Transgender Q & A - Transgender Spupport Site

A couple of questions have come up while chatting with one of my other pre-op friends. Did the electrolysis unit you purchased at K-Mart actually work, or did you have to return to regular electrolysis?

Melanie replies...

It did indeed work very well. In fact, I burned out five of them by the time I stopped using them. For the record, the machine in question is the "Inverness" home electrolysis unit. It sells for about thirty dollars and runs off a single nine volt battery. It is much less painlful than regular electrolysis, but requires many more treatments to do the same job. For me, It took forty hours EACH WEEKEND for a year to keep my face cleared. What a pain that was, sitting in front of a make-up mirror for FORTY HOURS once a week!!!

I used the machine for two or three years, and by that time I was down to a couple hours a weekend, and only had the clear hairs left. After that, I decided to go back to regular electrolysis (actually "thermolysis") and have been doing that for about 18 months as of this posting. I go in once a month or so for about an hour. That keeps everything absolutely fine for the next four weeks, and I will probably be more or less done in another year. (This stuff takes forever!!!) Of course, for the whole month, I don't have to worry at all, so I have no more concerns in that area, even under the most intimate conditions.

A word of warning though... The home unit IS very powerful. It has power settings from 1 to 10. I did all of my work at 1 or 1.5. I tried 10 once and a piece of my skin just baked and dropped out on the spot!!! Fortunately, that healed, but I suspect if you go higher than 1.5 you are going to get some eventual scarring, and if it is high enough the scarring will be immediate AND PERMANENT!

Another question...

Can you tell me more about what the "Biber Button" does. You only speak about it briefly in your diary. Are parts of the abdomen actually pulled down permanently to help give you a more female shape? If so, how does this work? If not, just what is its purpose? I'm just trying to learn as much a I can as I move on to my future womanhood.

Melanie replies...

Yes, that is part of it's job. The other part is to hold everything in place internally for the first week until enough healing sets in. The way it works is this: a wire is inserted into the abdomen, passed through the new internal surgical work, looped around the pubic bone, and back out the abdomen right next to the other side of the wire. The two wire ends are tied to what looks like an upholstery button on a sofa, and twisted so the whole thing pulls tight to the abdomen, flattening it.

After a week, they come in and snip one side of the wire and then use the button to pull the wire through and out. Now that is a weird feeling, I can tell you! It doesn't exactly hurt, but it feels like some little thing is crawling around inside you. Fortunately, they do it with one quick pull, so the sensation only lasts for a second, but it is so odd I'm sure I'll always remember it.

Thanks for sharing and caring.

No prob.

Melanie

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