from what I understand the clitoris somehow slides down and behind the hood. 

Are you sure of what you're saying? That's confusing, maybe you didn't understand what your surgeon said.. How can the clitoris go under your urethra? And most important, why??

Quote from: ClaudiaPitCar on May 18, 2017, 02:02:35 PM
Are you sure of what you're saying? That's confusing, maybe you didn't understand what your surgeon said.. How can the clitoris go under your urethra? And most important, why??

The clitoris in my case is where it should be. If I understood what she explained, the hood of the clitoris, not the clitoris, is being pushed by swelling away from where it should be and when the swelling calms down somehow the hood will end up covering the clitoris.

That does not sound normal or typical, no, but if you're happy with it, that's the important part. I do second the fact that swelling can make things look weird for a while, too; I've never heard of that particular issue before, and everything was in roughly the right *place* for me personally and just super puffy, but swelling can definitely distort the initial results.

I am also baffled about how the clitoris could be anywhere except for about an inch below the mons pubis, which is where it is on most cis women. (Then there's a couple inches to the urethra, which is positioned immediately above the vaginal opening.) There is really no anatomically correct way that the clitoral hood could be blocking the vagina, at least not that I can imagine. I'm hoping the doctor was misunderstood, because the clitoris also should be fixed in place.

perhaps you should get in touch with others who've had surgery from your surgeon? techniques differ, and so do surgical skills. having said that, it's important to realize 7 weeks is nothing when it comes to recovery from surgery.

my SRS is actually still to come up (funnily enough, in 7 weeks). but I've had surgery in April as well, they fixed my right shoulder joint by hammering in 3 polymer suture-anchors. this was done arthroscopically , so I've only got two minor incisions there, and spent 4 days in the hospital in total (it's called a bankart repair, look it up). in comparison, this is a minor procedure. yet: primary recovery is 6 weeks, light sports are allowed after 3 months and contact sports (I practice thai-boxing) only after 6 months.

so: if this takes so long, imagine what srs does to your system....

Well, I've had forehead, trachea shave and rhinoplasty and none of those surgeries compare to the limits SRS recovery is putting on me. I actually did breast augmentation together with the SRS, and I can feel the BA part was super easy.

Sure, there was swelling for a month or two and it did not look as good as the final result, but in a matter of days or a week tops I could do everything except sports and by the time a month was gone they looked pretty close to the final result.

With SRS, I was told it will be 3 months before it looks close to the final result and 7 weeks in and I am still most of the time in bed because it hurts not to lie down. So I understand your shoulder surgery was difficult but the surgeries I had, had so much easier recoveries than this SRS... especially the first 5 days, there is just no comparison how much pain I had in the first 5 days in the hospital to what I had in the other surgeries. Really a walk in the park.

My point is, just because your shoulder surgery was hard and my SRS was hard, it doesn't mean all surgeries are hard. At least, comparatively. They still had anasthesia and swelling and pain and discomfort and limitations, but the time and magnitude are completely different.

Fortunately once those first 5 days were over and they removed the packing I was no longer in constant pain and now it is more an issue of being limited to bed to avoid the pain. What I am saying, as limiting and serious as the SRS is, it is mostly a discomfort and annoyance and psychological torment to be so much in bed and  feeling uncertainty if it will all heal well when it looks so swollen... but all in all, it's a pretty nice life to just sit in bed, play video games all day to pass the time until I heal. Sure, I need to dilate and I need to cook and clean but that is not as much responsability as working.

So it will take as long as it takes...

I was just disappointed because of my expectations. The doctors told me I should have been able to be up and about without pain 4-6 weeks after surgery, so I could get back to acting. There is a big show on June 1st that rehearsals started for on May 9th which is exactly 6 weeks after. I also asked here and people told me it should be usually 4-6 weeks. But here I am, more than 7 weeks after... externally I have seen many healing changes, but as far as how limited I am... I feel the same I did a month ago - I *can* walk and sit and lift and do everything, but it hurts to not lie down so I do at home or near home for short periods of time to cook, clean and buy groceries... but rehearsals where I go out of the house and take a bus, spend hours somewhere I can't lie down and then take a bus back home... Perhaps technically I *can* do that, but it would hurt like hell, and if it hurts like hell - maybe that also means a risk to interfere with healing.

