My gyno problem with pix - Depressing ! :(

[ganda]

PIX FURTHER DOWN

I have had gyno i think since i was in high school - probably when i hit puberty and has never gone away !

still living with it at the age of 27 and i have just figured for myself that its not just fat its actually gyno !

i have lost weight from 17 stones to 14 stones (ideal weight for a guy who is 6 ft 3!) but to my dissapointment the ugly breasts are still there !!

i do weight training now (for the last 6 months) but making no difference at all and now i have learnt nothing ever will unless i have the op !

i see it will cost me £4k with mr L in birmingham, money i dont have - money i will have to save - is there any chance the NHS will do it? really embarrased to go to the doc but i will force myself if i can get the op done for free..

i will post pics later and maybe you guys can comment how bad it is - how fricking embarrasing especially when in the changing room in the gym, feels everyone is looking at me - it looks bad becuase i aint fat so they cause more attention!

summer is the worst with clothing as you can guess why !

its easy to talk to you guys cos its not face 2 face and you guys dont know me !

my gf reckons i need to loose abit more weight and then il be fine - how wrong is she! if only she knew

[markashleigh1979]

Hi Mate, Welcome to the club   .
I know what you are going through and it is a horrible feeling , especialy now that the summer is all most upon us!  :-/
Did your chest not change at all durign the weight loss?

I and a few others on here have went abroad for surgery as it is a fraction of the U.K.  price.....have a look at some  of the threads....I went to Poland just before xmas for Lipo ...but sadly i need to go back for a revison;need to get the gland removed ( the gland is the root of evil  ) !!

Regarding the NHS, it depends what your Gp is like.I got sick of being messed around, so i packed my bags and headed off to eastern europe . Some people have had fantastics responses off the NHS.....so try them and f they mess you about remember you can go abroad for a £ 1 k



Hope this helps.

[phantom]

Just to compound what MA79 has said

Speak with your GP.  Tell him or her just much this is making your life a misery.  If you don't get a good response from your GP, ask to see a different doctor at the practice or change practice which is simple to do.

Making a massive generalisation, on the whole I find female GPs more sympathetic to aesthetic issues but there are some mighty fine male GPs out their too!

Tell your GP you want to be certain that there is nothing abnormal going on and ask to be referred to an Endocrinologist (hormone specialist).  Once your Endocrinologist has (hopefully) ruled out any hormonal issues, then you can ask your GP about surgery on the NHS.

The are a number of advantages and disadvantages to the NHS.  On the plus side, you won't have to fork out the money to pay for it.  On the negative side, it can take some persuading to your GP for a referral to a surgeon.  You may be referred to an NHS surgeon that may or may not have much experience with male chest reduction procedures.  This is vitally important if you are to maximise your chance of a good outcome.

As ma79 has said, you can opt to go to Europe for as little as £1,000 and I have read about some good results.  However, you must be prepared to accept that if there are any problems post-operative such as an unsatisfactory result, you would have to travel back out to that particular clinic.

I opted to go private in the UK.  This allowed me to bypass any waiting and bureaucracy of the NHS.  I was able to pick a surgeon I thought was best up to the job and it meant that if there was any problems, I could return without any real travel or expense concerns.  I think you get what you pay for personally, so whilst it is most expensive in the UK, more than anything I paid for peace of mind.

I am 32 now.  I saved for two years to go private.  It's frustrating having to wait what initially seems like too long.  All I did was direct-debit £150 a month into an ISA savings account.  I regarded that £150 as an monthly expense like my car insurance or mortgage, so didn't miss it too much.  It was nice to hand over the cash to a hospital and a surgeon I chose, local to me and know I didn't have to worry about paying back the finance afterwards.

[ganda]

So say i went private and went ahead with Mr L once ive raised the funds then will he remove both fat and the incision that causes it so i am done with this once and for all? When it comes to personal health, i think like you do phantom - change of heart just now, I think i will pay the ££££, get the job done properly + get the peace of mind !

i have this terrible feeling NHS will mess me about (personal exampe - they assumed my dad had dislocated his shoulder and needed an urgent op, only to figure they made a mistake and he didnt need it just prior to the op!!) and I really dont wish to travel abroad for it..

i wish I knew i had this last year, i had £20k in the bank, all gone towards the house i bought !

Mine looks kinda similar to phantoms before pic

When i was 17 stones i had slightly bigger breasts but the main bulk of it is still there at 14 stones and it looks awful!

Last year on holiday I took my top of once and what a nightmare.. my mate with his perfect chest and me with gyno - I was left feeling paranoid all day on the beach, a feeling many of you guys will be familar with..

I think I am going to have to work that bit harder, save up and put my mysery behind me.. It will defo raise my self confidence and would be great to be topless on holidays and wear what you want when you want..!

Charging my digi cam at the mo - pics to follow

Thanks guys for advice so far - hope i beat this soon !


ps - I think gyno is more forgiving on a overweight person since it seems that its just fat, once you loose the weight and its still there - god it looks 10 times worst !

