Quote:
Originally Posted by numb
Hi All,
I had an appt with Dr. Schwartzman by the end of this month after waiting for more than a year. Although my pain level appears to be undercontrolled with the medications, it has spread from hands to feet and may be to other parts of body. I don't know whether or not i should go to see him because he is so far away from me. I am in the west coast and i can not sit at all without pain plus the travelling cost.
My questions are: is there anything that he can offer the local doctor or local major university hospital can't? If i am interested in coma katemine infusion, do i have to go through him.
If it is imperative for me to go to see him, i will try to go especially if there is treatment options that will stop the spreading. So far i think the doctors that i saw were too conserative. I only had total of 5 blocks for all my extremities and medications and that's all.
Take care and hope to hear from you and thank you,
Numb
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Hi Numb,
I am a Part time patient of Dr. S he works in conjunction with my Pain Management Spec. I have had 3 five day ketamine infusions, the awake version, in NYC and then go to Dr.S for my boosters. He is a very smart doctor and has worked together with my other doctor to try and help and he did. To answer your question about if you should make the trip: The list to do the 5 day is very long if you do it with him, like I said I did it with my PM doctor in NYC and Germany Coma list is even longer but I do know a girl who went to Mexico for the coma treatment through him. If I were you I would first see if you can find a doctor on the west coast who does ketamine treatments so this way Dr. S can recommend a treatment, it might not be ketamine, then they could communicate through phone and letters to proceed with your treatment. That's how it worked for me. I am about 3 hours from him. I would definitely go for the appt. but find a doctor who he can work with. The protocol with either the 5 day awake or coma version still require the boosters so to make it as easy for you as possible I would think you need a doctor relatively close to you so not to put so much stress on yourself with travel. My experience with the ketamine while you are doing it is to stay a calm and non-stressed as possible. If it was not for my doctor and Dr.S I don't know where I would be. I have had RSD for 5 years and right now I feel pretty good I even got a PT Job and I haven't worked in 2 years. I feel if I didn't do all those treatments I would not be doing as good as I am. It does take sometime for it all to jell but I do believe in it.
If you do go there is a Hampton Inn Hotel right around the corned from his office about 2 block away who will give you a discount if you tell them you are seeing Dr.S. It is very clean and the people there are helpful because they have so many patients who stay there. If you need the phone number just ask me and I will dig it out.
Good luck.
Ann