daniella -

Hi. What's your read on Dr. Carden?

Looking at his website, he looked a little too traditional for my liking, including references to pumps, SCS and that old chestnut, surgical sympathectomies.

Mike

Hi. Sorry I am late responding. I have seen 4 pain management docs this year. Dr Carden,one at Ucla,2 at Cleveland Clinic. With that nothing has changed but I got 3 different things I should do. I felt Dr Carden like many rushed me,didn't look at my records,and his thing is the epidural shots which from what I read is one not long term effective and now may not even be a way of dx. My recent pain doc who I saw at Cleveland who deals a lot with rsd I felt answered more of my ?'s and had a plan ahead. Though a few thoughts bothered me there too. I hate to say negative about any doc unless a huge mistake was made or like the one at ucla who gave me a video and told me to get the scs without even answering any ?'s or talking about what it entails.

So for LA, I guess that narrows it down to Drs. Prager and Richeimer.

Having seen both, I would recommend Dr. Richeimer, unless what you really want is to be fitted with an implanted pump, which seems to be Dr. Prager's preferred method of treatment, or at least was when I saw him sometime back. Then there is also the issue of "bedside manner" on which I would give Dr. Richeimer the highest marks under the Sun . . . .

In addition, Dr. Richeimer at USC takes most forms of insurance, while last I saw Dr. Prager, he accepted vitually none.

Hi all!
Been absent for a little while, you know, with life interfering and all . . . I know that this is a bit out of the area, being in Thousand Oaks, but he's worth it. He used to be in Beverly Hills, and I traveled to him from Ventura area. Ojai, to be exact. His name is Dr. Assil. Kamyar Assil. I adore this man. I was 12 when I started seeing him and he was the first person to tell me that I wasn't crazy. He's all for non-traditional approaches, but then when the going gets tough he will respond aggressively. He installed my spinal stim. He has the best bedside manner, and sometimes that is half the battle. And he set me up with my current doctor in San Diego at UCSD who is wonderful. So he's not some smalltime guy. They see each other at conferences all the time and he still asks about me 8 years later. And my SD doc is Farshad Ahadian. Something about these Persian guys . . . sweethearts who have saved my life. If anyone has questions, just ask . . . I'll be around more.
Lynn