4. Massage Therapy for Gender Affirming Surgery: Providing Compassionate Care

In this post, we’ll discuss the unique needs of patients undergoing gender affirming top surgery and how massage therapy can support their recovery.

Understanding Gender Affirming Surgery: Gender affirming surgery presents unique challenges and requires safe, focused care. Understanding these needs is crucial for providing effective and compassionate support.  It can help to have a sticker on your front window, if you work in a clinical setting, that denotes people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community can find safe care at your location.  If you work in a home-based clinic, you can include images of the Pride, Trans and/or Non-binary flags to show you are an ally to the community.

Best Practices for Post-Surgical Massage: Incorporate evidence-informed practices that focus on reducing pain, improving mobility, and supporting mood stabilization surgery (Smith & Thompson, 2018).

Engaging with the Community: Join our Facebook group to discuss and share techniques for supporting gender affirming surgery patients. Building a community of like-minded therapists can enhance your practice and provide valuable support.

Conclusion: Providing compassionate care for gender affirming surgery patients is essential. Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll explore holistic healing techniques.

References: Smith, J., & Thompson, R. (2018). Role of Physical Therapy in Post-Op Recovery. Physical Therapy Journal. DOI: 10.1093/ptj/pzx108

Eryn Price RMT has been in the healing arts for 25 years, instructing massage therapists for over a decade and has put over 500 therapists through her Mastectomy Guide certificate programs in the past 3 years. She is incredibly passionate about filling the gap in women's and trans health relating to accessing safe, educated, and ethical care for post-surgical rehabilitation from breast and chest surgery. To learn more about future training opportunities to enhance your massage therapy practice, please visit https://www.mastectomyguide.com/list-of-upcoming-courses.