All I can say is, there is always a chance of a bad result, no one is perfect. I can say from my experience, DB has personally talked me out of a lip lift multiple times because he feels it's too much for me. If he wanted money he could have just said yes too it the times I brought it up 🤷‍♀️

I've had a number of procedures from several surgeons. Never have they suggested additional procedures. If I ask for advice, they will give it, but always remind me that it is all about what I want and need. I would suggest having a few consultations and finding a surgeon you are comfortable with.

Db was extremely honest to me and and I wanted to do several things but he was like nope you don’t need that.

I had ffs with Dr. DB a few weeks ago, and I feel he did a really good job, beyond my expectations, although I'm quite early in recovery and can't judge the final results yet. In particular I very much like what he did with my nose right now.

I did have a complication, basically due to my body being weird in a rare way and not liking 6-7 hours of immobility during the surgery. (Not my face, my face is recovering very well). Initially I was privately skeptical about whether he'd done something wrong, but after learning more and hearing a lot of opinions from various sources it really was just my body being wacky and reacting badly in a rare way. In retrospect my body was always prone to this kind of issue, I just hadn't realized it was a health concern. Dr. DB and team promptly got me the care I needed and have been very concerned and compassionate and helpful about dealing with it. They're still asking about my recovery, which I find kind of sweet.

I recently had FFS with Keojampa and compared to consultations with other surgeons I felt like he focused on what I truly needed and not a bunch of extras. For example I had one other surgeon recommend cheek implants, lower face lift and buccal fat removal in addition to everything else. Keojampa said it was too early to say if I truly needed the cheek implants and never mentioned the other two procedures. I genuinely felt like he had my best interest in mind and wasn’t just trying to get me to pay for as many procedures as possible.

No doctor is perfect. But your anxieties are completely valid and it only makes sense that you’re nervous around such a major surgery. All I can say is that Dr. DB never recommended to put anything foreign inside of me (e.g. silicone) besides the little titanium screws that go in your forehead which is very common for type-3 forehead reconstruction. And he actually did the opposite with me when it came to suggesting procedures I did not need that I personally brought up during our consult (e.g. trachea shave, lip lift) so I listened to his advice and I’m glad I took it.

I haven’t seen any negative posts where someone has been completely dissatisfied and regretful by going to Dr. DB for facial feminization surgery. But if you are going to him for facial masculinization surgery, I would definitely bring that post you found talking about him and try to clarify with him what happened in order for you to be more comfortable to have him as your surgeon.

I think DB is still a very good choice for FFS. He does have one f-m botched face surgery and a few with minor complications and one that claimed her ffs was botched by him. But overall he is consistent. What you should watch out for are serial butchers who are Russian Roulette surgeons, who are also sloppy and lack skills like Zukowski and Bart Van de Ven. These two have dead patients and a string of botched patients with Van de Ven reaching 30-40+ total and increasing number of botched women and 3-5 deaths or more. Lawsuits filed vs them and a plethora of bad reviews with horrific pics and articles about near death experiences of patients who luckilly evaded death by a millimeter. If you read about Diana Goetsch's coma article and Kellie Maloney's FFS in Belgium, both are very harrowing experiences of how they were both lucky to survive Van de Ven's surgery which almost nearly killed them and left them with mangled faces. Beware of cheap surgeons. Just don't bother.

I can’t speak for others, but I had a great experience with Dr. DB and he was very thorough in explaining why I didn’t need certain procedures.

I’m happy with the outcome so far and I’m happy I chose him.

Every reputable FFS surgeon will have bad reviews; it can be from any number of reasons. Surgeons have an incentive to push more procedures on you to earn more money; it's human nature. From what I've seen overall, Dr. DB is among the top and busiest FFS surgeons in the field, so I think you are in good hands with him. Having said that, it's recommended you seek the opinion of some unbiased third parties regarding which FFS procedures you'd truly benefit from.

This review doesn't really deter me from wanting him to do my surgery.

I just had a consultation with Dr. Bassiri Gharb, one of the FFS surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic. Her recommendation was not to do anything related to FFS. She said anything that I would need would be age related and at least 5 years out.

Surgeons like this are not that uncommon and they are fantastic Doctors. These surgeons just aren't part of the small insular group of well-known Docs that thrive by name recognition and popularity on Trans forums or Reddit. For the most part, the goto surgeons have proven their competence at achieving acceptable FFS results. not by doing unnecessary surgery.

It would be nice if all this FFS surgery didn't involve risk, but it does. Facial symmetry is a monumental task with soft tissue. Add bone work to that underlying structure and you can understand why outcomes can be unpredictable.

Apply the 50 procedure rule.

I'm kind of in the same exact boat as you. FFS is by far the most important surgery to me, and I want to be sure my surgeon is on the same page as me.

I have respect for these surgeons you mentioned and the good work they produce, tho I am becoming increasingly worried over what I've been reading about Dr. DB. Not only did the case of facial masculinization both sadden me and scare me, but I've also heard mixed anecdotes of his FFS results from former patients, especially when it comes to their noses. Not to mention I'm reading he can have quite a proud personality and seem annoyed towards tweaks and suggestions you make towards your surgery which personally concerns me as this is huge and I definitely have aesthetic preferences I need met, though I've never heard of him unwilling to make changes to his patient's requests either. I've also read overwhelmingly positive experiences with him too in all fairness so I'll kind of just have to see for myself once I actually have a consultation with him.

I'm also torn on Keojampa, while a lot of his work is good and I do think he's a good surgeon, the girl who was amazing enough to share her negative experience with him on this sub kind of made me reconsider. I know these are more 'isolated' experiences, maybe not what's typical and need to be considered with such factors in mind, but I personally find myself really listening to those who have experienced regret and less than adequate results when considering my options.

Have you considered Dr. Jumaily in LA? I'm not sure what your FFS goals are, my most problemed areas are my nose and my forehead (with my nose being the biggest most important aspect to me) and I'm starting to think he's probably going to be the best option for me. He also trained under Spiegel alongside surgeons like Keojampa and Mardirossian. I think if you need more lower face/jaw work he may not be the most ideal option though.

Best of luck with your search!

It’s awful that we have to be worried about doctors finding out about us or medical gaslighting. A Hippocratic Oarh: first do no harm. And although everything says to ask surgeons for people they’ve worked on etc, you can never do this and t. Basically, your face and head is a HUGR deal and they expect us to just walk in pay and say do what you need to?!?

Anything like this still mergers a lot of pictures, conversations with patients five years down the line and images of what can and can’t be - as well as answers as to my their route may be different from another you consulted with.

Important business- we deserve to be informed and make our own decisions

It’s interesting because for me he didn’t. I still know if need more forehead projection- totally flat, more cheek projection and of course browlift. He suggested only moving the maxilla and a possible liplift which I appreciate.