Ouch!
I know Brassard in Montreal doesn't require electro down there. I wrote his office an email last week about it, and this is what I got back:
"ELECTROLYSIS :
Hair removal on external genitals before male to female reassignment surgery is debatable.
Hair bearing skin on the penis shaft base with the one step technique stays outside the neo vagina. The skin that will become the internal lining of the new female genital is the rest of the penis skin, scrotal skin and a small « perineal flap » ( a one square inch of skin that is located one side above the anal margin on the midline) . If you want a perfect hair free vagina, you need to be sure that no regrowth of hair has occurred on the area for at least one year after you have finished electrolysis with laser. Even then, this does not guaranty that no hair will ever grow.
The hair roots are either killed or weakened by electrolysis or laser. Those only weakened will regrow. During surgery hair roots are killed with the cauthery on the scrotal skin that is used as a graft ( not on the « perineal flap » ) . During surgery, the hair roots that were weakened are less visible because they are much smaller than those found untreated areas and could be missed by the surgeon and regrow later. For this reason, in our experience, expeditive laser or electrolysis treatments are worse than not having hair removal at all. In fact, we can get most hair roots during surgery if they were not weakened. Regrowth after our surgery is possible but very sparse.
If you want no regrowth at all, you will have to face hours of pain having hair removed and a one year nonegrowth period.
At this time, we do not feel that hair removal is indicated."
Of course, always go with what our surgeon recommends!
I know several post-ops around here and none of them got electro/laser down there and haven't had any complications or hair growing inside... but I think it also has to do with the technique Brassard uses. Another friend of mine is getting it done, but she's going to see Meltzer. And of course, FtM is different.