But once I saw there is no chance I can come back to rehearsals in time then I accepted this is going to take as long as it will take, because that show in June 1st was the only thing I had that motivated me to recover fast. Now it doesn't matter. If it takes another month or if it takes another 4 months, so be it. I'll just keep on playing WoW, dilating, cooking, buying groceries and eating until my body sorts it all out.

I just wish I had an instruction manual about how things will look different and change so I can feel less anxious about how weird things are looking now that it is still healing. You're saying 7 weeks is nothing, perhaps it is nothing for SRS, but all the other surgeries I've had 7 weeks was plenty to see more than 90 percent of the result.

Update: it's been getting harder and harder to dilate, possibly due to the blockage of this tissue growing... but yesterday and today it's become a bit easier. There is a *second* new hole in this tissue... so I have absolutely no idea what it's function is supposed to be... whether it should be inner lips, something redundant or the clitoral hood as previously suggested.

One week till my doctor visit with the surgeon to hopefully find out what it is.

Ah, I bet this is sloughing epithelial tissue, the outer layer of dead skin. It sometimes winds up detaching as a large piece rather than the little whitish clumps, and eventually detaches completely.   Your visit with the surgeon will tell for sure.

So I was at the doctor and I think the word he used was granulation.

He switched me from using an estrogen cream once a day during one of my dilations to hydroagisten twice a day during two of my dilations. It contains hydrocortisone acitate, or a form of cortisol. He said it would flatten the tissue that is blocking and interfering with dilation. He said we would need to make a balancing act and make sure we aren't going too far with it, so I should come back in two weeks.

Unfortunately, he was available to be seen again only in three weeks.

Anyway, the next day even before using the new cream, just stopping with the estrogen, I already felt so much better and much less pain.

Now a few days later I can get the big dilator in all the way, only this time without pain. It still takes a while to overcome the resistance, but it is just inconvenient, not painful. I also think my pain while not lying down has improved.

So turns out it wasn't tissue that had some special function, it was just extra growth promoted by the estrogen and whether it is the absence of estrogen, the use of cortisol or both, that tissue has definitely become less swollen and isn't blocking dilation anymore. It's not taking so much space and I'm not blocked anymore. In general everything is a lot less swollen, not just the vagina.

But because he said we need to make a balancing act I am afraid to overdo it to the other direction though I don't even know what the consequences would be of overdoing it.

Right now my plan is to keep using the cortisol cream for the 2 prescribed weeks and then do dilations only with the anti bacterial gel for a week until the next appointment. I am also applying a small amount of the cortisol cream to the dilator.

Since getting in touch with my doctor outside physical appointments is problematic, do you think I am right in my approach or should I use the cream more liberally and until the day of appointment?

The prescription says 2 weeks, but as I said the next consult is in 3. I also tried to understand how much I should put and the doctor only said "a bit".

Amyway, after the surgery things were getting better until my first consult when he prescribed the estrogen cream... then things started getting gradually worse and worse. I am glad to be back on the "things getting better" track. It seems it was just because of the estrogen cream that I didn't recover faster.

To be clear, this is cream used for vagina only. My general estrogen is a seperate issue. Actually in a recent post op blood test the estrogen levels were low so the endo authroized me to use a higher dose but this happened only 2 days before the surgeon consult that I raised the dose and I've been getting worse and worse for weeks already... and I've been getting better ever since I've stopped using the vagina estrogen cream despite raising my estrogel dose on body application.

The hydrocortisone controls swelling while the estrogen cream helps convert the tissue to vaginal tissue. Unless you are having a reaction to the base used in the estrogen cream, the estrogen cream shouldn't be part of the problem. If you have any food allergies you might want to check the label to see what the base is but this is something you need to discuss with your doctor.