I am very impressed. I had a flare-up of acne in two painful locations, and messaged Dr. Chong through Yelp to take me as a new patient. She messaged me back and I got an appointment for the very next day.
I was a little late due to traffic, but I needed to be there early to fill out forms. I quickly filled them out when I got there, and I was taken to the exam room where I could explain to the nurse in more detail where my problems were located. She then transferred my information efficiently into the computer so I could see that the correct anatomical spots where marked. I didn't wait long at all.
Shortly after, Dr. Chong came in and looked at my problem areas. She was friendly, concise, attentive, and knowledgeable. I received 3 steroid injections like I had requested, since 2 months of antibiotics from my previous doctor did not help it to thoroughly go away. Prior topical gels were also irritating/drying my skin.
Dr. Chong was open to my requests to try different approaches to treatment, since what I had been on for years already were not really lessening their occurrence. It would alleviate some of the inflammation and pain, but it wouldn't decrease the number of times and quantities where I broke out with crops of cystic acne.
I was surprised by how cooperative Dr. Chong was. I assumed that since some of my lesions were already surfaced and oozing/draining (after months of having them), that she would just leave those alone to continue to heal. But she told me that she could help them move along further and I agreed because I could do without the significant amount of pain that they were still causing. She comfortably manually drained one lesion herself and it did not hurt one bit. Now it's like it wasn't even there.
Dr. Chong addressed all of my concerns. She looked at everything that I had to show her. She even took scrapings from my skin to look under a microscope.
Dr. Chong is well-informed of stages of diseases and knows how to act quickly. In my situation, waiting to heal on my own would be detrimental by causing more damage along the way. If I waited-out my condition, since it is autoimmune-related, I would have had more scarring and the condition would have tunneled beneath my skin to form permanent tracts where these cysts could emerge more vigorously.
Leaving was quick too. The waiting room was at full capacity by then. Everyone else must've just got out of that traffic that I was in. There is a sign on the exit door to check-out before leaving. I went to the counter, paid for my office visit copay, and left. Since I saw how popular that office is, when I got home, I made sure to call right away and make my follow-up appointment to get the day and time that works for me.
One more thing, I've been wanting to try a medication (it's not new, it's been around for decades) that my former dermatologist dismissed when I asked for it. Dr. Chong agreed to let me try it as long as my blood pressure was normal, and that I avoid high-potassium foods such as bananas and avocado. My blood pressure reading was normal, and now I will begin a 2-month trial of the medication. Everything that happened today was more than I ever got after years of being with my former dermatologist. read more
