Cosmetic defects caused by illness - how to obtain surgery on the NHS?
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I have a rare condition which caused me to lose extensive facial adipose tissue because of a genetic disorder. It is incredibly rare and caused me to lose tissue throughout my face, including behind my eyes.
This has obviously taken a huge toll on me psychologically and has caused me to go from outgoing and happy to having become agoraphobic and very depressed over the last 4.5 years.
I have consulted a maxillo-facial surgery who is willing to perform fat augmentation surgery to compensate for some of the lost tissue.
He is a private maxillo-facial surgeon and I consulted him privately. The initial reason I consulted him wasn’t concerning surgery, initially it was concerning a potential bone biopsy, as the problem was thought to have affected the bone, but it was later found that this wasn’t the case.
He mentioned the potential for fat augmentation at that consultation. I know that he does NHS work but the consultation was private.
Although the NHS does not routinely perform cosmetic surgery, my question is: given the major psychological toll that the tissue loss has had on me (i.e. it has caused me to become agoraphobic and very depressed), would this be something that I could request to be performed on the NHS?
How much backlash am I likely to get from the surgeon for this? (I take it he would be paid much more from having it done privately). I had to bankrupt myself just to get my illness properly investigated and treated (I had to consult multiple doctors in many fields because the NHS did nothing to help me). I'm already in debt from having to do this, and given the NHS caused me to have to pay so much money in the first place, I don't want to get into more debt to get the damage fixed.
How exactly can I prove the psychological need in order to satisfy the NHS cosmetic surgery criteria here? Will letters from a psychiatrist suffice?
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