Anyone know anything about the "one-step Amsterdam procedure"?

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I was just looking into a gender clinic reasonably nearby (They're up in Michigan some 40+ miles north of me), and their site, here, claims they do SRS using the "one-step Amsterdam procedure"...

Anyone ever heard of this SRS procedure? I tried googling and either my google-fu has failed, or, there is like, no information about this, or, well, it just plain doesn't exist.

Amsterdam

Based on the only thing I know about Amsterdam, I'd guess the one step is getting so stoned you know longer care that your genitals are the wrong shape.

Try running the search

"grs surgery in amsterdam" without the quotes of course.

This will net a "lot" of information.
I presume you will need to sift through it to find what you're looking for. I didn't have the time to search for a more specific address or search line.

Anesidora

actually...

All it seems to net me is a lot of nothing. Most of the first page all link to essentially the same stuff from the same site, none of it related. In fact. After sifting through to page 10 of the results, I still fail to see anything related.

In my experience, if you fail to find useful information by page 10 of your google results, you'll continue to fail to find any useful information in ALL the results, especially if the results number exceeds 200 or so (about 20 pages).

Abigail Drew.

They list...

...a phone number for -- I assume -- the UMich system, which might be able to direct you to one of the listed doctors. As well, they have an address there, and you could probably write to one of the doctors care of that address. Once contact has been made, you can ask them more directly what that entails, and they would probably be happy to tell you in perhaps more detail than you might care for. ^^; I know of very few in academia who don't like to talk about their field of specialization...

-Liz

Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"

Yeah...

I'll probably just have to ask them if I do decide to go into their program. Or rather. If I decide to look into it that deeply :P.

I'm honestly considering just sticking to diy'ing it for HRT, talking to a shrink for the necessary time, and try to get the required recommendations for SRS. I found a way to get a comprehensive DIY saliva testing kit for testing my hormone levels, it's expensive, at $170 a kit, but the site lists insurance codes so if I can get any kind of decent insurance... it's unclear if these kits are one-use-only or not.

Abigail Drew.

Shot in the dark.

I think this might refer to the fact they create the vaginal structure and the labia at the same time. Rather than a two step process separating the construction of the vagina as one step and the cosmetic surgical of the labia as a second step at a later date. But my information may be out of date.

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

celtgirl_0.gif

This seems likely.

Which still begs the question for what specific ACTUAL procedure they use... penile inversion? penile inversion + scrotal graft? intestinal graft? from what I've read and heard, the "best" procedure seems to be a 2-step, involving penile inversion and scrotal graft for the neo-vagina and then at a later date use the remaining scrotal skin to make the labia. But a one-step should still get decent results if it's a penile inversion + scrotal graft.

Abigail Drew.

University of Michigan Hospital, Ann Arbor Michigan

About the only thing I can tell you about University Michigan hospital Ann Arbor, they are number 10 ranking hospitals in the US, that is for surgical operations, but they do charge a pretty penny, was there in 2010, when in early a.m. and out around 6 PM total charge. Are you sitting down. $64.777.25 and I did nine get cup of coffee. Or lunch. The doctor bills are separate. God I love the VA.

Yeouch.

I've been told they'll do a sliding fee scale for people with no insurance and low income... But even so... yeouch...

Abigail Drew.

Ouch! and no food or coffee!

You think they would round it to the nearest $100,000 dolars?

Then another thing, the coffee and lunch could have cost $35,222.75

+ Doctors, their BMW's, houses, lunches, holidays, private schools, hair dressers, clothing, etc.!

Obviously their training (doctors), includes the advice on where to invest their time and money these days!

Anybody interested in starting up a TG insurance scheme? Seems to me 'T'he way to 'G'o.

Ouch!

I'm not laughing, but believe me. TG's need formal recognition in health costs alongside and equal to any other issues.

For instance smoking, terrible rate of deaths, etc. etc. etc.

What about Non Smoking T.G's, N.S.T.G's? plus a 10% discount on membership?

That's $100 which includes a $10 DONATION tO TOPSHELF!

Please send all money to ERIN!

Hugs

Rita

Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)

LoL
Rita

Very old procedure, actually...

Andrea Lena's picture

...not all that well known, but very, very effective!

fairy_dust.jpg

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

One step Amsterdam proceedure.

I looked on the internet a little and found nothing. So just to make sure that you understand in general terms what SRS is, here is a description of what I had done.

I had an Orchiectomy in April of 2005 (They cut my nuts off). You'll year various opinions about doing that ahead of time, and my doc said they were all bullshit. Remember, my original intention was to quietly get cut and remain with my family and not transition. I just wanted to cure my sexual addiction, not become a woman. That all blew up in my face when the family found out I was questioning my sexual orientation. They jumped to conclusions and threw me out.

So, In August of 2006, I had decided that I actually did want to become a woman, so booked a flight to Thailand for SRS with Dr Kamol in Bangkok.

He did a basic penile inversion where they cut your penis open and gut it like a dead fish. The are pretty careful with the highly enerviated end of the penis because when they are all done, that will become your clitorus.

So, then they turn your Penis inside out and surgically create a hole between your anus and your Urethra. Personally, I think they use a reasonably sterile shovel handle and jamb it in there to 3 or 4 inches. Then before they shove your Faux Vagina in there, they fasten one of your Vas Deferense at the end, so that as it dribbles, it will keep the vagina lubricated. Then they shove the entire assembly into place and stitch it. The Scrotum becomes your labial lips. I have only outer lips. For some reason they either could not or did not create inner lips.

