surgery on the NHS

[1966]

i have had a few appointments with a Doctor at a hospital but again and again i just keep going back to check up and now I'm 18. i have another one in about a month from now. i always here how hard it is being accepted for surgery on the NHS but from experience people who have been accepted or declined can you tell me what happend. like why they rejected you, how u got accepted etc. help would be appreciated i cant afford private surgery lol.

[anon90]

hey 1966

I'm also 18 and i too was sent back and forth between my nhs doctor. eventually i just used what i had in savings and with help from my parents i went private I'm now flat broke but i had the op.

from what Ive read on these boards the NHS is like a lottery some people get the surgery done no questons ask while others like us are passed around or rejected. its all to do with location, luck and severity of the condition.

I wasn't rejected surgery by my doctor instead i was just given the whole "wait and see" routine i have quiet obvious unilateral gynecomastia and i have no weight issues plus my hormone tests came back perfectly fine.
the best the NHS offered me was psychological help and then come back in a few years which seriously p****d me off

if you still want the surgery done on the NHS you could keep trying until they give in. Some people have pestered their doctors long enough to get the op. Or like me you could save every penny and go private (£4000!)

have you looked through the UK section of these boards?  a lot of discussion about the NHS happens here http://www.gynecomastia.org/smf/index.php?board=20.0

BTW if your intrested heres the start of my post op surgery (pics included)... http://www.gynecomastia.org/smf/index.php?topic=15837.0

what ever you choose to do good luck

[headheldhigh01]

what he said.  and private's not cheap but four thousand quid sounds like a bit for even the uk.  maybe with the tanking dollar people will stop going to mexico and start doing medical tourism here to the states instead 

[WXYZ]

For me it wasn't a problem being accepted by the NHS. It seems that the NHS practices different rules in different areas or maybe it just depends on which doctor you see. I've heard others talk about decisions being made by a panel, but that never happened in my case.
Initially I went to see my GP and showed him my gyne, which I was told was unilateral (one sided) that could mean I may not get it on the NHS, since it wasn't affecting both sides. He set up an appointment with an NHS cosmetic surgeon, who I went to see about a month later. The surgeon had a look then sent me to another area to have ultrasound done. I then returned to see the surgeon with the ultrasound image. He then told me that they could offer me surgery on the NHS and proceded to explain the procedure and issues. However, although I was happy to be offered the Op, it was clear that this surgeon didn't have much experience in treating gyne (he only does a few gyne ops a year) and told me there will be visible scarring, he's not gonna get rid of it all, just reduce it and in the end my chest will still be uneven. This was enough to make me reject his offer.
I can remember seeing seeing a documentary and reading on here about bad NHS experiences and I didn't want to have a bad result. At the end of the day when you take your shirt off, you don't want people noticing that you still have a small man-boob or big scars on the chest, that they will be curious about how you got them. So I decided to go private because although I'm not the type to go for cosmetic surgery, I really needed to have it done by someone who knows what they're doing and had a good track record. So I went with Karidis to have it done and am quite happy with my decision.