Stopping hormones today, op in December

[Steffi]

The peeing problem will much improve as you heal so don't worry about it.

My first dilation at the hospital with Bellringer's supervision was awful.
The smaller dilator was ok but the slightly larger one was sheer hell. I could not get it in, just felt like it would never go and often took me ten minutes of trying to get it to go. Once in it was sheer hell that made me want to scream and I could not wait to get it out as soon as possible.
(My own experience seems to have been slightly worse than most peoples in that regard)

It was like that when I went home too, all the time for about a month before it got a bit easier.
I used to sit in a hot bath and relax BEFORE dilating - I felt that it helped. Then bathe again and douche afterwards.
I put TCP in the bathwater, a tablespoonful and put about a teaspoonful into the douche water - I never had any infection problem of any kind.

The next month is tough - painful dilations three times a day but persevere and make yourself do it. It will all be worthwhile I promise you.
It's all the more difficult to get the dilator started because one is so numb down there and cannot feel where it is.
I also strongly recommend that as well as smearing gel onto the dilator, you get a blob of gel on your finger and push it inside before trying to insert any dilator - that means the dilator is pushing THROUGH some gel. The tightness of the new neovagina tends to just wipe the gel that you smeared on the dilator off so that gel doesn't get inside too well.

For born women,the reason that cystitis UTI is called "the honeymoon disease" is that insertion crushes the urinary tract of the woman and the bruised tract is then much more prone to picking up infection.
With our smaller pelvic arch, crushing of the urethra is even more likely, especially in the early days.

[SarahG]

Really not doing well here. The UTI knocked me for six and also left me with the wonderful fun of having to dilate on an a&e bed on a mixed gender ward. The antibiotics for it are worse than the uti and then I have a bad cold on top.

I have days where i am so weak that going downstairs tires me out and needs sleep.

I am too weak to even get the small dilator in, am reliant on my partner for help and we're rowing so often since I got back that I don't feel able to ask her any more. Haven't dilated in two days now. Also the bleeding seems to have been replaced with a brown discharge of some sort.