I have had three katamine infusions with good results. I had two before my surgery and now one after. They were not bad to endure, and I had no side effects. ginnie

Daniella, If you can go anywhere, the first place you may want to check out is the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC. Dr. Richman. I have heard wonderful things about him from more than one RSDer.

Betsykk has also highly recommended Dr. Chin (?) at George Washington in DC.

Good luck.

Ginnie is that in the Tampa area where your doctor is? Does that doctor deal with meds or what type of doctor is that?
Sandy I do feel it is a turn off when doctor's make it seem like it is about the money but if I get any benefit I will put that issue aside. On his site he has the price list for the treatments. Ugh but I did email Sandy awhile back and she had really good things to say about him.
Though he works with Dr S it seems the actual treatment differs in terms of dose and being op vs ip.

Hi Daniella,

I had 3 5 day-inpatient ketamine treatments from 2005-2008. I had it done at the Hospital for Special Surgery and my doctor was Daniel Richman, MD at the time he was my Pain Managment doctor also. The care was excellant and he is a very smart caring doctor and a nice person. Great office staff. All the doctors in the pain department do ketamine. They do many other procedures ketamine is properly last on the list.

My pain did not get worse.

My RSD came with other things like migranes, not sleeping, fatique, and ofcourse the pain. Percentage I would say my pain decreased 70%. But I rarely get headaches,I actually sleep 7-8 hours at one time and the fatique is all but gone. I did my booster in PA with Dr. Scwartzman following the normal protocol. I also have seen Dr. Hertz out of St. Lukes in NYC for boosters. I have not had a booster in 2 1/2 years.. It's a real love hate relationship I have with ketamine, let's just say where not best friends.

I don't feel I had any long lasting side effects. I just didn't like the way it made my stomach feel while I was doing the infusion that was the hardest for me. I really never had halluncinations I would call it heavy dreaming but it was always positive.

No new conditions or spread. But I do have other conditions in the effected area so ofcourse the ketamine only worked for the RSD.

I was pretty well prepared. There is quite a list of pre-admission testing they require before they give the o.k. for anyone to have the procedure.

Hope I answered all your questions.

Good Luck.
Gabbycakes

1 Who did you have ketamine with and was it outpatient or inpatient? Were you happy with your doctors care?
~Dr. Thomas Leverone,outpatient,very happy

2 Did anyone's pain get worse?
~Mine has not

3 What percentage of pain relief do you feel you have? Are you doing boosters?
~I get 100% relief for about 6 months. I take ketamine pills twice a day for 2 weeks after the infusion

4 Any lasting side effects?
~nope!

5 Any spread of RSD or new conditions that have happened?
~negative

6 Anything else you wish you would of asked or done?
~wish we'd found him sooner!