Sorry for the long post
TLDR; Dr. Thee is great. Peritoneal is worth it. Go with Siam Transformations and get the extended care package with Cherry.
Dr. Thee and PPV
I’m now 2 months and 3 weeks post-op and posting pictures from surgery through the 2 month mark. My surgery was in Thailand near the end of November with Dr. Theerapong. My research into surgeons has been going on for decades and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get surgery for a long time until a more advanced technique came along. I’d been waiting and looking at peritoneal vaginoplasty since 2017 when it started to become more common and decided it was the way I wanted to go only recently. I was worried about my potential results because I had been circumcised, had an orchi, and shrank to about 4.5 inches after over a decade on hormones, but with the hybrid peritoneal method Dr. Thee was able to get me 7 inches of depth, which is still over 6.5 at this point. Before surgery I had to do electrolysis, mostly on my scrotum, for 6-8 months before my surgery. Some people may need more as I’m not particularly hairy.
Dr. Thee has some of the best cosmetic results I’ve ever seen in terms of being as close to anatomically cis as possible. The only criticism I’ve heard thrown around is that the inner labia he makes are often larger than is normal or desired and that his vulvas are generally larger. Most people don’t seem to realize that he asks a great deal of questions and requests pictures from his patients to determine what their goals are and works toward those as much as possible. In my opinion, the idea that his results are larger than normal might be influenced by looking at too much very cultivated porn with unrealistic ideas about what natural genitals even look like.
Siam Transformation
Most of the people who influenced my decision to go with Dr. Thee were people who posted here, and I noticed a trend that the happiest people were those who worked with Cherry at the medical tourism company Siam Transformation (formerly Siam Transformative). I had contacted Siam Transformative just as a business schism was happening, apparently during a break they were taking toward the end of Cherry’s pregnancy. Emails were going through Saphira, who eventually said that the company was dissolving and she was forming a new one called Amani Thailand. Now, I wasn’t going to get involved with someone else’s business drama, but I continued to talk to both Saphira and Becky from Siam Transformation about the ongoing issues, and there have been other posts covering this so I’m not getting into it. Ultimately, I decided to go with Cherry above any business name and I’m so incredibly glad I did. Not only does she have a decade of experience, but she also was a nurse working directly with Dr. Thee and therefore knows the best way to help his patients through their specific needs. My understanding is Amani doesn’t have any nurses with nearly as much experience with his patients. Needless to say, I’m incredibly happy with my choice and Cherry was amazing to work with. I’ve had multiple surgical procedures both cosmetic and otherwise in my life and I’ve never found another nurse so skilled at stitch removal, which is extra important for such a sensitive area. On top of that, she was fun and wonderful to be around. I really enjoyed her company and she was very helpful when I was at one of the most vulnerable times in my life.
Recovery and Reflection
Recovery was rough. I spent the standard 6 days post-op in the hospital on a liquid diet because of the digestive trauma of laparoscopic surgery. I ended up with a few bedsores on my back from the plastic barrier used to keep the bed clean was accidentally in direct contact with my skin for a day after a sheet got moved. Overall, it was one of the roughest experiences of my life, but it was made really bearable by the lovely trans woman ST had stay with me. She even rubbed my back and feet as needed and was awake with me during my drug and pain induced insomnia and would get the nursing staff or help me with everything whenever I needed. ST really does run a full-service business. After I got back to the condo ST had set up, conveniently a few minutes from Cherry, I was able to start getting back to normal one day at a time. Thailand uses an app called Grab for everything from ordering a ride-share to restaurant and grocery delivery. The condo was really conveniently located near a lot of good cheap options and I basically lived on $10 sushi better than most I’d find in the US and Starbucks. Cherry went above and beyond to bring me fresh squeezed juice from a local vendor and groceries if I wanted anything. Saphira at Amani said their patients stay closer to the hospital, which was told to me as a selling point, but I only ever needed to go back to the clinic which is a different building in a different area anyway. The location was perfect and there was a very well stocked 7-11 in the building that I was able to walk down to after about a week. I paid for the extended care package, so Cherry was seeing me for the full 3 weeks I was there after surgery and helped me move up in dilator size and got me set to do everything myself before going home. Becky’s experience as an American who has lived in Thailand most her life was super helpful. She helped me resolve some issues I ran into with the airport and they I had some wonderful sightseeing experiences and dinners with them before and after surgery that really helped make me feel less anxious about the whole process. I’m not great at handling a lot of logistics and bureaucracy and it was even more important to have someone on my side while traveling to a foreign country for the first time. Everything from the time I landed to the time I left was helped by them.
I’ve been home now since the second week of December. Healing has been going really well for the most part. I had some spotting start back up after having a very extended cold my baby brought home from daycare. The chronic coughing has been slowing down healing. My first orgasm was at 28 days post-op, which is a personal record for longest time between orgasms since puberty. Some people bring up peritoneal having contestant wetness after surgery, but I haven’t had that issue at all. There is a small, normal amount of discharge throughout the day that doesn’t really require panty liners. When I wake up first thing in the morning, I’ve occasionally had a few thimbles worth of liquid come out right when I stand up, but it’s only a problem if I sleep straight through the night without getting up to pee.
On the whole I’m happy with the new hole (sorry, I had to). Sensation is great and I’ve had no numbness. I had some minor discomfort for a while, but realized after a few weeks that it was a reaction to the stickiness of Surgilube and have been fine since switching. I’d definitely recommend Dr. Thee and Cherry to anyone who asks and I actually recommended them to a friend before getting my surgery and she managed to get rescheduled to 3 weeks after me and posted here: One Month Post Op SRS PPT and 425cc BA with Dr Theerapong : Transgender_Surgeries (reddit.com)
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