ER doctor – extreme Lupus (RA) pain is not an emergency!
A little over a week ago, I praised Wesley Woodlawn ER for the way they took care of my wife’s frequent Lupus flares, brought on by Remicade infusions, which was supposed to help with her Lupus.
This week, I have the opposite to say, specifically about Dr. Brian L Debrot, who has put a note in Erin’s file instructing other doctors to not give my wife any more treatment for her Lupus. Dr. Debrot claims that my wife is using the emergency room for pain management. This accusation could not be further from the truth, we would rather not have to go to the ER at all, we would much rather have it controlled by Advanced Pain Medicine Associates, Erin’s pain management office, who are failing at the said task.
Advanced Pain Medicine claims they cannot treat Erin for Lupus, which is a type of Rheumatoid Arthritis, they are only treating her for her back pain, caused by a car wreck about nine years ago. Upon looking at the Advanced Pain website page where they list conditions they treat, Rheumatoid Arthritis is listed, which makes me wonder why they would have told my wife it’s not a condition they treat?
Back to Wesley Woodlawn, Dr. Debrot literally told my wife, she just has to live with the pain as it’s not considered an emergency, oh, and change her doctors. So, a doctor is going to refuse to treat a patient who is in extreme, debilitating pain, because he does not consider it an emergency? Something that the other doctors at the Wesley Woodlawn ER apparently disagree with, as they treat Erin without question.
Erin attempted to explain that the Remicade infusions caused her regular weekly visits to the ER, but Dr. Debrot dismissed this despite his colleagues at Wesley Woodlawn, suggesting that the Remicade is likely the reason for the increase in flares, vindicating what I had been saying for a while, continuing to say that Erin is likely to be in the ER regularly until the Remicade works its way out of her system.
We are fortunate to have good medical insurance, which covers almost 100% of our costs after the $500 max out of pocket has been satisfied, which happens within 4 – 6 weeks of a new year. We know some people who have no option but to go to an emergency room for treatment because they have sub-par medical insurance, with stupidly high out-of-pocket deductibles or no medical insurance at all.
To be clear, every other doctor at Wesley Woodlawn has been amazing, getting Erin in, treated, and discharged in 15 to 20 minutes, but this one doctor is being a real douchbag. I bet that if he had to suffer the sort of pain that Lupus sufferers have to deal with on a daily basis, he would be crying like a baby.
Something that Erin said deeply disturbs me, she said that if she thought there was no treatment, she would have committed suicide, which makes my anger at Dr. Debrot even more intense. Erin said this just before she got in my car on Tuesday morning to go to the ER where this experience transpired.
In an effort to not return to the ER, Erin started a new Orencia infusion treatment today at her RA doctor’ Nadia Gibson‘s office, which I just hope works as going to the ER is no longer an option without fighting with WesleyMC, which I am more than willing to do, I will fight like hell to help Erin not be in pain.