Am I too heavy for an orchiectomy and/or vaginoplasty
I started hormones March 2007 and started living full time as female at the same time. Legal name change to Joslyn in March 2008. Will be starting ‘Brazilian’ laser hair removal mid October 2010.
Specific_Questions: I have just had spinal surgery to correct cervical spine stenosis on Sept 20, 2010, and was told by Surgeon it will take up to 6 months to heal. After 6 months are there any concerns about doing a full SRS? Can I have an orchiectomy done sooner than the 6 months? What weight limits do you have?
HEAR: From friends and internet research
October 1, 2010
Good morning Joslyn,
Thank you for your interest in what we do.
While individual consideration is given in every case, we are disinclined to operate on obese people in an outpatient – 24 hour hold setting, as they pose a greater risk for complications. For your information, smoking and obesity are the two most preventable causes of early death in the United States. If you would call the office and give us your height and weight, we’ll tell you where you stand on the charts. You may wish to review the “ideal weight charts” for women and men http://www.healthdiscovery.net/links/calculators/ideal_bodyweight.htm
http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm
Clearly the first recourse for obese patients is weight reduction. For those patients who have not responded well to dieting, please consider a hospital environment for the benefits of supportive nursing care and respiratory therapy.
Occasionally we had experienced some misrepresentation when arriving patients are weighed here in our office. Please do not tell me you gained weight unexpectedly because you were told to stop smoking, or that you are 5′ 2″ and weigh 180 pounds but “you can’t see it,” or have big bones, or had silicone injections or breast implants, or don’t have a scale at home, or do not weigh yourself regularly, or “my scale must be broken,” or “your scale is broken,” etc. There is no shortage of scales in our medical community.
There’s not a line we haven’t heard. After spending your hard earned money to travel here perhaps with a friend or loved one, arrange to take a leave of absence from your job, making a reservation at the nearby motel, you will find your case has been cancelled only to be rescheduled when you are at the suggested weight.
Weight in our practice is not a factor in orchiectomy as this is a brief minor procedure done under local with IV sedation. However this, vis-à-vis a 6 hour operation with the weight of your lower extremities in stirrups for 5 hours or so, could preclude you from vaginoplasty until there is better height weight confirmation. If you could provide some info on your stats now, I could make some recommendations.
As for recent cervical spine surgery, simply a letter of clearance from your surgeon would suffice. I feel comfortable that vaginoplasty could be done 6 months afterwards, assuming no sequelae from your neck surgery.
With kindest regards,
Harold M. Reed, M.D.
305-865-2000
1111 Kane Concourse, Suite # 311
Bay Harbor Islands, Fl 33154-2041
PS Patients who have orchiectomy with us as an independent procedure
receive a 1000 credit toward their vaginoplasty surgery.
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