CAUTION: Dr Paweł Szymanowski - Kraków, Poland (Vaginoplasty)

42
u/Still_Relative1899
Sun Nov 24 09:20:50 2024 UTC
(31 comments)

He seemed very warm and caring at the outset but I needed to revise my view of him. 1. He refused to even look at my junk when planning the surgery. What on earth? How could he know if I didn't have some issues that wouldn't need fixing first? 2. He informed me no hair removal is needed so I assumed they cauterize or scrape. Wrong, they don't and he didn't care, I needed to do all research on my own. Once I confronted him about it he said "we'll care about it afterwards" and that "no patient of his complains about it". He meant just plucking it. What the fuck? 3. He pointed me to a dermatologist because he saw I was treating my health and the surgery very seriously. I went to them, they had no clue about neovaginas but told me that it was either electrolysis or shaving cream in my vagina. They also told me they never saw such amount of hair on a penis in their whole career. So I was right, the surgeon would have set me up for a life of bacterial infections, dysphoria and dispaurenia had I trusted him. 4. He had otherwise good reviews from a few girls I talked to so I just decided to take care of the hair myself the way people on here told me to, stopped laser, found an electrologist, organized a numbing cream with the help of a dermatologist I personally know (no good OTC available here) and started doing electrolysis, 1 full clearing per month. 5. After a few months of clearings I decided to contact the hospital he works to ask for a surgery date - just so that I would have something to look forward to in my train wreck of a life. I would have to push it back probably but I just find having something to wait for to be beneficial for my mental health. I was informed they had raised the costs by around 25% (up till 58k PLN, around 14k USD or 13.4k Euro) which was tough as my transphobic shithole of a country does not let you do anything with your health insurance and I have neither a good career nor a rich family. I tried argumenting that it wasn't my fault I had to push it back a year, he was supposed to contact me but he wouldn't, the hospital desk wouldn't listen when I told them NO I HAD NO CALLS FROM HIM. Then after a month I got a call in the morning as I was starting my shift and I couldn't pick it up. Then I just received a writing from the hospital's director that they won't treat me anymore (anymore? Did you do anything besides wasting my time, money and damaging my mental health?).

I hope this post finds its way to someone and saves them from what I had to go through. I'm already after two consultations with another surgeon, this time I was immediately told I need to do permanent hair removal and that he needs to see me in person in order to qualify me for surgery. What a difference, huh.

Thanks for reading.

all 31 comments



26
u/MainCommunication802
Sun Nov 24 12:11:13 2024 UTC
(0 children)

I’m starting to think that as a patient group we are generally pretty grateful for any gender affirming care even if poor quality, for whatever sociological reasons. It’s probably an attractive situation for surgeons to work with such a patient group, especially the less skilled or diligent surgeons

9
u/moonlighteulogy
Sun Nov 24 12:09:08 2024 UTC
(2 children)

Yikes, I’m sorry to hear that. Crazy how the prices have gone up im Poland since I had my surgery.

8
Sun Nov 24 14:44:50 2024 UTC
(1 child)

Prices have become ludicrous and surgeons don't even have that much experience, It's insane

1
Sun Nov 24 17:42:03 2024 UTC
(0 children)

I was lucky enough to be one of the last (if not the last) to be operated in Gdansk before they stopped doing those surgeries and they were the most experienced in the country as far as I know. Sad how the trans healthcare seems to just be on the downward spiral.

6
u/onnake
Sun Nov 24 15:27:58 2024 UTC
(0 children)

Thank you for the heads up about him.

9
u/HiddenStill
Sun Nov 24 09:36:41 2024 UTC
(3 children)

If you're paying I'd recommend you look at surgeons on Thailand.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TransSurgeriesWiki/wiki/srs/thailand

You MUST use a web browser to view that. Do not use a reddit app, or you won't see all of it, and there's a lot.

5
OP
Sun Nov 24 10:02:14 2024 UTC
(2 children)

Thank you for the recommendation.

Unfortunately, the costs are even higher there when I checked it a few weeks ago and I don't have anyone in my life who would be able to go there with me.

7
Sun Nov 24 10:40:03 2024 UTC
(1 child)

Plenty of people travel to Thailand alone. The standard of care for some of the surgeons is quite high.

There’s a wide price range as well, starting at around USD 2200 or so, though I’d not suggest that one. The lower cost ones don’t get many reviews so hard to say how good they are.

1
OP
Sun Nov 24 17:15:09 2024 UTC
(0 children)

Sure. I'll do some reading then.

2
u/Trina__Vega
Sun Nov 24 14:43:24 2024 UTC
(6 children)

Was the other surgeon you found also from Poland? I would love to know :(

3
OP
Sun Nov 24 16:52:09 2024 UTC
(5 children)

Yes, I arranged a consultation with Dr Świniarski as he just cared about me in the past enough to answer my emails regarding the hair removal while I wasn't even a patient of his. He assessed that some more electrolysis would be awesome, was nice enough in the conversation and wouldn't patronize me. And he actually seems to have gone with his team through some "training" with Lambda so that people don't misgender you or say "sex change" or whatever. He does phalloplasties for trans dudes as well.

2
Mon Nov 25 08:43:37 2024 UTC
(4 children)

Which parts did he tell you to use electrolysis on? I talked with 2 girls who who had inversion vaginoplasty done by him and they did not have to do any hair removal treatment before

1
OP
Mon Nov 25 20:56:21 2024 UTC
(3 children)

It was stated in the paper with the paper I got after the first (online) consultation that "multiple depilation sessions" are required in case you want to prevent regrowth inside the neovagina.

