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*Treatment results may vary
28 Year Old MTF Transgender 5'1", 145 Lbs - FFS in MEXICO!
After looking around for quite a while I was determined at my next transitional surgery to be facial feminization. I originally was only looking at American surgeons although I knew about Cardenas and the TransOp team before doing my main search for surgeons.
The primary American surgeon I looked at was Dr. Spiegel in Boston. But prices were way too high for me to do and the longer I waited the more depressed I was from dysphoria. I was quoted some $50k+ from various American surgeons around the country via virtual consults.
The prices was the main driving point of looking at Mexico. The idea of Mexico was quite scary as there are so many negatives talked about the country.
Well I had my consult with Cardenas and one of the main reasons I decided to go to Mexico is that during the consult he talked me out of several procedures I was looking at which showed me it wasn't all about money for them and he could get the same results i might want within other procedures or cheaper ones.
After a while I decided to book myself with the TransOp team. I decided on getting:
-Forehead Type III Contour
-Hairline Advancement
-Browlift
-Nose Job
-Upper Lip Lift
-Fat Injection to Lips
-Jaw contour/shave
-Chin contour/shave
-Chin implant
-Buccal Fat Removal
The total cost was roughly $20,000 USD. The reason I listed it as 25k was due to plane tickets, hospital over night stay fee (which I was surprised was not included), and a 4-5% tax. I also paid for some optional scar healing gel and some extra meds to help me sleep during recovery too.
The pack included a 10 day stay at their recovery house and could bring someone to stay with me for free. My mom came with me.
When I was getting ready a week before surgery they emailed me the recovery house caretaker's whatsapp number. Vincente was amazing and we texted a couple days before surgery and he told me he would be ready at the airport to pick us up. We arrived at the Guadalajara airport and soon found Vincente who then drove us to the recovery house to settle in. The house smelled strongly of cleaning products. No on but Vincente, two doggos and two women who were cooking and cleaning were there. One of the women was cleaning the hallway. This was something very reassuring as postoperative infections being as serious as they are these women were cleaning the house a minimum of 2 times per day and the house smelled very strongly of these cleaning chemicals. They were cleaned even on days we never left our room!
The next day he took us to the preop appointment to get blood work done and all the vitals work done. After that we had a physical consult scheduled in the afternoon with Cardenas. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the hospital to see how clean and modern it was. I have never seen such a modern and advanced looking facility in all the consults I've been to in America. Cardenas spoke perfect English and had no problem understanding what was wanted. My strongest desire was my nose and brows at the time. I showed him several pictures I brought with me for nose references and they said they would be able to get it really close to what I wanted. We met several nurses, one of which formerly lived in LA and spoke perfect English as well. We took before pictures and then started to work with staff on payment.
This is where the headache began. I had all the money saved up. The staff members that were handling the payment didn't speak English so Vincente was there translating for us. During the time we found out that many patients coming from all over the world have so much problems with payment that often they have to head right back home because it doesn't go through.
My debit card would not accept the charges even when broken down into smaller increments. Luckily my mom had a card with a 20k limit and not foreign transaction fees. I quickly did a Google search and saw that my Amazon credit card had no foreign transaction fees either. So we split the difference on the two cards while immediately getting calls and text messages from the card companies asking if it was fraud. After sorting it out the payments went through and I transferred the money to my mom immediately and paid off the credit card immediately (nice bonus to credit score too!)
After payment was sorted we went back to the recovery house. The surgery was the next day at 6:00am. During prep I met a Mexican woman who was very insistent on talking to me as she was surprised to find someone from NY there. I wasn't too chatty as I was nervous but I still thought it was fun and nice of her :)
Getting ready for the OR the anesthesiologist was intent on making me laugh before putting me under. The last thing I remember was her talking about putting the tequila in my IV. (Lol)
I woke up to night late evening in a private room with my mom on the couch next to me watching Mexican dramas. I remember the doctors talking to me and the nurses all speaking English and being friendly. Sadly the night nurses did not speak English. They were able to understand that some the food they were giving me was making me vomit. I only remember that night being a little rough due to waking up and vomiting several times. They tried giving me this drink which tasted like cola and medicine and some jello that had a medicine taste to it too. After throwing up they took it away.
