This is a preliminary, pre-op review. I will be sure to post a post-op review as well.
My adult son (who is not one to make phone calls) fell and it looked/felt upon examination (I'm a lowly EMT, but I'm not afraid to examine!) to me as if he'd broken his nose.
I wasted a lot of time w/our GP's office, who kept saying to go get an x-ray, w/o dr's orders, and the dr would look at the x-ray and take it from there.
No, you can't get an x-ray without an order from a dr.
A friend asked why I didn't just start by calling an ENT.
Did some research online, found Dr. Vris, who had excellent reviews, called, and Wendy said she'd fit my son in same day! When I told her he was going to want me to go with him, she said that was no problem (even during Covid times) and that the Dr. would likely also welcome me in the examining room.
The point of this whole story is to tell you what MOST impressed me about Dr. Vris. Yes, he is a consummate professional and I expected that! What most impressed me is that (as opposed to the experience with the GP's office after I told them my son couldn't get an x-ray w/o dr's orders, "The Dr. will need an x-ray to determine if the nose is broken, so first you'll have to come here and pay for a visit just so you can get an order for the x-ray, then go get the x-ray, then come back and pay for another visit to discuss the x-ray, then if the x-ray shows it's broken, the dr. can't fix it, so you'll have to find someone who can..") not only did Dr. Vris invite me into the examining room, not only did he speak to both of us while he was doing the exam, but then he called me over to show me what I had already discovered, and the reason he didn't need any x-ray (it's actually called a sinus scan), to know my son's nose was broken.
He explained that while a manual realignment is what is called for, he will only do this under anesthesia, (I'd read online that any dr can just do it in the office without anesthesia!) because it's possible that during realignment, tissue inside the nose can be affected. He said that once the nose is realigned, he'll examine from the inside, and if any internal adjustments need to be made, THEN is not the time to anesthetize the PT to mess around in there! He'll then splint the nose, and follow up a week later to remove the splint and make sure all is okay.
Wow. What a difference seeing an expert makes, and what a difference seeing an expert who's willing to explain makes!
(Not from San Francisco! Yelp won't let me change it to CT) read more