He precised to me that what should be clear is all of the shaft (1 cm around it is optional for him) scrotum and perineum till around 1,5 cm from the rectum.

He doesn't care much for shorter intermediate or vellus hair. And seemed (important: this is what I understood) to suggest that some of the girls who came to him had more hair than me but they were good to go if desperate. I still have some, maybe not terminal but longer intermediate hairs.

1
Fri Dec 13 10:18:33 2024 UTC
(2 children)

Did they do the hair removal there? No place I called or written to agreed to do hair removal in the genital/rectum region. And electrolysis there seem... brutal, to say the least, I barely can stand having electrolysis on my face.

2
OP
Fri Jan 24 21:21:44 2025 UTC
(1 child)

I use a numbing cream and while I know some electrologists refuse to treat trans women, I haven't been refused service so far. I'm sorry to hear your experience is different...

2
Fri Jan 24 21:33:39 2025 UTC
(0 children)

I mean - on my face - of course, they do it. But when I asked about the groin region - nope, we cannot do it there :(

2
u/Apart-Assumption-387
Mon Nov 25 13:36:01 2024 UTC
(0 children)

I am so sorry to hear . I really hope you find a surgeon who will treat you with respect . You deserve it ! Like another girl said I would look into Thailand. Maybe save up a little more and go to a reputable surgeon. I know you probably just want to just get this surgery done but once you get it and the results are not good you’re pretty much stuck with it unless you get a revision ( which is a headache ) . If you can I recommend saving some more money and traveling to get this procedure if you can ! And if you can’t find a really reputable surgeon around you ❤️ talk to some girls about it . I wish you the absolute best babe ❤️

3
u/Aggravating_Soil3970
Mon Nov 25 01:23:16 2024 UTC
(1 child)

I guess the moral of the story is not to get vaginoplasty in Eastern Europe. There really aren't any good gender surgeons over there.

2
OP
Mon Nov 25 08:43:25 2024 UTC
(0 children)

I feel like that's a bit of an oversimplification. My partial FFS went great (yet another surgeon) and the results were exactly as discussed.

*Also, I really wouldn't call Poland "Eastern Europe". If it were, Eastern Germany would have to be as well because both entities were part of the Socialist Block after WW2. So it's not Eastern either geographically, historically or religiously.

1
u/Comfortable_Baby7289
Sun Nov 24 15:52:24 2024 UTC
(1 child)

I had surgery in Gyneka and I had no laser or electrolysis. I asked about hair removal also. Finally everything is okay with my post-op vagina

2
OP
Sun Nov 24 16:44:26 2024 UTC
(0 children)

That's good. Did you have hair on your genitals, though? I know a girl who just happened not to have any so she didn't care. She was happy with the result. That couldn't be me though, I had tons of hair down there, on most of the penis and the scrotum.

1
u/Electrical-Gur-1563
Sun Nov 24 18:52:07 2024 UTC
(9 children)

Poland allows SRS?

5
OP
Sun Nov 24 18:54:55 2024 UTC
(3 children)

As soon as you get your legal gender changed. Why the question?

3
Sun Nov 24 18:56:19 2024 UTC
(2 children)

Oh i was just asking because I heard Poland is generally not really Pro Trans so I was surprised, sorry.

6
OP
Sun Nov 24 19:03:54 2024 UTC
(1 child)

It's ok.

It's not banned: once you've changed the magical letter in your documentation, the surgeon doesn't go to prison for making you unable to reproduce if they perform the surgery. That's all.

3
Sun Nov 24 19:06:23 2024 UTC
(0 children)

Ah I see, well I hope things go good for you, good luck 🫶

5
Mon Nov 25 08:46:17 2024 UTC
(4 children)

Poland generally is not pro trans, but it's no the end of the world. They allow surgeries and changing your gender marker, although everything is out of pocket and awfully expensive. Poles can't even aford FFS. Basically all your legal documents can be changed and if nobody asks for your "longer" version of birth certificate they will never be able to uncover that you had your personal info changed

2
Mon Nov 25 14:45:34 2024 UTC
(1 child)

they allow changing marker if you sue your parents

5
Mon Nov 25 21:27:44 2024 UTC
(0 children)

true, that sucks big time

1
OP
Tue Nov 26 11:27:18 2024 UTC
(1 child)

Can't I have the full birth certificate amended as well? 🤔 No that I need to but you've surprised me.

On a different note, since I can see you're searching as well, Sutin PI + Scrotum Graft would cost around 55k PLN (including the travel and stay). I just contacted them. :) Though the perspective of having to fly for 16 hours alone with a healing organ or getting major complications in a foreign country does give me anxiety spikes. That's why I wanted to stay closer to home.

Don't hesitate to DM me if you want to share info or something.

1
Tue Nov 26 16:33:31 2024 UTC
(0 children)

You may be the first one to try tho. But yeah your FULL birth certificate will always have your deadname and gender assigned at birth on the first page and only on the second page there will be an annotation that on this and that day your legal gender was changed by a court order and your name was changed to X. However you can also use the shortened version which doesn't have any info about your previous name and gender assigned at birth

Real. I'm completely terrified if i decided to travel abroad for the surgery. The thought of being alone there in a whole different country. Very anxiety inducing. But in Poland I could have the surgery in the same city i live in. Thanks for the info tho!!!