Hi Everyone,
Yet again I am so confused. One of my Pain docs recommended I go to Stanford to get evaluated to see if I would be a good fit for their pain inpatient program. Then I mentioned it to a different Pain Doc and she had the most horrible things to say about it (basically that I would be throwing my life and money away if I went there). So now I have no idea what to think. It is going to be costly, not to mention the pain all the traveling will cause me, so I was hoping somebody with CRPS has either been to the Stanford Pain Center or heard about it. I would greatly appreciate any insight into this matter. Thanks so much!

Last I heard, Stanford had closed its inpatient pain program along with a number of other hospitals around the same time, including Daniel Freeman here in Los Angeles, okay, Inglewood. From what I heard third-hand, it had everything to do with not enough insurance reimbursement per bed.

That said, I would be quite happy to stand corrected as to Stanford.

Mike


AS SET FORTH BELOW, I STAND CORRECTED.

Hi Mike,

I did speak to a nurse last week regarding Stanford and I briefly asked her about the inpatient pain program and how long people stayed in it for. She said usually 3 - 7 days, which I was very surprised at since I had assumed it would be something longer like a month or so. Perhaps they shortened it due to insurance reasons? I do have to wonder how much improvement one can have in 3 - 7 days after having CRPS for 3 years? Any thoughts?

My first thought is that something bizarre happened last year, when I would have sworn that my long-time doctor at USC, who gave me a non-working number to contact Stanford regarding their inpatient pain program and - after I checked the website for Standford's Pain Management Center and found nothing pertaining to any inpatient program - he later confirmed that Stanford's inpatient pain program had in fact shut down, but when I saw him this morning, he made clear that he never told me any such thing!?! In fact, its director is his good friend.

That said, I was hot to trot at the time, and I would encourage you to do so.

My guess is that 3 - 7 days is just long enough to take you off all of your meds, at which point they can not only observe you at your "best," but take subtle measurements of autonomic nerve functioning that could easily be obscured by thing like Neurontin, and then perhaps try a change up in your medications based upon their test results and observations. I'm unsure what they could do in 3 days, 7 seems more reasonable. And in keeping with what you were thinking, I KNOW (as well as I can) that the figure that was bandied about a year ago was 3 weeks, which may well be ideal and the way it used to be, but is probably not what insurance companies are willing to cover anymore.

Apologies again for the confusion.

Mike

Hi Mike,
Yeah, I was a bit confused about the inpatient program too because they don't mention it on their website. I think the other problem is when they do briefly refer to it they call it the Stanford Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Pain Program (SCIPP). It looks like only 1% of their patients are actually admitted into it if I read the chart correctly. I'm still on the fence about going due to the length. I think it would be a waste to be there for only 3 days since like you mentioned what can you do in 3 days. Three weeks sounds much more ideal to actually be able to accomplish something. However, I have a feeling my insurance won't approve of any time in there so that would be a big problem. Well I'll let you know if I go.