Stacy, so sorry about your horrible experience with that doctor. I had something similar with my first visit to my first neurologist. Second visit, he was like a different person. So maybe they just need to establish their authority, or something.

Regarding gabapentin, I read somewhere on this board that it's helpful to space it out during the day, so I persuaded my current neurologist to give me a script for four smaller doses throughout the day, rather than one big one. That may be why I haven't had the side effects that you mention.

I'm fortunate to have a rheumatologist who has dealt with erythromyelalgia. She's seeing me this week to do a possible workup. Meanwhile she told me to drop Celebrex and then try aspirin. I noticed that dropping Celebrex seemed to help with the swelling and redness. I then found one of Mrs. D's many helpful posts (what would we do without her?), and it listed swelling of lower extremities as a possible side effect of Celebrex. I hadn't known that gabapentin can have the same side effect! Since it helps my PN, I don't want to drop THAT. And people like your doc wonder why we're skeptical about "western medicine."