Cambridge Private Hospital

[Alexfocus]

I went and had a blood test. He did all the normal stuff and asked me about sex drive and had a feel of the balls to check everything was ok. He was very offish and gave me a blood test but was not keen on the idea! He blew the adenbrooks thing out the window and said they may have a lab to test new medicines and alike but it would probably not be for surgery and not what I wanted. I told him you had yours there but he did not look too interested.

Anyway I get my blood results in two weeks then if they come back ok I will start going to see the surgeons to see what they have to say. Will keep you posted.

Thanks

 

[zink]

let us know how it goes alex.


I went to the GP last week, I has gone to see him about 3 years ago and all he said to me was not to worry and to come back when I'm 21. Well I'm now 19, almost 20, and when i went back to see him he was like "why didn't you come to see me sooner!?" anyway he said he thought my gyn has grown and i had a blood test straight away. He said it's the size where the NHS can do something about it, although I'm not sure what that means.

I'm going back next week to get my blood test results so hopefully it goes well

[Alexfocus]

Lucky my doctor would not do that as he said it was cosmetic.

Blood test results all clear, he did not tell me what they were only there were all normal. He did say one was a bit low but that this does not matter in less you are female.

I am off to see my first surgeon next week. Looking forward to it and nervous at the same time.

[Alexfocus]

Went to CPH and it went ok. The people were very nice and Mr Chatzis was ok he showed me some pics he had done before but said I do not need surgery and that most people would not notice and thinks a lot of it is in my head but did confirm that I had it!!! He confused me a bit, anyway he said he could do the operation but was not keen to and was worried about the nipple inverting, he said I had a 15% chance of this happening and how did I feel about that. Also he said he would not take all the gland out just part of the more scare tiussue the more likey you chess can invert!!!

He said to think about it and come back and see him if I wanted to go ahead and we could talk some more. I did not feel to confident with him so booked an appointment to see Alex Karidis in June as he gets a good right up on here and here what he has to say.


Can any one offer any advise on this?

[rockstar6181]

i have had the same story told to me too, I know surgeons have to tell us what can go wrong but IMO they try and scare us into not having the op.

[chester101]

Alexfocus,

I'm surprised at the attitude of your doctor. Addenbrookes do many gynaecomastia operations every year. I mentioned that they had published detailed results of previous outcomes in peer-reviewed journals - an abstract of which you can find here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12859919&dopt=Abstract

Note the statement in the above abstract "91% of patients were very satisfied (score: 8-10) with their cosmetic outcome".

Anyhow, I am having my surgery done this week by this group, I'll let you know how it goes....

[Satellite]

Alexfocus

I am new to this site today, and have read with interest the threads regarding Addenbrookes Hospital, and especially the PS Mr Irwin.

By chance I had Gyne surgery with Mr Irwin two weeks ago, via his private practise which is run through BUPA at the Cambridge Lea Hospital in Impington just off the A14. (See BUPA website and go for cosmetic surgery option).

I can only reiterate the comments from AKA The Herbalist that Mr Irwin and his team are excellent.

I had 2 consultations with Mr Irwin and he said that I had Bilateral Gyne and he would do Lipo and excision to removed the gland.

On the day of the operation he managed to get all the gland out by lipo alone (quite rare apparently) since it broke up nicely and fitted through the canula. So I didn't wake up with any drains or scars under the nipple.

He used 4 very small incisions (2 for each boob), one about 2 inches below the nipple and one 3 inches to the side.

I woke up with the rubber tubigrip in place and the compression vest on.

I had the stitches out last week (which did take much of my chest hair with it!!!), and the incision scars are fantastically small, even if they remain slightly darker they could be mistaken for a light mole, so good job there.

This was the first time I had seen the initial results, and boy was I pleased, a normal mans chest at last after 20 years (I'm 39 now).

At the 14 day stage the bruising has all gone and only a bit of pain left (the incision sites are still swollen slightly because of the internal scarring, but this will subside with a bit of massage after a few months..you can only feel this, you can't see it).

I had my follow up today and Mr Irwin is very pleased, just a final visit in 3 months to check on things (he seems to think it will only get better from now on).

So all in all an excellent result (I will post photos as and when I can), and I find it amazing that such expert surgeons have not been referred to on this site before, it does seem to be the usual people like Levick and Karidis.

I can highly recommend the BUPA route (Obviously self-funding, medical insurance doesn't cover it).

The cost was £4220 for all the operation and fees etc, plus £120 for the initial consultation. In my opinion money well spent, I can now do all the things I couldn't do for the last 20 years of torment.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[Alexfocus]

Thanks for all the info guys, I have my next meeting on the 20th next month in London and I will see how that goes, I may then try bupa as well if needs be, so thanks for the info satellite.

I do plan to be rid of this by the end of the year, well that is my plan any ways!!

[chester101]

Hi,

Had my surgery at Addenbrookes on the 10th. Went really well apparently, and all the staff there were brilliant. Had a quick peek under my compression vest yesterday and it all looks really good, although it is still very early days. The surgeon(s) that did my op had done over 50 gynaecomastia ops, so they were very experienced and very open to discussing the merits of lipo +/- excision. In the end, it appears that I had lipo only, so we will have to see how things progress....

I would highly recommend the Plastic Surgery team at Addenbrookes, all in all I had a very good experience. I'll post a further update over the next few weeks.