Let me start by saying if I had known how poorly I would have been treated here, I would've gone literally anywhere else.
I had an abscess on my spine and I went in to see Nurse Practitioner Lisa Cogswell at the end of January, because my primary doctor was booked until March. Lisa looked at my abscess, told me it was infected and prescribed me the most generic antibiotic, cephalexin, without taking a culture or asking any other questions about my condition.
Within two days of being on the cephalexin, I started noticing little red bumps that were itchy on various areas of my body including my neck, foot, legs and shoulders. I went back 4 days later to see Lisa and told her I was getting these itchy bumps and that my abscess had gone from the size of a marble to about the size of a ping pong ball. It was getting worse!
Due to my bumps, I requested to be taken off the cephalexin and receive a different antibiotic. She refused to let me stop taking it (she insisted I wasn't having a drug reaction) and just added another generic antibiotic, bactrim, to my prescriptions. I was pretty concerned about my skin, but I figured she should know what she is talking about, right? Wrong!
After I finished my cephalexin prescription, the bumps went from small and red spots to huge welts and hive like rashes. I was miserable. I couldn't sleep due to the immense pain my skin was in; it constantly felt like my flesh was on fire.
I called and told them what they had done to me and they told me to come in for a steroid shot immediately as my throat could close!!! Are you kidding me?! I told them I was having a reaction, I wanted to be off those antibiotics and they did THIS to me. And just for the record, they didn't even apologize that I had this adverse reaction either.
When I went in covered head to toe in painful welts and hives, I told them I refuse to see Lisa and they had me see Dr. Sarah who was very nice, but also very brief. I felt after the awful ordeal I had been through, they would have spent more time with me. She had a nurse come in to give me the steroid shot and then put me on an 7 day steroid tablet plan.
Between the numerous copays and missing work, I ended up being out a few hundred dollars at this point. I was miserable and wanted it done with. I finished the steroids and thank goodness my skin was finally clear, my abscess was down to the size of a pea and I felt normal for a couple days (well aside from the weird withdrawal feelings as the steroid doses went down).
About 3 days after being off steroids, I noticed more little red bumps surfacing. Turns out my body hadn't gotten ride of the cephalexin completely yet. Went in yet again and saw Dr. Mike, who by far was the most thorough and pleasant doctor there. I told him about the bumps and he even agreed Lisa handled my case poorly. And when I told him about all the money I was out, he wrote off my copay for that visit.
If I ever return, I would see him over anyone else. Dr. Mike wrote me a 15 day prescription for prednisone and my bumps are slowly fading away. Hopefully after this, I will finally return to some normalcy. It has been over a month of being in and out of their office and missing work repeatedly. Thankfully I have job security or I may have lost my job with all the hours I missed.
All in all, if you must go to this office, see Dr. Mike or Dr. Sarah, because after what I went through, it seems Lisa doesn't know a thing about what she is doing. read more