Before discharge
- Confirm which operation and stage your instructions cover.
- Ask for a written medication and wound-care plan.
- Review any drains, dressings or catheters with the team.
- Confirm follow-up dates and keep the contact and symptom guidance provided at your preoperative visit.
Wound care
Use the products and technique your team prescribes for your operation. Do not assume that advice for one procedure or stage applies to another.
Vashe: only when directed by your team, with a five-minute soak. The team specifies the area, frequency and other application details.
The confirmed program instruction is to remain nicotine-free for six months after surgery.
Activity and follow-up
Ask when you can return to work, drive, exercise, bathe and resume sexual activity. Healing and the procedures included in your plan affect these decisions.
Keep questions and changes you notice in a notebook to discuss at follow-up. This website does not receive or monitor recovery reports.
Procedure-specific topics
- Phalloplasty: flap and donor-site care, any rehabilitation, urinary reconstruction and future stages.
- Vaginoplasty: dilation teaching, wound care, pelvic-floor support and long-term follow-up. See the program’s dilation schedule.
- Vulvoplasty: external wound care, urinary changes and follow-up without a canal-dilation pathway.
- Metoidioplasty: the components performed, catheter care if applicable, and follow-up.
Contacting the team
At your preoperative visit, your care team will explain who to contact during and after office hours, which symptoms need an immediate call, and when to seek emergency care.
Sources and review
Based on supplied University Hospitals program handouts and Daly Horton’s educational illustrations (2024), with Dr. Gupta’s October 2026 clarifications. The handouts describe particular techniques and pathways; they are not a substitute for your individual instructions.
University Hospitals gender-affirmation surgery service ↗
Appointments and clinical questions ↗