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UK PRIVATE TOP SURGERY ADVICE WANTED

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Kal, Jul 6, 2018.

  1. Kal

    Kal
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    So I’m far along in my transition now, started hormones January 2017. The NHS is pathetic when it comes to provisioning for trans people and waiting for the green light for referral for top surgery is painful.

    I’m probably going to resort to doing their job for them and despite paying extortionate taxes and NI, given my salary, I’ll pay for it myself just to get it done.

    I want a step by step on how to do this privately. There’s a confusing myriad of information online and it’s unclear how I go about doing this. Do I need a referral from a GP/Gender Clinic/therapist to the private surgeon? Can I approach them regardless and just get the ball rolling? Who is the best in the UK?
     
  2. Aberrance

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    You can get your referral a few different ways. Wait it out in the nhs and get the 2 signatures needed to refer you (depending on which GIC you're at it could be a different number of appointments before you receive your referral, Charing Cross is usually 2 but if you're already on T and have had an appointment already then it'll likely just be 1 more.

    Alternatively you can get a referral privately. There are only 2 private clinics that are actually worth looking at: YourGP in Scotland and Gendercare in London. I'd recommend Gendercare seeing as you're in Bath. They've expanded their team since I was with them so I don't know the process for getting a referral anymore as it's been a while but it used to be that you'd only see Dr Lorimer and he'd straight up give you your top referral (I'm unsure whether you needed a diagnosis of gender dysphoria before he referred you) however his waiting list has gone up massively so they've got a few other clinicians in to take on some of the work load and they all seem to work on different pathways. Id suggest giving them all an email and letting them know what stage you're at, what you want and ask how many appointments it'll take, etc.

    I will let you know that if you're already with the NHS you're not allowed to go private if you've had your second NHS appointment or it's seen as a conflict of interest. Again I'd suggest calling up both the NHS clinic and private one and just double checking and confirming that because the worst thing would be to go private and then be booted out of the NHS GIC, especially if you want to keep receiving treatment.

    If you need advise on private surgeons too then I'd be more than happy to impart my hours of research so you don't have to do it. Hope that helped, mate. Completely get where your heads at and I made the exact same decision as you when I weighed up the pros and cons it was a no brainer.
     
  3. Kal

    Kal
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    Thanks for responding bud. Yeah it’s two referrals I’ve been told at the CC GIC, I’ve had one and my second was for Aug but they wrote to say they’ve pushed it back to November. Which has annoyed me royally.

    I’m at the point where waiting and waiting is doing my head in, and paying £6K or whatever seems preferable for me to be able to function in every day life.

    Any info you’ve got would be greatly appreciated but as you’ve mentioned at the same time I’ll email Gendercare to see what the situation would be. Any thoughts on going abroad to a European country to get it done?

    hanks
     
  4. Aberrance

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    CX did the same to me was meant to have an appointment February of this year they text me 3 weeks before to cancel and gave me another for July. I was like, no fuck that I've already waited a year since my last one so bugged them and complained that they got me a cancellation in march. It's worth chasing everything up and complaining if you're being pissed about.

    So best surgeons currently are Miles Berry (London), Andrew Yellend (Devon), Peter Kneeshaw (Hull) and Professor Drew (Cornwall). Victoria Rose (London) is also very good with larger chests. I'm unsure on costs with a lot of them but it does vary depending on technique and size of chest. Berry is £5975 all inclusive surgery with insurance for a year post op and £100 on top for consultation which I'm pretty sure is one of the cheapest you're going to find. I'd do research around each one, email their secretaries and just enquire about costs. You can sometimes figure things out from their websites by going by gynecomastia or breast reduction costs but it's not going to match up completely.

    I haven't actually looked at European surgeons but I've heard that they're a lot cheaper and have heard very good things about Benoit Coustal in France and Van Loenen in The Netherlands. Actually it may even be worth looking into American surgeons because they can sometimes work out around the same price or even cheaper but it's not something that I considered so I don't know much about it.
     
  5. Kal

    Kal
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    Fantastic information, thanks very much. As long as I get a decent job done, cost is my secondary concern! Have emailed Lorimer, will start investigating the surgeons. Cheers!
     
  6. Kal

    Kal
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    So rather than provide me with the information I asked for, Gender Care want me to make an appointment (which no doubt will lead to several and costing me a pretty penny). What about approaching plastic surgeons straight up? Cut out the gender clinic bullshit that they seem intent on forcing me through, with the same questions over and over...just making sure I’m trans enough.
     
  7. Aberrance

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    Unfortunately our situation is a bit more complicated, mate. If a cis guy has gynaecomastia and wants surgery to make his chest flat he can go to a surgeon, even on the NHS in severe cases, and get surgery after only a consult. With us trans guys surgeons was to see a diagnosis of gender dysphoria (fair enough) and preferably have a referral to them (although I've heard recently that Miles Berry operated after just having seen the diagnosis). It's all about them watching their own backs which is completely understandable, if they operate on someone not ready/not trans they could damage their reputation and potentially their career/life.

    I've had 3 different clinicians, not including the surgeon, ask me the same questions each telling me that I am the standard diagnosis of gender dysphoria but you just have to keep going to these damn appointments and have people spout the same shit at you. Mate it's a damn bloody long process I'm telling you. Hence why I've done everything private even though I've been trying to go the NHS route I just couldn't deal with the waiting times.

    You are able to have a consult with a surgeon without having a referral. It'll cost you maybe a hundred or so but just bear in mind that they'll probably need a referral before booking you in for surgery.
     
    #7 Aberrance, Jul 15, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2018
  8. Kal

    Kal
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    Yeah I emailed Dr Yelland and he pretty much said he needed a referral from either a private or NHS clinic, and from the first appointment with him to surgery date would be roughly 3 months. Which is awesome, but I guess that’s essentially getting what you pay for isn’t it. Haven’t had time to digest that or even figure it all out, so will take some time this weekend. It’s just so exhausting really, to try and fight for who I am and come up against these significant and costly barriers because the NHS is creaky and under financed. I wonder whether the cash injection into gender services will actually have any influence over wait times across NHS clinics or if it will be swallowed up by governance.
     
  9. Aberrance

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    Exactly, essentially you're paying £6k to skip the years of waiting. That sounds like a good idea, don't rush or run into it without taking the time to process it and weigh up the pros and cons (the only con I found was the money). I don't think it's likely that gender services will get any more cash than they're already being given. The entire NHS is underfunded and gender services are seen as such a minute and 'throw away' service to most that no one really seems to care that the '18 week tops' waiting time for an appointment isn't being met by a long shot. To be fair to them if you look at the stats there's been a massive rise in the number of people being referred to them there's just no way in hell for them to keep up. I know Charing Cross has upped the number of clinicians they employ, they've recently opened up the ability to email them to free up the phones for emergencies, they're sending out texts for appointment reminders and cancellations. They're trying to adapt and do what they can to quicken the service but the number of referrals are snowballing that they're not even able to take care of their existing patients.

    It's just not on hence why so many of us are unable to live like this and are going private through. I know guys that have got themselves in immense debt from having to pay out for their top surgery because they couldn't stand to wait the year or two or however long it'll take for both the GIC's and the surgeons to stop fucking about. It really isn't fair, so many of us relate.