A Dumbarton dad can't wait to celebrate Christmas this year after undergoing a "life changing" facial transformation.
Alan Findlay suffered from a severe skin condition that caused creases and excess flesh around his nose, damaging his confidence so badly he stayed home rather than visiting family last year.
Now the 56-year-old says he felt like "the Elephant Man" and hid away after developing rhinophyma, the Daily Record reports.
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Alan has always common skin condition rosacea, that causes blood vessels to become visible on the face and flushing.
On rare occasions it can be more extreme and develop into rhinophyma causing the skin to thicken and sebaceous glands become enlarged.
Alan suffered disfiguring of his face as a result, with NHS medics unwilling do help, telling him he'd need surgery with recovery expected to take as much as six months.
He was told there would be a lengthy waiting list for treatment because it was generally only done when it started to affect breathing and doctors were not confident they would be able to do much in the way of improvement.
But now thanks to laser treatment at the Ever clinic in Glasgow he has been "reintroduced to the human race again".
Alan said: "It is an amazing transformation.
"When you compare the before and after, it is absolutely life changing for me."
Alan, who works for a lighting company, said: "I started to notice a difference in my nose round about 2018.
"Creases started to appear on the right hand side. Over the course of a year they got bigger, but not to the extent they were later.
"I went to my GP and got a referral to a dermatologist and then a plastic surgeon. That consultation was quite scary.
"I was told it would be a difficult procedure and I would need a lot of time off work. They also said I would have to wait a long time to get it done.
"In 2020 the world fell apart for everybody and my condition progressively got worse but we weren't able to get to see a GP.
"I just kept applying the steroids I had for my rosacea but they didn't help.
"I knew I looked terrible because people were mentioning it. My social life became poor, I wasn't really going out. I just didn't feel confident.
"In my head I felt I was a bit like the elephant man. I more or less cut myself off."
Alan said the way he looked had a real impact on his mental health.
He said: "I am not going to lie, it did affect me but it was still a struggle for my wife Rowan to get me to go to the Ever clinic."
Alan continued: "At Christmas last year I was particularly low.
"We generally go to my step-son's on Christmas Day. I felt so self conscious I didn't want to go. I just stayed home by myself.
"After the holidays there was a family conspiracy to get something done."
Rowan, 58, searched the internet and found Ever which specialises in treating rhinophyma with lasers.
Dr Cormac Convery, who carried out the procedures, said Alan was "almost certainly the worst example we have seen".
His condition was so bad the laser treatment had to be done in two sessions rather than just one and the doctor was unsure how good the result would be.
The first procedure was carried out in March, lasting around five hours, and the second two months later took a further two and a half hours.
Alan admitted: "When the procedure was over on the first day I looked in the mirror and I looked as if I had been dooking for chips.
"My nose looked red raw but, as horrendous as that sounds, I felt better immediately. I felt more confident right away."
He only needed to take a week off work to give it a chance to heal.
Alan continued: "Between March and May the scabs started to fall off and I could see the shape of my nose starting to come back.
"May was more of a tidying up exercise, shaping the nose. It is now back to where it was prior to 2018."
And he was full of praise for the kindness, understanding and skill of the clinic.
He said: "I know it sounds trite but they have given me my life back.
"Christmas will be different this year, I have so much more confidence. I will be going out socialising.
"I am actually tired from going out, I have been making up for lost time.
"Last year I just wanted to hide away."
Dr Convery, who set up the clinic with his business partner Jonathan Toye six years ago said: "Because of the severity of Alan's condition I spoke to other people in the UK and America as well. One of the people, who works with the laser company, had never seen a case so severe.
"When you have a severe rhinophyma it doesn't even really look like a nose any more.
"Noses are best being invisible. If it is prominent, large, bulbous, lots of blood vessels, large pores, it really jumps out and people see nothing but the nose so what we are trying to do is turn the nose into that invisible state again.
"Alan sent us a card saying 'thank you for helping me be reintroduced to the human race again' because he felt so at odds with how a human should look."
The doctor said the treatment involves "vaporising tissue layer on layer".
He explained: "It is a subtle balance of trying to remove the tissue by generating some heat because without the heat you get an extreme amount of bleeding but, unfortunately, if you generate too much heat you can be left with unfortunate scarring and disfigurement.
"We are essentially sculpting the nose from its original position and trying to reveal the underlying nose and we are blessed with the fact the skin on the face is very very good at recovering."
He admitted: "We are leaving a raw wound and it looks like a burn victim. With an extreme rhinophyma we anticipate two or even more weeks for the skin to regrow, settle and gradually mature. But we are leaving a raw wound and it has to be managed carefully.
"One of the things we get with the regrowth of tissue is a lot of collagen produced and so it almost gives an external wrap on the nose which makes appears to make it less likely for that rhinophyma to occur again."
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