I made an appointment this fall to see Dr. Nancy Klimas, one of the country's top ME/CFS specialists. She is located in Miami. Needless to say, I am very excited. The prospect of seeing a doctor who works with my illness on a day-to-day basis is fantastic. I'm in the position of going from having never seen a doctor with any significant knowledge of ME/CFS to one who is tops in the field!
In the past Dr. Klimas has been notoriously hard to get into see with a wait list of several hundred patients. She recently opened a new private clinic that does not accept insurance, and this has been what has enabled me to get in quickly (I'm lucky that they allowed me to come in without a referral, which was one of the main sticking points before). After reading of other patients experiences visiting the new clinic, I decided to make the appointment. The office staff immediately sent me a large pack of documents to fill out going over my entire medical history. I'll also need to get a blood pressure monitor and log my BP three times a day. It's a lot of work but it will be worth it.
It's interesting to note that Dr. Klimas has been working with HIV and CFS patients since the late 80's (especially interesting in light of the recent discovery linking the new retrovirus, XMRV, with CFS). Here's some background on how Dr. Klimas got involved with CFS: http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=12937
Here's to getting some real medical treatment!
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Congrats David! It's true that people at PR seem to be very enthousiastic about her, she has a very good reputation. I would love to hear the follow up on this story, like what is her diagnosis and what treatments will she propose you etc.
ReplyDeleteTwo more questions: is Miami far from where you live? And: what does it mean that 'she does not accept insurance'? I'm probably too European too understand that last one, your health system is soo different from ours :-)
Miami is a 5 hour flight (2000+ miles) from where I live (Arizona). I wanted to see Dr. Bateman in Salt Lake City, Utah (much closer), but it would take a year to get in to see her.
ReplyDeleteHer new clinic does not accept insurance, meaning anyone who goes there will have to pay the doctor fees themselves (and it's expensive).