For years I have operated the Surgical_Enlargement_Forum which was a Yahoo Group dealing with the aftermath of these procedures. It did not start out that way, it in fact was originally intended to bolster and not be critical of these surgical procedures.
Phalloplasty was brought to the United States from Asia by Dr. Ricardo Samitier who had his practice in Florida many years ago. At that time what he was doing was only the lengthening procedure and he did not do girth enhancement which has proven to be the worst areas for problems. Samitier in the beginning did a relatively good job and he did that job cheaply. The problem was that he became greedy and as a result he became sloppy violating sterile procedure and a host of other atrocities. Florida has some of the worst laws to protect people against Surgeons in the United States and as a result he got away with it for a very long time. He raked in the bucks doing barely acceptable work towards the end when a South American Entertainer showed up on a plane. That man was taken by commercial jetliner, got off and was whisked to the good doctor's office where he was operated on and was back on a plane heading home the same day. There was no follow up. The man developed a massive infection and died. Because of his popularity in his home country it now became a matter for two governments. The FEDS forced a raid on the practice and found horrific conditions. Samitier last I knew was still in prison and was convicted of manslaughter I believe based on his treatment or lack of it of that patient.
When the only procedures being done were lengthening the results were mixed but people were not going through absolute hell for the most part. The pioneers for this in the early years of PE surgery were Doug Whitehead in New York and Gary Rheinschild in California. All went well in relative terms until girth enhancement entered the picture. It was girth enhancement that has overall been more problems short and long term than anything else.
Doug Whitehead was not blessed with the best of "bedside manner" and if a guy showed up with over 7" he would get blown out Doug's door as an idiot. Rheinschild in the early years turned down patients right and left based on pre-existing medical conditions particularly those relating to blood flow and immune problems. This was not because of discrimination in any way, it was to assure the safety of the patient. Later he would do the procedures if the T-cells were in nearly normal ranges and the Specialist treating the Immune disorder be it transplant drugs or HIV gave him an all clear.
When the girth enhancement procedures became the rage the real problems started. Lipo Transfer simply took body-fat from another location and injected it under the skin of the penis. Because the fat did not develop a blood supply, eventually it would re-absorbn into the body. On some but not all occasions it would leave behind small hard nodules which had to be removed surgically. The next procedure was dermal graft. Dermal Grafts did have some successes, but, they still did not develop blood supplies very often and when they did not, the fat of the graft would like the injected fat be destroyed and re-absorbed by the body. The grafts also had problems because of the best locations for the harvest sites. The grafts were usually harvested from under the buttocks in the fold between the buttocks and the ham string area of the rear of the leg. These did not heal well or quickly and in a percentage of men particularly those with darker skin scarring was far worse than what had been expected. Infections were common as well.
The next and worst disaster was the use of the implantation of foreign bodies into the penile tissues. There have been several, but, popular for a while was Alloderm. This is a substance designed for severe burn patients where there is not enough available graft tissue. It is used in skin grafting. It did not receive FDA approval for implantation inside the body. Though it is supposed to be biologically inert, it is basically made from the tissue of cadavers who have donated their bodies for medical science. This tissue is irradiated and treated in such a manner that it is not always recognized as a foreign body. In a burn victim some risk taking is in order, in a PE patient the problem became what is called "encapsulation". This is an immune reaction where the body cannot get rid of something so it builds a layer of tough fibrous tissue around it. The "encapsulation" can take years to happen. If it does happen the surgical procedures to get this stuff out are mind boggling. Basically the surgeon has to make incisions along the length of the penis and peel it back like one would peel a banana. The surgeon then in a very long procedure or sometimes several procedures must then "dig out" this tissue and do everything possible not to damage nerves in the process. It is risky and the chances for nerve damage are very high. This would create loss of sensation or abnormal sensations in the penis during intercourse or any other form of sex. In some cases it was painful. In most cases when it happens it can create what would look line Peyronies which is an abnormal penile curvature.
One of the details that some MD's leave out and in all honesty they do so because they have no way to predict them is the potential for ED caused by these procedures. Now the worst of it is that most of us have a chance of developing ED to some level as we age. The BEST treatment for ED and the cheapest is intracavernosal injections. No man who has had PE surgery can have IC injections because there is a chance of breaking the needle off inside the penis. This limits men who have had PE to the drug "muse" which is a trans-urethral pellet. Muse is a really expensive method costing a great deal more than the IC injections. In this system a small pellet about the size of a grain of rice is placed with a small too up the urethra near the base of the penis where it is broken or the coating dissolves. When this happens the drug is disbursed creating the erection. Muse other than being expensive also is prone to creating a great deal of irritation of the urinary tract and particularly the urethra in the area that is repeatedly exposed in some men.
