progress can be awfully slow at times.

Quote from: anjaq on May 24, 2016, 04:19:46 AM
Yes - at least for Dr Kim, Dr Haben as well as (even if a little less public) Dr Thomas and Prof Remarcle, there are voice samples out there to listen to. Some are good, some not so much, sadly often there is no followup after a year or two except for those who have a youtube channel and you can listen to them anytimes (like J-Mi or Brittany).

On Dr. Thomas's page, there is follow-up for up to 84 months (7 years). Many others with follow ups well beyond the 1-2 yr mark.

QuoteI believe as well that there is still improvements to be made, the same is even more so true for the other procedures, especially GRS

At the present moment, I consider results from GRS better (much better) than from voice surgery and risks far less with GRS. Significant difference, in my opinion.

Ok, maybe Dr Thomas updated the website then. about 2 years ago when I looked for surgeons, there were not many good results on there. I think he is a very good surgeon and I would hope someone considers him to get more options mentioned in this forum.

Yes, I checked now and there are quite a few more samples now.  He's honest too, showing good and bad results.   I did consider him seriously, but did not want an incision in my neck.  Plus, it's much more invasive - but seems like a solid option for those with seriously male voices prior.

A good friend of me had surgery with Dr. Thomas. Her voice sound similar to before she is just always hoarse.

So I am happy to had surgery with Dr. Haben.

I would always rely on personal contacts before choosing a MD for a surgery.  I never trust the Internet :-)

Yes, when the voice is "seriously male", a more radical approach may be needed and then its probably worth taking more risks as well. Lara, what surgery did she have with Dr Thomas - I know he does all sorts of voice surgeries. Some patients from Haben or Yeson also seem to sound similar to before the surgery, but that often is because before they used al altereed , feminized voice and after they use just a relaxed voice. The difference is thus less audible but more "feelable" by the patient

Quote from: KayXo on April 04, 2016, 11:27:07 AM
... he has done surgery on at least a thousand of women ...

From Dr. Thomas' website:
"I have performed Feminization Laryngoplasty on 130 individuals (as of 11/12/2015)"

Isn't that number the more relevant number? Or am I missing something?