Frankly, it looks pretty good until I spread my legs and then it looks like a huge gash with a hole in it. The Urethral hole is visible and the model clitoris is visible also.

They used to do the lips in another proceedure later, but when they did mine, it was all done at once.

I seem to have no sexual response or desire.

I am familiar...

With at least 3 major procedures/methods. I've done my homework mommy Gwen :)

Thanks for sharing your opinion on the procedure Dr. Kamol performed on you though. I've seriously considered going overseas for the final operation when the time comes, and Thailand was one of the possibles I've considered.

It sounds to me like they didn't really do a decent labia on you. It also sounds likely they only did a penile inversion without a scrotal graft... :/ Sounds to me like Dr. Kamol's off the list of surgeons I'll consider seeing when that time comes :P

Abigail Drew.

Amsterdam one step genital reconstruction MtF

S.L.Hawke's picture

Shrug. Off the top of my head, I would guess that they are probably referring to the "modification of the abdominally pedicled penile-skin-inversion technique added by a triangular perineal skin flap" pioneered by JJ Hage, RB Karim, and JW Mulder, of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Academisch Ziekenhuis Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam... ["Amsterdam Gender Clinic"].

Translated into English, the "abdominally pedicled" part means a technique in which the penis is "skinned" with a strip of flesh left attached to the front/top of the penis... maintaining a blood supply & nerve function through that "pedicle" strip. This skin is then "inverted" (turned "inside out", so that the outer skin is forms the surface of the vaginal lining). The "added by a triangular perineal skin flap" thing refers to the skin between the anus ("butt-hole") and the base of the scrotum ("ball sack"). A "triangle" is cut into the skin there, with the base (wide side) of the triangle being "down" ("dorsal"), and the point of the (usually about 10 cm/4 inch long by 4 cm/1.5 inch wide) triangle pointing "up", towards the penis... and into what will become the vagina. The "bottom"/"dorsal" end of the vagina is called the "introitus"... this triangular flap is used partly to widen that part of the vaginal entrance, and (since the "perineal" distance on a female (the distance from her anus to her vagina) is typically on the order of 5 cm/2 inches long (some are shorter than 30mm... most are between 30 and 60mm, and some are longer than 60mm -- but "most" average around 50mm/5 cm/2 inches), about half the length of this triangular flap, that means that usually about half of it is available to use as lining for the posterior wall of the vagina. (To line the "back" wall of the vagina -- towards the spine.)

Typically with this technique, the dorsal ("towards the back") part of the glans penis (the "head" of the penis) is left attached to the penis when the penis is "skinned"... and then the penis is resected (cut and pulled really carefully apart) so that the blood supply and nerves remain intact to the part of the glans penis that is used to make the clitoris... providing a "sensate pedicled neoclitoplasty" (surgically created clitoris that has "feeling" and was never complete detached from the body during its creation). But that part of the surgical technique was not developed by Hage, Karim, and Mulder, though... it dates back to Brown, in 1976.

All of this is kind of old news, though. The Amsterdam clinic's contributions to SRS techniques mostly date from 1996 -- there are several refinements of SRS techniques that others have made since then. So if the particular surgeon you are interested in uses this technique... well... I suppose it is not a "bad" thing, but it is not a "great" thing, either. My guess would be that the surgeon in question who uses this probably learned to do SRS sometime about a decade to a decade-and-a-half ago (or learned from someone who themselves learned about then)... and from the sounds of it, is still using the same technique. Well experienced in this technique (a good thing), but not necessarily completely up to date in the "latest and greatest" techniques, either...

Shrug. Just my two cents worth. Possibly accurate... possibly not -- I stopped really paying attention to developments in this field years ago...

this is probably exactly right!

And this would make complete sense for the area as well. I'm not entirely sure I'd call him "well experienced" though considering the area. This part of Ohio and Michigan tends to be very backwards thinking and don't seem to believe in making progress. To most people in this area, "the old ways are best". And I'm a progressive. Ugh. And people wonder why I hate Toledo...

I was mostly just curious if it was at all possible to "stay in the area". Apparently not. I highly doubt I'll still be in the area anyways when I am eventually able to get this done.

Well. Possible, yes... but... I don't particularly care to have a decade-old procedure used when there're much better ones available and quite possibly for less cost.

I'm also not particularly eager to stick around Toledo very long anyways!

Abigail Drew.

Toledo?

I lived in Painesville, OH for a year and there seemed to be an odd cultural dichotomy throughout the areas that I visited. On one hand, you have the Amish, and hill types, but on the other you have some hospitals in the Cleveland area that seemed quite advanced.

I will say that the VA in Painesville, had no idea what so ever what to do with me; one Doctor did not even know what SRS was. LOL. They were, however quite kind to me, just not very advanced. This was when I was still Muslim, and no one offered mean comments.

A side note about Thailand; I was there in August of 2006, and heard from various medical types that if a person arrives for SRS with no letter for surgery, they are sent to a Psychiatrist where you pay $200 and he gives you the letter. In my opinion, MOST of the money I spent on this whole debacle went to the shrinks.

I do not recommend shrinks to anyone. None of them correctly understood where I was mentally or the etiology of my problem. So, my opinion is why bother with the lot of them. But, if you are very sure that SRS is what you want, and it has been going on for years, perhaps some discreet inquiries overseas could save you 2/3 or 3/4 of the cost if you are brazen enough.

As it turns out, despite my copious complaining about the loss of my family and such, I must admit that I make a much better, happier woman than I ever did a man. So, before you take such brazen actions as I say are possible, you must be very sure that it is what will suit you the best, because if you get buyers remorse, there is not a jot of recourse.