[phantom]

As far as Mr Levick is concerned, you are paying for the treatment of Gynaecomastia.  Therefore he will do what is required to get your chest to look as 'normal' as he possibly can.  Each and every patient is very different, but on the whole he decides how much fat to remove via liposuction and aims to remove as much glandular tissue as possible to create a flatter effect.

As I have said, if his expectations are not met, he is happy to carry out revision surgery.  Many of his patients never return after the first surgery.  There are a couple of guys off here that are returning in due course to discuss revision with him.

About the money, if you put down a significant deposit against your house, say more than 10% of the value of the property, you might be in with a good chance to borrow against your house and get a good interest rate.  Go to www.moneysavingexpert.com to find out about cheap loans.  But if you have the patience, save up!

[ganda]

phantom your posts are so reassuring pal - been reading these forums all day today ! cheers

btw amazing transformation in your before and after pics, can see you work out also which is a plus point !

Off to the gym for a chest / tri workout,

i  read somewhere on these forums that avoid decline benching on a gyno as it makes the situation look worse !.. is this true? I been doing decline for ages thinking it will solve it but to no avail ..

[radio-boy]

Dont give up on the NHS just yet...

Im due to have surgery on the NHS a week on friday (gulp!) from my consultation with the surgeon only 2 weeks ago. I was pretty impressed, and although the surgeon admitted that he did operate mainly on women, he had done this operation before, and i did get the impression he really knew what he was talking about. I went to go see my GP initially in january/february i think.

Something to think about. Lets jsut hope this NHS guy doesnt screw my chest up....  :-/

[outertrial]

Everyone  Ive spoken to in the NHS has been lovely, kind, supportive, reassuring, and utterly unable to help me.

This is because of the funding arrangements in the area I live in.  To cut a very long story short I've been bounced back and forth so many times since last August that I've almost given up as wherever I  eventually get wherever it was I was going I find another apologetic person telling me that some rule or other has changed.

Ive gone full circle after seeing my GP, endocrinologists, a selection of hosptal plastic surgeons and have now been sent back to my gp who under Gordon Browns new funding cuts (which also recently cost me my job in the public sector, cheers gordon) will have to decide whether or not he wants to do battle with my PCT on my behalf, who will then want to assess me to see if the think Im upset enough for the op, but not too upset to have it which will mean a referral to a psychiatrist, then back to my gp, and back to the pct and so on and so on...

Im not trying to put you off the nhs but if you have, or can get, the money I really would suggest forking out so as you can get on with your life.

[phantom]

I just want to make one point about NHS surgeons.  NHS surgeons are as competent, skilled and qualified as private surgeons.  They all had to go through the same kind of training and both have to adhere to the same ethical standards.

What makes them different, on the whole for guys with gynaecomastia is that our condition has only become more common place in very recent years, as the condition is more recognised and more men gain the courage to admit it's a troublesome condition they desperately want to put right.

As a consequence, in true NHS style, they don't want to admit the condition exists, or at least that it is a significant enough problem to warrant 'expensive' surgery.  This means that NHS surgeons on the whole deal with other conditions such as reconstructive surgery for accident victims, children with deformities, cancer patients etc.

For those going down the NHS route, there are some excellent surgeons that are more than capable of carrying out male chest reduction procedures.  The difficulty for the patient is that there are few of them around and less choice for patients to choose from.   The benefit or 'luxury' of going private gives the patient the opportunity to shop around, choose specifically who they want to do the work and as importantly, when.  Even here there is no guarantee of the end result, no matter how experienced the surgeon is!

[phantom]

Hello Ganda

Coincidentally I spoke to my personal trainer today about different kinds of bench press, using an incline etc.  He was of the opinion, that the flat bench press (or using a horizontal bench with dumb bells) is probably the only kind of workout the chest needs.  He argued that only if you are serious about gaining pectoral size should I worry about using inclines etc.  But he is generally opposed to too much muscle growth on any area of the body as this puts on excessive strain on the joints which can lead to other problems such as arthritis in later life.

Whilst you have gynaecomastia, increasing the size of the pectoral muscle can 'push' the breast and fat tissue outwards and ironically, make the size and shape of the 'breast' area even worse.

Hope that helps.

[ganda]

The pics of me at 14 stones / 6 ft 3 - after i have lost 3 stones with mega cv /diet work thinking the breasts will go away !

defo gyno right? and how bad is it?

[phantom]

Hello Ganda

My somewhat experienced, but unprofessional opinion is that you have at worst, a moderate case.  I can understand why it bothers you.  By the look of it, this is something that could be very neatly put right with the right surgeon.  If it's surgery you want to pursue, then now's the time to start thinking about how and where you want it to happen.

If you go through the pages and pages of threads on the UK area of this forum, you will see countess examples of work by various private, NHS and international (usually European) cases of guys from this forum.

You find the more severe a case of gynaecomastia, the less perfect or normal the end result - but even here most guys are happier (mainly because their expectations have been well managed).  Given your case, I think you could look forward to an excellent result.

[SOAD]

phantom you are an asset to these boards due to your continually useful, thoughtful and reassuring posts. Cheers.  

[phantom]

Thank you SOAD, that's very kind of you.  Just like most of the guys on here, I want people to get what  suits them best as and when they want it.  I want others to benefit from my experience.

Cheers