Free Clinics

[justfortoday1]

Hi guys,

I live in the Caribbean, and was diagnosed with severe endometriosis in June. I'm currently on Gonapeptyl and I am considering seeking further treatment in England. Can anyone guide me to any free clinics? I know of The Endometriosis and Fertility Clinic based in The Hale Clinic in London.

[Impatient]

I am not aware of any free clinics for endo in the UK.

As far as I am aware they are either part of the NHS which you either pay for through national insurance contributions from your pay packet by working in the UK, or claiming long term benefits which include topping up your NI contributions to the NHS

or if visiting from overseas you would pay for as a visitor as you would if you went to a private hospital.

or the privately operated hospitals in which case you pay in full or you have private medical insurance that might cover the costs.

Overseas visitors are entitled to 'emergency' medical care in the UK. Endo does not normally constitute emergency medical care.

There might be some arrangement whereby those living in British overseas territories

( Anguilla, Bermuda, BVI, Montserrat or Turks and Caicos) might be able to get reciprocal health services in the UK when visiting but you'd need to check that with your local medical services as to how that would work and if you need a referral from your own GP first.

Gonapeptyl is known as Decapeptyl in the UK.

The Hale clinic is not an accredited endometriosis centre.

bsge.org.uk/ec-BSGE-accredi... lists the fully accredited centres and

bsge.org.uk/ec-BSGE-provisi... lists the clinics awaiting full accreditation in January next year 2015.

Your best hope of treating existing endo -is surgery with a skilled endo surgeon to remove all the endo deposits that can be located.

To do that it is best seen when active - which would be after your GnRh drug treatment ends, whether you last the full 6 months maximum or quit earlier, it can take many more months for ovaries to reactivate and then reactivate the endo cells to bleed. So you do have plenty of time to consider if you need to be seen by a specialist endo surgeon and how much that might cost you.

It might actually be cheaper to get it done in the US or Mexico than fly all the way to the UK. Even Venezuela & Brazil have some excellent pioneering endo surgeons so that might be a cheaper option to look in to as well.

If you are not looking for an endo specialist surgeon but for different homeopathic or holistic treatments then we are not able to promote any centres by name on the forum but ladies who know of any such places can send you a private message with the details if they wish.

[justfortoday1 in reply to Impatient]

Thanks for the information. I'm going to look into it.