Earlier this year i had FFS with Xavier Lachiver in Paris, and i decided to leave a review because he doesnt seem to have many i could find.

I chose him as a surgeon because he had shockingly good results - if you take a look on his website theres a number of pictures that are, as i said, shockingly good. He was also polite towards me and did not have weird requirements like psychologists letters - when i asked him about the last part his exact quote was "You're an adult you know what you're doing", which i appreciated. He also sent me a "simulation" of possible end result based on some pictured i had sent to him - in the end it was pretty much exactly how i ended up looking, so it was surprisingly representative.

He himself was easy to interact with - I've had some incredibly bad experiences with doctors that work with trans people, so i kept expecting him to do something to me or suddenly be demeaning or.... something ... But that never happened - He was extremely pleasant towards me each time i had spoken to him, and didnt say or do anything that made me feel uneasy. He also didnt care that i had not been able to correct my legal documents - I was born in a country that more or less made it impossible so i was worried that it might become an issue, but it didnt. I ended up being overly guarded around him for no reason. He had also humored a few of my unusual requests such as having the tracheal shave scar placed asymetrically.

As for the surgery itself, it went surprisingly well - i ended up having forehead reduction (incision within the hair about 5 centimeters behind the hairline),rhinoplasty,tracheal shave, eyebrow lift, submental liposuction and i had bone shaved away on my lower jaw around where the mental foramen is. I Went into it expecting him to fail (i guess i'm a doomer), and some of my facial features like nose in particular were so incredibly bad i'd call them disfiguring because they wouldnt look good on anyone regardless of gender. To my great surprise he managed to fix that, I wont be posting pictures of myself here because its not really safe to out yourself to the world as trans, but the result is shockingly good, comparable to the ones he has on his website. Most of the time, whenever i saw myself in the mirror (or god forbid, in pictures) i would be in tears or anxious from it, but now i've managed to get some pictures (mostly from profile) that are downright pretty . ive been able to go to the grocery store without feeling humiliated if someone looks at me, its nice. The tracheal shave was also kind of great - in the past whenever i would swallow I could feel the trachea moving around and pressing against the skin, It was very uncomfortable and reminded me that its there, but now its gone - and gone from my mind too, I had to edit this post because i had forgotten i had this procedure .

I personally did not end up with any nerve damage on my face, I woke up with my chin being completely numb but that started rapidly resolving itself and within a month i had full sensation back. I can also move everything properly. I did end up with a hematoma on the right side of my jaw around the mental foramen however that ended up being a very temporary issue - Dr. Lachiver also noticed this problem immediately himself without me needing to point it out to him the moment he started examining the inside of my mouth. Normally im the one that has to point out problems to doctors so its been a nice to have a doctor that is competent and doesnt need me to hold his hand. Other than that i had no complications to speak of.

The recovery was a little unpleasant - as expected - he placed drains (for the blood to drain out) in my head and that plus the staples used were incredibly uncomfortable. I wasnt able to sleep because of the pain and i wasnt able to hold my head at any angle but with my face upwards. I was also too meek to ask for painkillers most of the time because regular over the counter pain killers do nothing at all for me and never have, and i didnt expect them to give me opioids - when i did actually ask for them they did give me some and then i was able to sleep. i was discharged on the third day after the surgery and Dr. Lachiver gave me a long list of prescriptions, antibiotics, opioids, anti inflammatory stuff, a mouthwash, etc. Dr. Lachiver himself came by every morning as well to check the incisions, etc. On the first day the anaesthesiolgist (Dr. Arthu Davy) also came by to check how i was doing - He was also very pleasant to interact with. The hospital itself was nice as well (including the staff - who also didnt make weird comments about me, even though i was expecting them to, the room im in was good and had a private shower (but no towels, so bring those yourself) and a very cool bed that let me change whether i was lying down or sitting upright. after about a week i had an appointment with Dr. Lachiver in his clinic where he removed the staples and would have removed the nose cast (i removed it myself on the same day a few hours earlier). He gave me another prescription for antibiotics and offered me more pain killers which i had stupidly refused - i was fine in that moment but two weeks later when swelling around my eyebrows started finally going down it became quite painful again - at some point i wasnt able to change position in bed without feeling like i got hit with a brick, I was thankfully able to get more opioids from my gp so it wasnt a huge a problem but apparently refusing them was a mistake.

The price i paid him was 17k euros, which is very reasonable. I also greatly appreciated how he wrote his price quote, which also played a role in me choosing him - Most surgeons charge a price for a specific procedure, e.g 5k for rhinoplasty, 10k for jaw surgery, etc - but lets be real, procedures dont cost anything , However the operating room, surgeons time,aneasthesiologist & anaesthetic, hospital room, etc etc DO cost something - and thats exactly how he wrote his quote. He charged me for his own time, for the anaesthesiologists time, the operating room, etc. Its a very honest way of writing a quote and i like it, i would most likely have gone with him even if he had charged more, just because the way he wrote his quote didnt make me feel like im being scammed out of my money.

There was also one unexpected benefit from the surgery - I've always had some issues breathing through my nose, mostly because of snot being stuck in it but even when its perfectly clear ive never been able to even walk too fast without needing to resort to breathing through my mouth. For some reason i can breathe just a little better now, its subtle but its definitely better.

The only thing i really wish that he had done differently is that he gave me prescription for stuff on the day when i was discharged, and i have no family or really anyone at all to ask for help so i had to go to a pharmacy myself and i felt every footstep in my face which was pretty terrible of an experience. I did tell him this and he did say that he'll do that differently for future patients, so its not likely to be an issue in the future for others.

Overall i have no regrets, if i had to have this surgery again i'd choose him again. I have no idea why he has so few reviews - I originally found his name through this subreddit and started looking into him, but without this subreddit i wouldnt even know he existed. He does have google reviews but you'd only find them after you know of him. Either way very pleased with what he did.

EDIT ; theres one other thing, although pre-surgery i was upset over my appearance, i was also quite unhappy with how it felt to touch my forehead and nose, i could feel a bump on my forehead and my nose felt angular. Didnt like that and generally it made me unhappy because it felt how it looked - that is to say, bad. post-surgery, i cannot feel the bump on my forehead and im quite neutral towards it in terms of what i can feel, but my nose is actually "pleasant to touch", in the sense that it feels okay now.