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Dr Bryan Rolfes is an artist. He has really good aesthetics and so far very consistent with his results both aesthetically and safety wise. I have spoken to 2 recent patients of Harrison Lee and they both had complications from their FFS. Nerve damage, crooked lip, infections and his aftercare was non- existent for these non-influencer patients. I think Lee only cares about he rich and famous. I would suggest you go ahead with Rolfes. If he was close to me I'd have gone with him too.
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Good luck! Heard good things about his personality and bedside manner too. I follow them on FB and Insta and their posts are also very quirky. I heard his staff are very friendly and humble. I hope he stays that way. His prices are more realistic too unlike the others with over inflated prices and ego.....
I had full ffs with Dr Rolfes. Here's a quick review. I really liked him and his team, and greatly appreciated how much time he spent with me both in the consult and in the post-op followups. I got the works and overall was happy with the results, but felt like it got me 70% of the way to where I wanted to be. I've been told by friends that I pass, but tbh I don't see it. Even so, it reduced my dysphoria immensely, and I'm really grateful for that.
The main thing I would caution about is to consider what your jaw/chin needs to look the way you want. Rolfes only does mandible shaving, which will not significantly change the shape of your jaw, but if you don't need a lot, then it can still make a good difference. When I went to see him, I saw his good results and told him that I trusted his judgment to do what he thought would benefit me the most. In retrospect, I wish I had taken more control of the process. Now I'm looking at doing a revision for a mini v-line and sliding genioplasty, and I do not look forward to having my jaw messed up for another 6 months. Rolfes doesn't do those procedures unfortunately so I really limited the range of best possible outcomes by not being more proactive in figuring out what I really needed.
The flip side is that I have a friend who went to him a month after me and she's 100% happy with how she looks now. She was very specific about what she wanted done. My nose looks pretty good, but hers looks amazing. (I think it's good advice to put this level of attention into your procedures regardless of who you end up going to.)
Also, if you haven't already considered Regina Rodman, I'd recommend checking her out. She's amazing as well, and does type 3 in addition to more advanced jaw surgeries (like Mardirossian and Lee).
I had recently had gotten surgery with Dr. Rolfes as well. I completely agree with you about the consults and follow ups! They have an excellent care team!
However, to add my own experience to this, when i did my consultation with him and we discussed all of my concerns and what he thought would work with me, he had suggested a sliding genioplasty and a v-line procedure. Which had surprised me because I had read he doesn't perform these procedures. Although, I was very specific with the outcome I had wanted; and he delivered just that.
Well dang! I wonder if he just started performing those surgeries in the past year, or if he just simply didn't suggest them to me. My jaw has been my major source of dysphoria, and I was really explicit about that during my consult, but he didn't mention the possibility of sliding genioplasty or v-line. My jaw is still a masculine, box shape that exceeds feminine proportions. During my recent revision consults, each doctor I spoke with suggested both of those procedures. I'm honestly a little upset that Dr Rolfes did not suggest either. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
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Be careful with demanding so much change with the jaw and chin. If you shave too much your nerve canal is at a great risk of being breached. Mine ended up destroyed and permanently exposed. Shaving for the most part I think is enough. Genioplasty only if your chin is super wide, long and receeded. Others will agree but it's better to be safe than sorry. My butcher went so aggressive I have a hole in my jaw and the terminal part is gone cause my butcher went ham. Genioplasty also always requires screws and this can impinge against teeth roots.
I went with Rolfes too, and I feel similar. We’re planning on a revision to pretty much everything. Idk, I feel like he was a bit conservative on me
Are you doing a revisions with Dr Rolfes? The fact that he said he would do revisions for free makes it very tempting, but tbh I feel he's lost my trust so I've been looking elsewhere.
Ya that’s the plan; though I think you still pay the facility fee. I still think he’s a good surgeon. But tbh I was a little surprised that when I was talking the specifics of what I wanted he never really wrote anything down.