To this day, in spite of the number of procedures being performed the United States the FDA has never given it's approval to PE surgery. Any MD who says that their procedure is FDA approved is lying.
The next problem is that when it is compared with other cosmetic procedures the failure rate and incidence of problems and or regret/dissatisfaction five to seven years after the procedure was performed is far above the statistics of other procedures.
There has never been a case where Insurance Companies don't rule the roost. Curtently the malpractice premiums for any MD performing PE exceed $10,000 - $12,000 per month in the United States. This in and of itself is beginning to cause many MD's to give it up simply because the only one's making money are the malpractice carriers. This is also why the costs of the procedures themselves have skyrocketed.
Most of the best of the men who did the great work are now retired, retiring or dead. Doug Whitehead retired because he himself developed cancer. Gary Rheinschild retired also and in October of 2010 suffered a subdural hematoma which led to multiple brain surgeries. When these were done the surgeries themselves did damage and he is not doing well.
Right now there are many things on the VERY near horizon in this area. Medical research has found other ways to do this which may be with us within 5 years using stem cells. The procedures would be far more simple and far more safe than the surgical procedures we have now.
I am in the process of closing down the Surgical Enlargement Forum because I feel that it is now just as obsolete as the procedures it was supposed to in the beginning help and make better for everyone. I can personally discuss a number of men who have had horrific damage from these procedures.
When it comes to accurate information on them the net is full of people working on commission and with a financial interest in them. Some of these people have made up numerous false identities and used those false identities to spread smear information about the MD that is the competition while praising the MD that pays them. This is illegal, but it has been a hallmark of the procedures in general.
I am sorry to sound like a wet blanket, but the procedures have a great number of problems. I in all honesty wish that they had worked well. For years, because of the forum I have maintained many connections with many MD's. The scalpel and the penis are coming to an end.
If you absolutely must have this procedure the ONLY way to have any reasonable chance of success is to totally not even begin to consider any form of girth enhancement. Next to gain substantial length you have to be willing to accept change. What must be done is to completely sever the suspensory and fundiform ligaments. Then a complete remodeling of the penile web must be done. What has to be done varies from patient to patient. Then the surgeon must construct a flap of tissue which will prevent the suspensory and fundiform from re-attaching themselves. If they do you get a monumental retraction of the penis as healing takes place. Now, done right and with it done this way the post-operative stretching of the tissues is relatively easy and most will see a very obvious increase in length after about 3-5 months doing it. The main issue now is that there will be changes in the way that one erects. The penis gets hard and rigid as it always did, but it will no longer point up, it will instead point downward and it will require a hand to guide it to target. It is not better or worse, it is just different.
In men who were born extremely large by nature, low to non existent erection angles are common. This is what you would have with the procedure done right. If you hear of large length gains, this was the procedure that was done.
Because of legalities I can not talk about who does what. What I can tell you is that if any of these tissues are re-attached to try and maintain an erection angle, the final result will be on erection about 1-2 inches maximum (with 3/4 to 1 being the most common) and you will have paid an incredible sum of money for something that rarely looks better than partial wood which you could have gotten from a few herbal compounds or a constant low dosage of Cialis.
I have been at this and worked with Gary M. Griffin up until his death in 1996. I am not mincing words here because I have seen the good and the bad in this one. The worst of the past has been the lack of consistency. One MD can crank out 5 good procedures and then #6 has major problems and nobody can explain why. There are many MD's who have been buried in legal hassles for the 10 that went bad when they have over a more than ten year period operated on more than 1,000 patients each.
You have used great common sense and tried to do your homework. The sad part is that as time has gone on the information on these procedures has gotten worse instead of better and many with commercial gain have corrupted the whole thing looking at it with "Rose Colored Glasses". There was a time I could have had the whole thing for NOTHING. I consulted with my significant other at the time and that person said that what I had was just fine. I still have my original equipment and while just like you I would also like to have one that would make a pornstar cry with envy, I plan on waiting until I know for a fact that: I am not going to create more problems than I solve, and that I am going to get very significant gains from the procedure that I can depend on.