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+--- Thread: Looking for bottom surgery (/t-looking-for-bottom-surgery)
Looking for bottom surgery - rwilhelm1998 - 10-07-2021
Hey there,
My name's Ron (he/ze/xe) and I've been looking into bottom surgery since my bottom dysphoria greatly eclipses my top dysphoria. I live in the Fargo-Moorhead area and there aren't any surgeons that do phalloplasty, so I've had to look out of state. Something that's been tripping me up are the possible travel costs, especially if I go super out of state like California or out of the country. I'm hoping this place will help me find resources to fund travel and such.
RE: Looking for bottom surgery - Joshua - 10-07-2021
Hi Ron! I had to travel to access bottom surgery as well, so I understand the challenges this presents. I think the closest surgeon to you would be Dr. Gast in Madison WI.
https://www.transhealthcare.org/katherine-gast/
This is a pretty good review of a Phalloplasty consultation with Dr. Gast:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ftm/comments/7d24ut/dr_katherine_gast/
UMN takes insurance, Medicaid and Medicare.
I had surgery in Oregon and my travel costs for all stages were pretty high, to be honest. Hotel alone was in the area of $20k USD (and would have been much more in California.) Other expenses, including for a trip down when I had a complication, were about $15k. This included flights for two people and flying down from Canada is much more expensive than flying in the US.
Some insurance plans will cover travel expenses and provide a per diem for daily expenses. Otherwise, I think GoFundMe/crowdsourcing, personal savings and credit cards are how most people come up with the money. It ain't easy but it's worth it (if surgery is right for you.) Hope this helps!
RE: Looking for bottom surgery - rwilhelm1998 - 10-10-2021
Sounds like a plan, definitely gonna look into insurance covering it + credit card options. I don't have the best credit so I may have to go for a secured credit card to build it up, but at least I know how to get that going.