I don't know at ton of information about the other surgeons you listed, but I have my FFS set in December with Dr Mardirossian, so I could get back to you then. However, out of the 3 practices I considered (Dr. Mardirossian, Facial Team in Spain, and T-Change in Argentina) Dr. Mardirossian made me feel the most comfortable because he gave me the best and most thorough consultation. We talked for an hour and a half about the process whereas the other practices were a bit more constraining on time. I was going to maybe choose T-Change because of the drastic price difference, but much like you, my insurance came through and said they could help finance if I got the surgery in the US. Because of that I chose Dr. Mardirossian because not only was he now the cheapest option of the three, but because I felt the most comfortable with him.
I know that doesn't help much, but hopefully it does!
I went to T-Change and was badly botched, Amanda couldn't care less about what Rossi did to me. I had everything re-done at Facial Team, they did as minimal work as they could and charged me a lot of money for doing virtually nothing. I'm now looking, and choosing my next surgeon very carefully. I'm thinking about Dr. Toby Mayer as I can't wait for Dr Keojampa. For you, Dr. Mardirossian sounds like your best choice, up until now, I've only ever read good reviews about him, I will look further into this particular surgeon for myself.
I don’t think you’d see a noticeable difference in quality between them; they’re all good. If one works best logistically then maybe that’s your answer
I'm doing the same thing with Starbucks, but still choosing Dr. Keojampa since I want quality over speed to get the procedure. So many complications involved though.You need 20 hours a week for 3 months to qualify for Starbucks' health insurance. Below that and it's taken away. It's common for them to give you not enough hours. I'm starting to think it's on purpose so you can't qualify. How is that shit even legal. At least you get 20 free Lyra therapist sessions. I've been using it to eventually get a surgery letter.
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If you look on his site he says he's had people able to use Starbucks insurance no problem, and they work with the insurance company.
I'm not sure I was considering going to Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel. So I'm not sure how well the others are in comparison.
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Really?
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I'm on cellphone not sure I can out side of trying to google the results maybe...
I called their office. They don't do x rays or even use them for bone work. I didn't call back again.
Ah
Yeah the person on the phone said he's good enough and has done this enough that he doesnt need x rays that he just digs in and goes at it, which was enough for me to change my mind.
Wow
I have talked to a lot of Dr. Spiegel patients both online and in-person, and they all loved his work. He has five or so negative reviews on the internet and those have unfortunately been blown out of proportion. He is still considered one of the absolute best and most experienced FFS surgeons in the world, and have trained both Mardirossian and Keojampa.
Thank you. This is the sort of thing I was thinking. I figure I will just bring up questions regarding his practice doing teaching surgeries(va does this) and about the x at stuff. But from what I have seen his work has been great.
He has been one of the best plastic surgeons in the world for almost two decades now, so you would expect some complaints along the way. Every surgeon gets some complaints because complications can occur or patients can come in with unrealistic expectations and then get disappointed when the surgery did not live up to what they had imagined.
Dr. Spiegel does train plastic surgeons, but his program is probably the most competitive plastic surgeon program in the US, so the people he works with are certified doctors that are at the end of their residency period, which is generally 5-7 years for plastic surgeons. Having talked to both Dr. Spiegel and former patients of his about this, he is absolutely clear that he does all the work and that the residency surgeons only assist or contribute in secondary roles like holding tools, etc.
The main reason you need a facial x-ray before FFS is to determine the thickness of the bone in front of the frontal sinus. Dr. Spiegel argues that this is not necessary when a surgeon has done thousands of procedures, and I contradict or argue that this is bad practice considering he is quite literally the most experience and best forehead surgeon in the world.
At the end of the day, I recommend that you do your own research and look at a surgeon's credentials. People online generally just repeat what they have heard from an anonymous person on the internet, without really having proper knowledge or experience to make the claims that they make.
I'm with you on most of this. People are going to get bad review's and people will be Biased...it happens I usually try to read the reviews and make my assessment based on timeline and how frequent people complain instead of getting things done about it.
