Caution Advised in Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

A number of recent cases suggest that sex reassignment surgeries remain the most controversial tool of gender transitioning due to their irreversibility. Therefore the surgeons of the leading cosmetic surgery center Nordesthetics clinic suggest gradual and mostly reversible transitioning to their transgender patients.

The growing phenomenon of transgender detransitioning has hit the headlines recently. Although it is difficult to estimate how common detransitioning is, the networks of detransitioners around the world attract growing attention both of the media and of the medical community.

The possibility of regret and reversal of gender transitioning is an important factor that cosmetic surgeons have to consider before they start the treatment of transgender patients. Due to the possibility of detransitioning, the scope and pace of surgical procedures has to be carefully adjusted according to the medical history and psychological condition of the individual patient.

Transgender detransitioners are the people who chose to return to their original biological gender after first changing it. Despite the controversy that detransitioners cause inside the LGBT community, healthcare professionals expect the phenomenon to become even more widespread as a growing number of people start transgender transitioning at a very early age.

“Gender dysphoria is a very complicated condition not only sexually, but also psychologically. Patients often suffer from conflicting emotions and aspirations. Therefore, gender transitioning has to be a subtle and gradual process. I would strongly advise against quick and radical surgery that transgender person may come to regret,” said Andrius Pajeda, surgeon at Nordesthetics clinic.

The World Health Organization has recently reclassified gender dysphoria – a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity – as sexual rather than a mental condition. But it causes great psychological stress and a recent study suggests that surgical treatment of gender dysphoria results in psychological relief.

However, Andrius Pajeda suggested starting with corrections that could make a transgender person feel better about the general appearance of the body, such as rhinoplasty, lip augmentation, other facial corrections. These could be followed by liposuction and breast or buttock implants.

“The full range of our services to transgender patients varies from facial corrections to breast removal and buttock lift. However, the particular list and sequence of operations depend on the individual patient. Our doctors pay full attention to the medical history of the patient and the advice of mental therapists in trying to find the treatment that would make that particular person feel better, not worse,” Andrius Pajeda explained.

According to him, up to 2-4 transgender persons are treated at Nordesthetics clinic every month Most of the procedures offered by the clinic could be reversed or their results could be corrected if a particular patient considered detransitioning.

Nordesthetics clinic is one of the leading centers of medical tourism in the Baltic states. Located in Kaunas, Lithuania, the clinic provides plastic surgery procedures to foreign patients of whom the majority come from the UK and other EU countries. Nordesthetics clinic offers European standards of high-quality surgery for prices 2-3 times lower than those in the UK and Western EU. In addition to that, the clinic provides full travel support to their patients as well as the possibility of recovery treatment in Druskininkai – the Lithuanian SPA resort very popular among their patients.