Private treatment

[Alisha_1998]

If you have had private treatment from a surgeon how effective was the results in terms of pain and fertility

Roughly how long does the process take and how much would it cost (for the whole process)

And any other procedures that wer required apart from the Laparoscopy

[Hidden]

Hello Alisha,

I’m seven weeks post-op with a private consultant. From start to finish the whole process took around two/three months. I rang up and enquired to book a consultation - my consultant was free. Following this, I was allowed time to decide whether I’d like to go ahead and once I confirmed this with my consultant, I was put on the waiting list. Within around 5 weeks, I had an appointment booked I had my surgery 2 weeks later.

I’ll be honest - my surgery wasn’t the fairytale ending that I was expecting. However, that will depend on your situation, the severity of your case and what your goal is for pursuing surgery. I went into this seeking a diagnosis and nothing else. However, I did give my surgeon permission to remove what he found during his investigation. So at the end of everything, I did get my diagnosis and he had removed several lesions.

My pain is still persistent, but I am still healing. I am also certain that I have endo in other harder to reach places that my op didn’t cover, and I am waiting to seek an MRI to investigate this. So this is definitely a contributing factor to my ongoing pain that my surgery couldn’t fix

In terms of fertility, I was extremely lucky that my investigation showed my uterus, tubes and ovaries are healthy. This was also another goal of my surgery as I wanted to know the likelihood of me conceiving, so this was good news. However, again this will depend on your individual case and what your goals are for surgery, and what the outcome of your surgery may be. You must discuss this with your consultant pre-surgery as any removal of lesions in sensitive places may impact your fertility and this all needs to be pre-planned and agreed to ahead of time.

My consultant was amazing - it was the first time I have ever felt believed and heard. He listened to my concerns and planned every detail with me ahead of time. The whole process, including a one night stay cost me £3,600 at a fixed price with Spire healthcare. This cost also covered the removal of lesions. I believe they have hospitals and consultants across the UK.

I did not require any other procedures so I wouldn’t be able to comment on my experience or pricing etc for anything else.

I hope this helps you make your decision!

[Hayayaya]

Hi.

I’m from Newcastle Upon Tyne. If you’re from around there give me a buzz and I’ll discuss how private treatment was in Newcastle as I think it varies slightly upon city

[Alisha_1998 in reply to Hayayaya]

Inboxed you x

[Christin_a]

It's important to remember that private doesn't necessarily mean better quality of surgeon. You need to check that the person doing your surgery /investigations, whether private or NHS has a minimum of a specialist interest in endometriosis. You can usually find this on the hospitals website. I wouldn't take it just from a list on their private health care in what they deal with, as that isn't the same as detailing their specialist interests/extra training.

If you have stage 3 or 4 then even if private you need to be treated either at a bsge centre or under the same conditions (multiple disciplines of surgeons etc).

[Koalabear32]

I had private surgery in Glasgow under BMI Healthcare. I had my first consultation mid April and was booked for surgery on 1st June. I'm fully recovered now, but obviously will need to wait a few cycles to see how it has worked. Fertility-wise, they said tubes and ovaries were functional through a dye test.

All in, it was just under £3,300 which I'm paying in instalments over a year.

I would highly recommend private if you can BUT I would make sure it is under BSGE. Although mine was through BMI, the consultant/surgeon I saw was an endometriosis specialist which is more what I was looking for than necessarily private. Of course, the advantage of private was I waited roughly 5 weeks, rather than 2 years which is what my NHS consultant told me was the current waiting time.