I would recommend looking at other mediums as well, not just trans spaces. What usually tends to happen is that a couple of surgeons get hot and hyped up, but once the hype fades they get the same treatment as older surgeons. Look at someone like Marci Bowers, who is perhaps one of the best srs surgeons in the world. She gets dragged through the mud in here on occasion. Dr. Spiegel has an extensive realself page with a lot of reviews. https://www.realself.com/dr/jeffrey-h-spiegel-newton-ma
Dr. Spiegel does train plastic surgeons, but his program is probably the most competitive plastic surgeon program in the US, so the people he works with are certified doctors that are at the end of their residency period, which is generally 5-7 years for plastic surgeons. Having talked to both Dr. Spiegel and former patients of his about this, he is absolutely clear that he does all the work and that the residency surgeons only assist or contribute in secondary roles like holding tools, etc.
If you look up Dr. Spiegel at www.certificationmatters.org you will discover that what you wrote is not accurate. Dr. Spiegel is NOT BOARD CERTIFIED AS A PLASTIC SURGEON. He is board certified as an ear, nose, & throat doctor. Think ear tubes and tonsillectomies.
Dr. Spiegel has been very successful in convincing patients that he is trained as a plastic surgeon. He was not. Otherwise, he would be listed as a Plastic Surgeon at that official web site of record, for "real" board certifications, as opposed to the numerous "membership" or "vanity" organizations, some of which have the word 'plastic' or 'facial' in their titles.
Yes. It is confusing. But it is easy to figure it out if you know where to look for authoritative answers.
You really need to stop with that nonsense. That board is for general plastic surgeons that do boobs and butts and in no way qualifies them to be face specialists. Facial plastic surgeons and maxillofacial surgeons are the true face experts. Spiegel is actually a full Plastic Surgery professor at a prestigious medical university and is a board certified Facial Plastic Surgeon
That web site is the official master list of board certified physicians & surgeons. The sponsoring organization is the American Board of Medical Specialties. ABMS. THAT is the legitimate organization that sponsors all of the "non-vanity" (i.e. legitimate) specialty boards.
Those are hard facts. Not opinions.
Those facts may be inconsistent with what you have been led to believe. But you might investigate further. Please, go to that web site and search for Dr. Spiegel. Read what it says. He is board certified in otorhinolaryngology - - i.e. Ear Nose & Throat (ENT) doctor.
Dr. Spiegel is NOT a board certified Plastic Surgeon in any board recognized by the ABMS, according to their official web site, available to you and every other patient. There are a lot of board certified plastic surgeons who spend their entire careers doing nothing but head and neck work. They would be mildly amused to learn that they were never trained to do that, but were only trained to do boobs and butts, as you erroneously assert.
If one studies the history of plastic surgery in the last 100 years - - it started out as surgery of the face. That field became a recognized specialty field of surgery in the years after WWI, when a lot of surgeons had to do major facial re-constructions on a few hundred thousand veterans of the trenches in WWI. I do not think anybody in that era had ever considered boob jobs and butt lifts.
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See if you can find the Am Board of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery on
www.certificationmatters.org
.
You cannot.
Basically, the Am Bd of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery is one of the multiple "vanity" "membership" organizations.
That board was organized by ENTs for ENTs. Its single purpose is to create an official sounding organization that has the words "Plastic" and "Surgery" in the name. The ENTs got together and created that organization as a marketing device because they wanted to have non-insurance private pay surgeries for a revenue stream.
You can become a member with about 10 months of history working as a resident in the area of plastic surgery while in ENT training.
surgnurse89,. Why are you even here as you are not trans? You probably work for some general plastic surgeon that is envious of ENTs who are facial plastic surgeons to push your agenda. Look at the names that continually get mentioned here as, Harrison Lee, Mayer, Spiegel, Keojampa, Mardirossian, Rolfes, Rodman, Baez and multiple otthers who all have ENT training and are facial plastic surgeons
I agree. My consult with Dr. Keojampa was terrific. Which is why I’m scheduled for surgery on February 1.
If you want to go to LA visit the Perk clinic. Dr. Michelle Lee is amazing.
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