First, let me say, I'm a very young at heart 55 year old woman. With a body that feels like it belongs to someone 30 years older. I went to see Dr. Esquivel for the first time last Friday, January 31, 2014. But, because there were no reviews for me to rely on, I had to take my chances and hope for the best. And the best is what I got. When I called for an appointment, I spoke to a really friendly young woman. She was easy to talk to and very accommodating. She asked me for my email address so she could send me some forms to fill out before I came in. These forms have to be printed out in order to fill them out. It would have been awesome if they had been the kind of forms that could be filled out online and printed by the doctor's office. No big deal though. Just informing you that you need a printer in order to get these forms filled out. Or you could arrive at the doctor's office an hour early and fill them out there. There are many pages to fill out. It's a very lengthy questionnaire that requires you to think a lot about your symptoms, medications, supplements, etc. Which took me at least an hour. Probably more like two hours, because I have a multitude of issues that date back to 1999.
That long questionnaire was worth the time it took to fill out, though. So consider it a privilege that someone wants so much detail about you. It really gives him a blue print of what is wrong with you. My main issues were/are undiagnosed Lyme Disease infection that dates back to 1999, when I was 39-40 years old. Then around 2001, because I was so sick again, I was referred to an ice queen rheumatologist. She was a freaking nightmare! I was diagnosed with a very high ANA, CPK, and several other scary things. I went through a horrible rapid aging process, that caused my body to just melt like I was at least 30 years older. Plus, my hair was falling out. Most, if not all, the collagen seemed to disappear from me. I was scared, and terribly inflamed. I lived in 24 hour a day pain. The ice queen rheumatologist's only offer to me was, I'll quote her, "muscle biopsies, and massive doses of steroids to destroy my immune system". And added, when I started to cry, "consider it like chemo therapy,(which I don't believe in either!) in order to kill the cancer, you have to kill the immune system." Those were her exact words!" That seemed totally insane! And I had already seen what years of steroid use does to people. I had a young niece slowly dying from them, because that was the treatment she had accepted for her autoimmune disease. Sadly, she eventually did die very young. Her autoimmune wouldn't have killed her nearly as fast as those damn drugs did. I could see what my future would be, just by looking at her.
After several visits to this iceberg, whom had wanted to carve me up, drug me up, and bleed my good insurance to death, I went into hiding, vowing to never go that route again. I had no answers for WHY my body decided to turn on itself. The "mystery" explanation did not make sense to me. The other ongoing issue is a thyroid problem that has become harder and harder to treat. The rest of my story is way too long to get into here. And I'm tired and disillusioned with the whole conventional medical scene. But, after talking to Dr Esquivel for a little while I saw that he knew "WHY". And I felt like I had finally gotten some answers to my ongoing nightmare. Finally, someone was going to tell me WHY all this was happening to me. At last, I felt like I was in good hands.
He wanted to do many lab tests. Many that are very different than main stream, cookie cutter tests. Some are cutting edge science. Most of them need to be paid in advance. So plan on spending several hundred dollars, if he recommends those particular laboratories. Or, if you need many of the supplements. My total out of pocket lab fees, for a multitude of tests, paid directly to these labs, was $595.00. I still have another set of labs to do that will be around $500-$600 (paid directly to the lab). But I feel they are extremely important in order for us to the get precise answers we need to put me on the road to reasonable health. This is what I've been looking for, so why on earth would I complain about the cost? Speaking of money, in order to save me some, he's also doing blood tests at Quest so that they are 'in network' and 100% covered by my Aetna PPO II. Which means no 'out of pocket expenses' for me there. You'll need to consider your insurance deductible, if you have one. Mine was $250.00 This was a great experience for me. They are laid back,friendly,and warm.I feel like I'm finally on the right path, and I'm going to start feeling better soon, I feel like the fees and supplements are worth every penny.
I can't believe no one else has taken the time on Yelp to recommend these awesome people! I'm going to tell everyone I know about them.
Dolores A. read more
