There seems to be lots of gyno questions here, and as some one who was lucky enough to be born with mild gyno and live with it for 29 years I thought I’d share a few experiences with people. I’m in the UK so as the most heavily taxed people in the world we have some thing wonderful called the National health service, which basically means you pay for hospitals but don’t get half decent treatment unless you can afford to pay double for private healthcare (on top of your taxes)
I first went to my GP complaining of gyno when i was about 19, I read that pubescent boys got lumps under their nipples that subsided after puberty, so I said I’d always had them and would they go. My GP briefly examined me and said yes you have gyno but its not that bad, try and lose some weight (I was about 180lbs at 6.2 foot and had just started to train then so wasn’t in great shape) I complained and said I wanted it removed, she said I couldn’t have it done on the nhs and I would have terrible scars around both nipples. i pushed and she reluctantly referred me to a private breast specialist (who I suppose I could have gone directly to)
Private breast specialist, an arrogant prick with an ego bigger than his own attitude, I couldn’t of been in there more than 5 minutes, he diagnoses me again with gyno, tells me 10% of men have it, tells me not to take vitamins or any supplements whatsoever, measure my height, puts me on the scales, gets his ‘ideal’ weight chart out and tells me i should weigh 11 stone (150lbs or so)
I then press for some more advice, he tells me that unless I have single digit body fat the surgery will leave me with a concave chest and scarring around both nipples, the price of the surgery was i think around 5k (10 years ago) I leave, feeling humiliated, and receive a bill a few days later for £130. (now about £200)
A couple of years later I complain to the same GP again and she tells me the NHS won’t remove unless a psychiatrist diagnoses me as ’ at psychological risk from the condition’
2009 i finally go to a private plastic surgery clinic for a free consultation, and book an appointment to have scar free ‘smart lipo’ for £2025, which I will describe if anyone is interested at a later date.
Thanks Sam…in your story you mention that the doctor said you should have less than 10% body fat or you will end up with a concave chest. With all the misinformation and dicking around that you experienced, would you consider that point to be accurate? Were you less than 10% when you had it done?
No, at the time that idiot examined me I would guesstimate I was about 17%, at the time of surgery probably closer to 14%, the surgeon said that when removing the gyno body fat is fairly irrelevant as only glands and fluid are removed (in my case around a pint or 500ml from both pecs)
I asked the surgeon about was this breast specialist had told me and he said that they had no knowledge or interest in aesthetics, I am so glad I didn’t let him near me! So post surgery my chest will not be concave regardless of body fat. The skin was loose around the nipples and is gradually tightening, I’m expecting it to take 12-18 months to adjust completely and tighten up.
[quote]samgold wrote:
I’m in the UK so as the most heavily taxed people in the world …[/quote]
lol, not even in the top 10 i’m afraid
and in all fairness, i dont particularly see why the NHS should pay for what is essentiall aesthetic surgery, there is no health risk as far as i’m aware of.
The NHS didn’t pay did they?
To be fair I didn’t research whether we are the most heavily taxed people so I did make an unsubstantiated claim there, I will however say we are (and when I say we, me in particular a single working male with no children) overtaxed, though I’m not getting into an argument about tax and the NHS on here, I ripped into the NHS because I feel I wasn’t given a fair hearing by my GP (I’m pretty sure you don’t have or have never had gyno0 and I know girls who have had boob jobs on the NHS so they do perform plenty of procedures that are cosmetic on people who aren’t at risk health wise.
I’m actually quite relived I didn’t get it done on NHS now as for the sake of 2k I would have had nasty scars and had to pretend I would of killed myself unless I got it done.
With regards to health risks my doctor, nor the private specialist I paid handsomely bothered to check my blood levels to see if a hormonal imbalance or something else had caused it, so neither of them knew or cared to find out.
I have not had good success with NHS doctor’s either, I went and had surgery twice, both times i told the surgeon after i could still feel the hard lump but he was too arrogant to listen to what i was telling him saying it was just blood clotting.
So i went back for a third go with a different surgeon and told him that the lump is directly behind the nipple, when i woke up and could feel my chest the lump hadn’t been touched but fat from around side had been taken out which didn’t need to be since there was no abnormal gland tissue or fat there. Now i’m left with an indentation scar right around the nipple which makes the gyno look worse since chest is flat around the side so it sticks out more prominently.
I’ve seriously thought about doing the surgery myself so i can at least see what was being taken out, I bought good scapel’s over the internet and was planning on trying cocaine as local anesthetic but i’ve started boxing since and can’t really afford to take 6-8 weeks off.