In the morning I remember the nurses asking my mom if she was my mom and they were surprised when she said yes as they said they rather get trans patients coming in with parents. Most come alone from various countries or with significant others. After eating the only thing on the menu we could understand (pancakes) the nurses started to get rid of the catheter (ouch) and get me walking. After a couple of hours of this we were finally being discharged. Vincente drove us to the recovery house where the women who cooked and cleaned the place had set the bed up for me to be laying upright comfortably. With straws in my nose it was difficult to breathe. The pain was quite manageable and I would describe it mostly as just being incredibly uncomfortable more than anything.
Over the next few days the swelling increased and then decreased. Spent the days on our phones, playing Nintendo switch and SNES classic that I had brought with me. The recovery house also had roku so we watched pretty much all seasons of master chef.
After day 5 we went to the hospital where they took out the straws from my nose and some of the forehead stitches. With the straws gone I could breathe slightly better but that didn't last long due to dried blood clogging the airway that night. They took off the hard nose cast and put on a softer cast. They gave me spa light treatments that I think were supposed to help with swelling too. After this we went back to the recovery house.
A few days after this we went back and they cleared my nasal airway again and after this it was way easier to breathe! Again we did more light treatment this day and we spoke with some more Americans who were from Cali. The woman's daughter just got a BBL there and I believe they said this wasn't their first time there either.
On the day before returning home we had one last visit and spoke to all the doctors, removed all the stitches and clips in my scalp, removed more stitches from the nose and finally we went to see Cardenas' wife who was a fabulous ENT. I believe the doctor that didn't speak much English was her fellow and I believe he was the one in surgery who did the nose job. I figured this because it looked like she was checking his work out. Regardless the nose came out very close to what I had hoped for and have no complaints whatsoever!
Finally the day to leave came and we gave Vincente a tip for all his help and for the women who cooked and cleaned everyday!
We got to our gate which seemed to be infested with mosquitoes (seriously more inside the airport than outside) and then go to our plan. The plan was not full so we had a lot more room to stretch too! We got to Dallas and the first thing I wanted was an American burger lol. We a layover we had some time to get some food. Unfortunately the stitches in my mouth made it very painful to eat solid foods still.
But afterwards we headed to our gate and made our way to NYC.
I strongly recommend anyone who decides to go to TransOp.com that they bring someone with them, call your bank and card companies before had and let them know you will be making a large charge, use a card with no foreign transaction fees, account for an additional 5% tax that is not included in your quote, and bring something for entertainment like a Nintendo switch!
The primary American surgeon I looked at was Dr. Spiegel in Boston. But prices were way too high for me to do and the longer I waited the more depressed I was from dysphoria. I was quoted some $50k+ from various American surgeons around the country via virtual consults.
The prices was the main driving point of looking at Mexico. The idea of Mexico was quite scary as there are so many negatives talked about the country.
Well I had my consult with Cardenas and one of the main reasons I decided to go to Mexico is that during the consult he talked me out of several procedures I was looking at which showed me it wasn't all about money for them and he could get the same results i might want within other procedures or cheaper ones.
After a while I decided to book myself with the TransOp team. I decided on getting:
-Forehead Type III Contour
-Hairline Advancement
-Browlift
-Nose Job
-Upper Lip Lift
-Fat Injection to Lips
-Jaw contour/shave
-Chin contour/shave
-Chin implant
-Buccal Fat Removal
The total cost was roughly $20,000 USD. The reason I listed it as 25k was due to plane tickets, hospital over night stay fee (which I was surprised was not included), and a 4-5% tax. I also paid for some optional scar healing gel and some extra meds to help me sleep during recovery too.
The pack included a 10 day stay at their recovery house and could bring someone to stay with me for free. My mom came with me.
When I was getting ready a week before surgery they emailed me the recovery house caretaker's whatsapp number. Vincente was amazing and we texted a couple days before surgery and he told me he would be ready at the airport to pick us up. We arrived at the Guadalajara airport and soon found Vincente who then drove us to the recovery house to settle in. The house smelled strongly of cleaning products. No on but Vincente, two doggos and two women who were cooking and cleaning were there. One of the women was cleaning the hallway. This was something very reassuring as postoperative infections being as serious as they are these women were cleaning the house a minimum of 2 times per day and the house smelled very strongly of these cleaning chemicals. They were cleaned even on days we never left our room!
