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If you need urgent treatment and are number 78 on a waitlist, could you wait that long? You may want to take your healthcare into your own hands with private health insurance.
Private healthcare is an alternative to the NHS. With private healthcare you will have to pay for your medical treatment directly or you can go through your health insurance policy. With the NHS crumbling and wait times increasing, opting for a health insurance policy can give you access to private healthcare, can offer you more choice, faster access to treatment and often higher quality services and facilities.
If you are looking to take charge of your medical care and treatment options, a health insurance policy is for you. Compare quotes with MoneySuperMarket today to find a policy that suits your needs at a price that works for you.
Beth's story
I suffered painful and heavy periods from the very first one. They were debilitating at times through my teenage years and I was put on medication to help with pain and heavy bleeding.
As with a lot of women who experience this, I was always told it was just a heavy period and put on the contraceptive pill to help my symptoms. While they did do that to an extent in my younger years, coming into my 30's things got significantly worse. The coil no longer helped my symptoms and I was sick of taking hormones constantly.
Over the years, I’ve had a few attempts at investigations through the NHS and some painful procedures to try and relive pain/heavy bleeding but no real diagnosis. I got to the point where I just felt (and was told) that nothing more could be done.
After I took out health insurance
In December 2019, I had health insurance through work with Bupa and I researched Cardiff Gynaecologists and booked in with a consultant at Spire. I had my first appointment in January 2020. My appointment in total lasted just over 2 hours.
The consultant asked me to tell him everything, from the very first period to now. He also did an examination and I then went for a scan in a different part of the hospital. The radiographer instantly spotted areas of my uterus that were thickened and didn’t look right, along with a mass inside my uterus. He sent me back with his findings and the consultant reviewed them there and then. He told me I had Adenomyosis and he also strongly suspected Endometriosis and the mass was likely to be either a fibroid or an adenomyoma.
He just looked at me and said; ‘You’ve had enough, haven’t you?! and you’ve really tried everything, I’ll agree with that. Would you like a hysterectomy?’
The relief was indescribable, and I was incredibly emotional. I finally felt listened to and that the end was in sight.
To make sure a hysterectomy was the right way to go, my consultant started me on a medication called Zoladex, this temporarily shuts down the ovaries and the production of oestrogen, so it mimics a hysterectomy and the menopause. Due to the pandemic, I was on that medication for about 9 months but I’d never felt better!
Treatment
In January 2021 I had a radical hysterectomy at the spire, removing my uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries.
I had the surgery in the morning and was home the following day. I had a private room and the nurse care was exceptional. Before my surgery, My consultant and the anaesthetist came to chat with me about the procedure and then they also came back in the following day (a Sunday!) to tell me how things went. For all my procedures on the NHS, I never once spoke to the consultant while I was there for surgery.
My recovery
When I went back for my 6 week check up and histology results I found out that my uterus was twice the size of a normal uterus due to the amount of adenomyosis. I had multiple fibroids in the endometrial wall, multiple cysts in my fallopian tubes and ovaries, a large adenomyoma and several areas of endometriosis stage 2. My consultant said ‘wow, good riddance!’ I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The initial recovery from surgery was uneventful. However, I am now in surgically induced menopause so will take medication for many years. But... I’m now completely pain free!
