Private healthcare?

[Chocolate-chicken]

Hi, we have spent the best part of the last 2 years waiting for appointments for my 5 year old daughter. Our GP initially referred us to the wrong place which delayed us further.... We have a paediatrician appointment coming up which was meant to be in August (referred in April) but we have now been told it will be "at least September".... I am tearing my hair out. My daughter wets CONSTANTLY, and poos a couple of times a day. She generally gets through 10 sets of clothes a day, sometimes more.... I have begged and begged for this appointment to be moved forward but no one can do anything about it. So, I was wondering about going private.... We don't have insurance or anything so we can't do much, but I was wondering if there was anything specific we could do privately to speed things up a bit. My understanding is that the paediatrician will refer us for a bowel x-ray (we have had ultrasounds and blood tests already which were clear), so i was thinking that if we can do this privately then surely the paediatrician can look at the private x-ray when we go... Has anyone done anything similar? I just can bare the thought that we'll get this appointment in sept/Oct and then just have to join another list to do some tests......!!! We have been waiting for 2 1/2 years!!!

[SKY01]

I feel your pain! I searched (without success) to find a way of just getting a simple x-ray privately. In the end we ended up seeing a pediatric gastro privately who immediately booked us in for an x ray and transit marker test (needed to wait 2 weeks to get all laxatives about of system) then reviewed them on the same day. So it did speed things up a lot and I was able to go back to the continence team/GP with the evidence I felt I needed. We were lucky to get some help from family (after seeing the terrible state I was in!) but if there's any way of making it work I'd say it's worth it, just to speed things up as the wait is agonising!xx

[Chocolate-chicken in reply to SKY01]

Ah great thank you!! If you don't mind would you mind telling me roughly how much it all cost...? I've been offered a consultation for £200 but that does not include any tests or x-rays...

[SKY01 in reply to Chocolate-chicken]

I think it was a very similar figure and the same again for the follow up. Apparently the x ray and transit markers would have been around £100 but I don't think they ever actually invoiced for that! Not sure if it was included after all... We didn't have any other tests.x

[HollyGriffo in reply to SKY01]

Hi,this is v interesting ; may I ask what was happening with your child,how old and what were the results? Currently going thru the NHS system, blood tests tomorrow (3hr drive to hospital)on waiting list to see surgeon who paedriatrician thinks will do transit test but its a long waiting list.

[SKY01 in reply to HollyGriffo]

Hi. Of course :). We went in the spring when he was 4.5. The transit test showed "significant delay" and x-ray showed "faceal loading" and what appeared to be an enlarged rectum. Didn't identify a blockage as such but lots and lots of poo! Apparently the x ray doesn't show what is very hard/ old poo and what's not!? It has been useful to be 100% sure of what we are dealing with and we are now on disimpaction number 2 as I think we stopped too soon first time around. We didn't have any blood tests (yet!) Xx

[HollyGriffo in reply to SKY01]

Thanks for the reply. Have they found why he has constipation?

[SKY01 in reply to HollyGriffo]

No. We haven't got that far but continence team suspect related to one bad episode of constipation as a baby. If we can't sort things with disimpaction and meds I guess we will have to investigate further but it's early days for us (soiling has been since toilet training but it's early days in resolving the issue as it took 2 years to identify the problem as constipation. Everyone had labelled it as behavioural:()