The next day he took us to the preop appointment to get blood work done and all the vitals work done. After that we had a physical consult scheduled in the afternoon with Cardenas. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the hospital to see how clean and modern it was. I have never seen such a modern and advanced looking facility in all the consults I've been to in America. Cardenas spoke perfect English and had no problem understanding what was wanted. My strongest desire was my nose and brows at the time. I showed him several pictures I brought with me for nose references and they said they would be able to get it really close to what I wanted. We met several nurses, one of which formerly lived in LA and spoke perfect English as well. We took before pictures and then started to work with staff on payment.
This is where the headache began. I had all the money saved up. The staff members that were handling the payment didn't speak English so Vincente was there translating for us. During the time we found out that many patients coming from all over the world have so much problems with payment that often they have to head right back home because it doesn't go through.
My debit card would not accept the charges even when broken down into smaller increments. Luckily my mom had a card with a 20k limit and not foreign transaction fees. I quickly did a Google search and saw that my Amazon credit card had no foreign transaction fees either. So we split the difference on the two cards while immediately getting calls and text messages from the card companies asking if it was fraud. After sorting it out the payments went through and I transferred the money to my mom immediately and paid off the credit card immediately (nice bonus to credit score too!)
After payment was sorted we went back to the recovery house. The surgery was the next day at 6:00am. During prep I met a Mexican woman who was very insistent on talking to me as she was surprised to find someone from NY there. I wasn't too chatty as I was nervous but I still thought it was fun and nice of her :)
Getting ready for the OR the anesthesiologist was intent on making me laugh before putting me under. The last thing I remember was her talking about putting the tequila in my IV. (Lol)
I woke up to night late evening in a private room with my mom on the couch next to me watching Mexican dramas. I remember the doctors talking to me and the nurses all speaking English and being friendly. Sadly the night nurses did not speak English. They were able to understand that some the food they were giving me was making me vomit. I only remember that night being a little rough due to waking up and vomiting several times. They tried giving me this drink which tasted like cola and medicine and some jello that had a medicine taste to it too. After throwing up they took it away.
In the morning I remember the nurses asking my mom if she was my mom and they were surprised when she said yes as they said they rather get trans patients coming in with parents. Most come alone from various countries or with significant others. After eating the only thing on the menu we could understand (pancakes) the nurses started to get rid of the catheter (ouch) and get me walking. After a couple of hours of this we were finally being discharged. Vincente drove us to the recovery house where the women who cooked and cleaned the place had set the bed up for me to be laying upright comfortably. With straws in my nose it was difficult to breathe. The pain was quite manageable and I would describe it mostly as just being incredibly uncomfortable more than anything.
Over the next few days the swelling increased and then decreased. Spent the days on our phones, playing Nintendo switch and SNES classic that I had brought with me. The recovery house also had roku so we watched pretty much all seasons of master chef.
After day 5 we went to the hospital where they took out the straws from my nose and some of the forehead stitches. With the straws gone I could breathe slightly better but that didn't last long due to dried blood clogging the airway that night. They took off the hard nose cast and put on a softer cast. They gave me spa light treatments that I think were supposed to help with swelling too. After this we went back to the recovery house.
A few days after this we went back and they cleared my nasal airway again and after this it was way easier to breathe! Again we did more light treatment this day and we spoke with some more Americans who were from Cali. The woman's daughter just got a BBL there and I believe they said this wasn't their first time there either.
On the day before returning home we had one last visit and spoke to all the doctors, removed all the stitches and clips in my scalp, removed more stitches from the nose and finally we went to see Cardenas' wife who was a fabulous ENT. I believe the doctor that didn't speak much English was her fellow and I believe he was the one in surgery who did the nose job. I figured this because it looked like she was checking his work out. Regardless the nose came out very close to what I had hoped for and have no complaints whatsoever!
Finally the day to leave came and we gave Vincente a tip for all his help and for the women who cooked and cleaned everyday!
We got to our gate which seemed to be infested with mosquitoes (seriously more inside the airport than outside) and then go to our plan. The plan was not full so we had a lot more room to stretch too! We got to Dallas and the first thing I wanted was an American burger lol. We a layover we had some time to get some food. Unfortunately the stitches in my mouth made it very painful to eat solid foods still.
But afterwards we headed to our gate and made our way to NYC.
I strongly recommend anyone who decides to go to TransOp.com that they bring someone with them, call your bank and card companies before had and let them know you will be making a large charge, use a card with no foreign transaction fees, account for an additional 5% tax that is not included in your quote, and bring something for entertainment like a Nintendo switch!
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