A grandad had a huge growth on his nose cut off privately because he was afraid his granddaughter wouldn’t want him in her 18th birthday photos.
Thomas Stevenson, 69, a retired driver who used to work at the petrochemical complex in Grangemouth, began developing rhinophyma five years ago.
The disfiguring condition kept getting worse and he asked the NHS to get it removed but he got so fed up waiting for a procedure that he went private.
Thomas said: “My granddaughter was approaching her 18th birthday and I just knew she wouldn’t want me in the photographs.”
Rhinophyma is a very visible nasal deformity caused by the proliferation of sebaceous glands and underlying connective tissue, which affects mostly older white men. It leads to severe swelling, lumps and redness of the skin.
Although accepted by friends and family, Thomas found it uncomfortable being stared at by strangers.
After being given antibiotics, he asked the NHS to help fix the problem in 2020 and was finally referred to an outpatient clinic in April 2022 but no treatment was offered.
He was placed on a waiting list but was told in August that year that NHS Lothian could not help him at that time.
At another clinic in February this year he was informed that no procedures for rhinophyma were being offered, meaning he would stay on the list with no idea when, or even if, treatment would take place.
He said: “In relative terms I was lucky. My nostrils started closing up but I didn’t have any real difficulty breathing.
“With disfigurement, people stare. Kids were the worst – they just can’t help being honest.”
Thomas instead turned to Glasgow’s Ever Clinic for a two-hour laser excision carried out by aesthetic medicine specialist Dr Cormac Convery under local anaesthetic a few months ago.
He said that people he meets think the difference in his appearance is “amazing”.
He added: “Now, I can get on with my life.”
But he stated: “If Dr Convery can do this operation in a couple of hours, I don’t understand why the NHS can’t, or won’t, do it.
“It doesn’t seem fair. They see people who have had botched aesthetic treatments in places like Turkey and seem willing to fix these mistakes.
“I’m just happy I had it done. But if the NHS won’t help, perhaps they should consider referring people like me to professionals who can.”
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