Good morning.
This is a bit of a niche post but, arguably, should be central to our post-operative care. It's arisen because of a few issues I've had in the first six weeks since surgery and because of trying to understand how my new vagina is building the right kind of microbiome, and what impedes that cultivar e.g. antibiotics, too much alkalinity, too much washing etc.
Cis vaginas are a complex microbiome and, like many parts of our body, have a complex balance of organisms including bacteria. Neovaginas can take time to build similar balanced microbiomes but we can do a LOT to assist the process. The obvious ones include not over-washing (there's a balance here because cleanliness matters), being very careful about what we introduce including during dilation, being very mindful about antibiotics, the kind of soaps we do or don't use, and what we eat and drink. Sex, in all its forms where the neovagina comes into play, is also hugely important in this regard.
There are some articles on the subject so I'll include a few here. I think this is quite a sciency-technical topic so anything that contributes will be greatly valued by everyone now and in the future.
By the way, I am mainly here focussing on penile inversion and peritoneal pull-through. The sigmoid colon technique is a whole different dimension which anyone is very welcome to comment on but, for obvious reasons, is also a separate category in its own right.
xx
https://myvagina.com/the-neovaginal-microbiome/ 🔗https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090429522001765 🔗https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)01317-8 🔗https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52102-1 🔗https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11500519/ 🔗https://asm.org/articles/2023/june/genital-microbiome-research-for-transgender-popula 🔗
