seeking guidance on bottom surgery

I only got Lazer, but I had 12 sessions. My Dr said either was good but laser takes longer. I'm not sure where you are for Drs but if in America Rush medical center is great and where I had mine done. Cost wise will depend on insurance. Mine has paid a lot, I paid co pays which was a few hundred dollars after everything. My account still says I "owe" 90k but that's because Blue Cross is being stubborn. All the good surgeons have a long wait list. Was 4 months for the consultation and almost a year for the surgery.

This is subjective but I did no laser or electrolysis before my bottom surgery. My surgeon did electro as part of the operation and I have had no problems over a year out with hair.

As for how to find one, it depends on: how you're paying, if you have insurance coverage, how far you're willing to travel, what your cost limits are, what surgical technique interests you, and what you think about each individual surgeon. Read lots of reviews and email the surgical clinics you're interested in. Ask for costs and information booklets, they have them in abundance I assure you.

For me I didn't pick my surgeon, I just went with the only option I could have covered. And I am very happy with my results. Your insurance company, if you're insured, can give you information about what procedures and what surgeons are covered. There are options for essentially making your insurance cover it, but that's longer than I can go into in this short comment. You also will need two recommendation letters from WPATH certified clinicians, good place to start on getting the surgery is getting those. They also can help with getting some of the costs covered.

Long and short of it, do your research. Read up on forums where trans women talk about their experiences with certain surgeons. Investigate coverage options. And consider your individual needs and finances most of all. Once you're past the initial stage and into the full planning stage, you'll have lots of other work to do. For now I'd focus on making some more concrete plans.

Hey 👋

I started HRT Nov of 2015 at 17 and just got my SRS a month ago.

As soon as possible

Unless you have fuck loads of cash I'd say settle in for the long haul and cope, I've never heard of SRS costing less than £20k and that's for basic old school PI in the UK.

Even with a full time job for years at software dev with an MSc I never managed to save anywhere close to that with the pandemic hitting as I entered the workforce, unless you're like some boomer with a house? I take it you're in the US? Is there insurance that covers it maybe?

As for surgeons check out the /r/Transgender_surgeries wiki.

Laser, you mean on face or genitalia? For face do Laser for now while you're early in transition and try to zap away as much as possible. I stopped because I thought it'd be good enough and was broke, big mistake as years later my hair came back but now it was blonde and required electro, which takes forever, just some stubborn bits on neck have taken me over 2 years for now and it still doesn't feel gone, just more sparse.

For genitalia you need electrolysis as laser is not permanent, but I wouldn't rush into that as most people don't need any hair removal prior to SRS, I had totally normal amount of pubes even well along the shaft and the follicle scrape took care of everything and I got no hairs inside, I woke up with most of my pubes intact to my shock even, I'm in the UK and I wasn't circumsized so YMMV.