Quote from: Sarah B on January 11, 2012, 09:43:45 PM
Regardless of what these particular surgeons recommend. Most surgeons will scrape or cauterize hair follicles on the graft site just before being used. Electrolysis only increases the likelihood that all follicles will be destroyed before the graft is part of your vagina.
Indeed true, but, all the surgeons, except for Suporn, also states that they cannot
guarantee that they will get
all the hairfollicles, and therefore Eletrolysis is, if the patient wants to be on the
safe side, a must.
The now retired SRS-surgeon Eugene Schrang stated in his information from 2002 on hair removal prior to SRS:
Quote
Hair can be removed by electrolysis or laser prior to surgery. But better still is the cutting away of the hair follicles while thinning the graft with scissors which can be done by me at the time of surgery followed by electrocoagulation of the follicles. This saves the patient time and money not to mention great discomfort from painful electrolysis. Since electrocoagulation is time consuming, we charge an extra $500 for this.
However, he do emphasize that;
QuoteNo matter what method is used to remove hair, the removal of ALL hair follicles is usually never completely accomplished and some hair may grow in the neo-vagina. This is why you must begin early to remove as much hair as possible from the scrotum if you wish me to use your scrotum as a full thickness graft and do not want me to remove the hair at surgery.
QuoteFrom Dr P Brassard website sums it up best by saying at the end of the Electrolysis Section "At this time we do not feel that hair removal is indicated."
Indeed, some surgeons do not feel this is necessary, as the majority of the hair nowadays will be removed during the surgey. However, for
best result, Eletrolysis is recommended.
[/quote]So in a sense electrolysis down there is a complete waste of time and money. In fact all three of the surgeons you mentioned will still do the scrapping when the surgery is being done.
Does not matter how much hair there is, electrolysis can miss hairs and in which case can end up inside the vagina.[/quote]
Completely incorrect. Firstly, Genital Eletcrolysis, when done right, is 100% permanent, simply because the hairfollicles are litterally fried.
However, actually frying the hairfolicles, is nowadays only done regarding Genital Eletrolysis- Not facial or bodily, as frying them may leave scarring. However, as scarring in the vaginal canal is not visible, such an issue is not considered a problem.
QuoteI never had electrolysis down there, therefore in that case those hairs were scrapped. As far as I know I never had any problems in regards to any hairs on the inside.
Good for you. However you are a single patient- not a patient in a metastudie, and do as such not examplify the norm in this regards, therefore, your personal account is not sufficient. Although, ofcourse, I do congratulate you on the success.
QuoteWhich goes to show regardless of whether it's old surgery or new surgery, if the scrapping technique was done correctly in the first place, then there would not be any problems with hair. In fact you also mentioned that some surgeons did not do the job properly.
Again, regardless of how much the surgeons scrapes the tissue, the surgeon
may not get all hairfollicles and therefore no
scraping technique is 100% certain.
QuoteNo surgeon can guarantee the total removal of hair and that goes for the electrologist.
Wrong. Eletrolysis is 100% permanent. I don't know what kind of Electrologists you have experiance of, but if an Electrologist tells you that they cannot guarantee permanent removal, then save your money and go to another one or do something better with the money such as rolling them into cigarrs and smoke them or something.
QuoteYes, it would seem that having electrolysis would add to the 'safe side', but to what extent? There are thousands who have had surgery, but there has been no study that I'm aware of, on those who just had scrapping, against those who had electrolysis and scrapping or even dare I say those who just had electrolysis.
Exccept for what the surgeons say themselves.
Also to be remembered, are that just because a surgeon
say that "It is not a problem", it doesn't mean that it won't be any.
For instance, a SRS-surgeon, whos name I unfortunately do not recall, said in an interview that "Sometimes the patient grows hair inside, but on the other hand there doesn't grow any grass on a wellwalked lane".

QuoteMy surgeon never requested that I get electrolysis down there and my surgeon predates Bowers, Meltzer, McGinn and Brassard and my surgery was done 21 years ago.
Well even the old scandal surgeon John Brown scraped the tissue- Some of his patients were lucky and had no problem whatsoever, while other were stuck with hairy bearpussys.
Which reasoning do you think is the smartest regarding a permanent decision like this; Spending some extra money on electrolysis to be 100% on the safe side and not ever having to worry the slightest about it, or, being stubborn and think;"There will not be any problem because my surgeon will take care of it!".
Both I and Steffi know which reasoning is the smart one and which is the stupid one.
QuoteBasic hygiene will take care of the other problems that have been mentioned.
Depends. If the Vagina is hairfree, then yes, Basic hygiene will take care of all those problems.
However if it is hairy, then it highly depends. If little to none hairgrowth, then yes, but, if there is much hairgrowth and the hairs have tangled up in each other and formed a carpet of hair, then dead tissue cells and bacterias will get stuck within that hair, and you can flush your snatch all you want but the yucky stuff will still be there unless regulary plucked out by a Gynechologist.
Reminds me, by the way, of an MTF by the name of Claudia, that after her SRS in 1986, one day had a very yucky experience;
QuoteOne day I was making love and something didn't feel right. There was this little ball of hair like a Brillo pad in my vagina." In 1995 she went to see a surgeon who pulled the hair out but warned it would grow back. "He said it would always be there because I hadn't had electrolysis on my scrotum before the sex change made it part of my vagina. When I heard that, I just sat and cried."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/31/health.socialcareThe expression "Better safe than sorry", is in this regards very fitting.