Can you get circumcised on the NHS as an adult?

Can you get circumcised in the NHS as an adult? Sometimes. Let me tell you when, what the recovery looks like and what it does and doesn't change in this video.

First of all, on the NHS the circumcision is only offered for medical reasons, foreskin that keeps getting sore or infected, for example, a foreskin that is so tight that erection hurts or if you have splits or if you have a progressive condition that is closing tighter and tighter the ring to have access to the glans so that at some point you might not be able to pull back the foreskin at all, you can have some scarring and you can have therefore conditions like the BXO or lichen sclerosis. If your reasons instead are of personal hygiene or cultural or cosmetic that is not possible in the national health system and can only be done privately.

What about the recovery time? course, this changes from situation to situation and everyone will start with some swelling, some form of pain or discomfort that lasts for normally 1–2 weeks. Most men end up needing to take at least one week off work, and certainly sex and masturbation are not recommended for at least 4–6 weeks from the day of the circumcision. Apart from that, normally an operation that leads to very mild postoperative consequences, and if you book it well around your diary, will find that the postoperative time is usually well tolerated.

In terms of risks, it is a common operation but it is never risk-free. We are talking about one or two men out of a hundred that can get an infection and men with conditions like diabetes tend to have a higher chance of getting infections. Same amount of numbers of men, they can have a bleeding and the bleeding can go outwards with a spillage of blood that you can see in the dressing, for example, or inwards, creating a collection of blood within the penis that is called a haematoma. Very occasionally you will need to go back to theatre if you have one or the other, but in a small number of cases this is required in the form of an emergency case.

In the long term you can expect to have changes in sensation of the glans that will be a tougher tissue no longer similar to how it is when it's always covered and that can represent a reduced amount of sensation even during sexual intercourse. However, big numbers show that circumcised men do not have sexual problems out of having had a circumcision because of the reduced sensation. I'll be honest though, the quality of this study is quite low, so it is something that we have to talk through properly before you decide to go ahead with it.

So, if you are considering and wondering if you want or need a circumcision, the first step is always an examination to check first whether a circumcision is the right answer for your problems. And if you have one of the medical reasons that I outlined earlier, your GP can refer you immediately to the NHS for having that done. As an alternative, you can book a consultation with a private provider to have a circumcision even if you do not have any precise medical condition out of it, adding any of your clinical details, if you had any experience about circumcision that you want to discuss in the comment section, please feel free to do so, even if you have any comment about this very video. And do not forget to subscribe to the channel if you want to hear more about these topics.