In short, if you have any choice in the matter, I would stay far, far away from Dr. Reiley. The name itself makes my body tense up with anger, and if you have the time and energy to read the following, you will see why.
MY STORY -- PART ONE
Let me start at the beginning ... A few years back, I had a tiny fracture in one of the bones in my ankle from a lacrosse injury. I had some pain with walking -- nothing horrible, but not something I wanted to live with forever. Dr. Reiley was recommended to me as someone who "specializes in the foot and ankle." If I had known then what I know now, I would never have gone to see him, and my whole life might have been very different, but of course I DID see him, and I trusted that he (as an orthopedic surgeon) would be able to figure out the best treatment for my injury.
When I went in, Dr. Reiley took some X-rays of my ankle (which he also did at every appt that followed) and agreed that I had a small ankle fracture. He said that there were surgical options, but that the surgery would be just as likely to make it worse as to make it better. So, he suggested a non-surgical approach: simply non-weight-bearing. He described this as the "conservative approach," and that seemed smart to me (obviously I didn't want any unnecessary surgery). He had an assistant put my leg into a hard cast, told me to get crutches, and said I should come back in three months.
Well, obviously 3 months on crutches was not enjoyable. But, I figured, okay, this is what my ankle needs to heal, so that's fine. After it was over, I came back to Dr. Reiley. He took another X-ray and said that the fracture was still there and that I should continue to stay off the ankle, but now I could put it in a removable "boot" so that it would be easier to shower. I asked as many questions as I could before he left the room (he has a way of suddenly disappearing), and while he was with me he made it clear that even though the boot was removable, I should not put ANY weight on my foot. He gave me no exercises whatsoever to do with the foot; he just said to rest it. Once again he said he would see me back in a couple months.
Over the next few months, my body began to hurt all over. My shoulders and neck were killing me from the constant use of crutches, and I could barely sleep at night from the pain in my back, neck, and shoulders. I was prescribed NSAIDS, which I continued to take for a long time and which contributed to the development of gastrointestinal problems, but that is a whole different story.
When I called Dr. Reiley's office to tell him about the pain and to try to get some clarification on exactly how long I would need to be on crutches, it turned out that he was on vacation and would be unreachable for a month. Okay, great. When he finally got back to me, the message the receptionist gave me was to just make sure to not put ANY weight on it, because it might mess up any healing that had occurred. So I suffered through another month and returned to see him (it is literally embarrassing for me to write this, because I can't believe that I continued to see him, but at this point I really did trust that despite his poor bedside manner, at least he knew what he was doing -- Unfortunately I was wrong). When I saw him this time, after being on crutches for about 7 months, the X-ray he took showed severe osteoporosis throughout my foot and ankle -- so much that my bones barely showed up on the X-ray at all. (It's not shocking that my foot had developed osteoporosis after not touching the ground for 7 months, but he seemed very surprised by this). For the first time, he showed a little concern and called a colleague who is a Rheumatologist because he was worried that I had arthritis.
Arthritis!? Thus began the month of seeing 5 or 10 different doctors -- rheumatologists, podiatrists, orthopedic surgeons, you name it. I was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis (even though I didn't have psoriasis, and my bloodwork came back negative for any arthritis signals) and put on steroids. Another doc diagnosed me with Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, which was soon contradicted by two other doctors I saw. Finally, I saw an orthopedic surgeon who didn't give me a crazy diagnosis: she just said, "You have been off of this foot for too long, and now everything is inflamed. It's going to hurt, but you need to just try to walk on it again, because every month that you stay off it, it's just going to get harder."
(FOR PART TWO, SEE DR. REILEY'S PAGE FOR HIS BERKELEY OFFICE). read more
