If any legitimate Florida physician or pharmacist gets their hands on the letter I read from this Dr. Garcia, it shouldn't be long before his ability to prescribe any drug is taken away.
Even dismissing the problematic language regarding professional ethics, this screed has so many factual errors and significant omissions that I stopped counting.
The medical use of Nubain in the manner he is describing will curl the hair of any administrator at Florida's Board of Pharmacy and the state medical association.
Hopefully, those of you reading this message board will do your own research before you get involved with this nutty scheme.

Landshark.....I agree with you .....This seems to be a Bandaid Only Option for Dr G to keep the $$ Flowing....And it Ain't Gonna fly!! CD needs to get a New couple of Doc's....But in the end the same thing will happen! What about all of those Peeps that already did their F2F? What happens to them? SOL?? JMHO
When you have a Doc writing Thousands of Scripts for C3 Meds .....Sooner or Later the Alphabets are gonna Catch up with them! The whole F2F model has a big Flaw ....What happens when the Doc decides to Quit or the DEA steps in? Now you need to do another F2F? Loose your refills and be in WD's till you can see the New Doc? JMHO again
Good Luck All
Peace
Stevo

PS Where is Jeff when the $hit hit's the Fan?

Anyone thinking if going to FL just to get these "shots" has got to be insane in my opinion.

I think what Dr A.Garcia is doing is totally unethical.

I am angry to say the least. I called Garcia's office twice today, spoke to someone who said the doctor needed to call me back and I'm still waiting. In the meantime, I spent over $1000 driving down to Florida in my RV in December just to see him and get set up for the year. There is no way that I am trying this crazy med scheme he is proposing. The hydro is working for me and I'm not changing a thing.

My body is dependent on the meds now. If he is going to change the Rules in the middle of the game, he BETTER do the right thing and allow us F2F patients the chance to taper down and get off the meds if we choose. I am currently getting 120 a month and I fully expect that ethically, he should now prescribe me 90 a month for 3 months, 60 on my next consult after that, and so on...

Otherwise, he is leaving me cold turkey and with an inevitable abrupt detox simply because HE says so. If he still has a license to prescribe but doesn't WANT to do hydro anymore, then the very LEAST he is obligated to do is to wean his patients down to a tolerable level of meds and NOT cut them off cold turkey.

The fact that I made this trip to Florida is making me see RED. PURE RED.

Kaolgal.....I don't think Dr G has that Option.....I would bet the Pharm that The Alphabets took away his ability to script those Meds or at least told him what will happen if he writes 1 More C3 Script! JMHO

Your are completely right.
I cannot begin to understand the level of anger you must feel right now.

Sadly, I dont think he will be Rx'ing anything to anyone for a long long time.

nubain I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if that's all they can come up with they're done.nubain is not gonna work for people who have had any exposure to hydrocodone for any length of time. it's just not an option.

personally i would be looking at one of the other face 2 face services real quick.


AND ANOTHER ONE BITS THE DUST !!!!!!

I just wonder how many F2F services there are that don't involve a Garcia, and just because you use a different service, the same thing will inevitably happen. It's a sad day indeed, and I can't find a silver-lining for legit patients who rely on these services.

LS

I won't say anything re:sub vs nubain because everyone's experience with pain and the treatment of that pain can be so varied.

It is just my humble opinion that this particular scenario is a highly profitable cash cow for Dr. Garcia.

And remember, anything can be addictive.

Do you guys think that so long as they get Drs in every state, things could work via F2F? Or is this whole F2F going to die a slow painful death...not unlike we CP'ers!

the face to face service i have been using for over a year now just puts you in touch with a regular dr. . writing pain scripts is only part of his patient load. i don;t know of any of the big three face to face services that use dr. garcia., as far as i know . so far i happy with the service i use. and yes any of them can go away any day. just the same as any dr. in your town might decide to move or not treat certain patients. there are thousands of brick and mortar pain management dr.'s in every state . they're not all being shut down.

quality pain management can be obtained , it's just expensive .

I've never had this stuff but it sounds horrific, and horribly sedating...which really sucks because most of us function completely normally on one or 2 vicodins, most people would never think that we are "high" because we aren't. sigh, why can't the DEA realize that when seeking effacious pain relief that getting a buzz is the last consideration. Vicodins, despite the bad rep, are still the safest, and most effacious pain killers available, and many of us prefer them to surgeries and injections.

It needs to be emphasized to anyone considering this route, that taking nubain, without getting off hydro, could throw you into violent withdrawals.

I personally think the F2F will work if the Doc is in your state and ......This is a BIG and ...They limit the #of Scripts or Patients for each Doc! That is the Only way that the whole F2F model will work! You know Stay Under the Radar!!! JMHO

Great topic - I want a new doctor and service right now to start with before April gets here and even more things change.

What services are out there - even if they are not F2F - can I try that do not involve Garcia? Can anyone point me in the right direction and provide the doctor names?

AND....if he does NOT give me the prescription he owes me this week I will be requesting my full consult money back that I spent in December down there. As well as my friend that came with me! We dropped hundreds of dollars and went thru multiple tanks of gas but thought we were being setup with our doc for a whole year and felt good about the legitimacy of it. I can't believe how ripped off I feel. And scared now about where to turn.

Plus, my other friend who has been strung along by Consults Direct with the bogus emails and lack of response RIGHT after she completed her consult last Wednesday. When I think about how close she was to getting her script shipped and how I was due for my pharmacy call in by Dr G's staff this week.....we literally got screwed by just a few days timing.

Whatever happened, happened FAST. The hammer came down.
And now, even us established F2F patients are getting the shaft.

Anyways, where else can I go that he isn't involved with???

Has anyone found out if Dr C.B. Garcia is still sending refills out?

After I had my son (he is 4 months old now)I went in the docs office for my 6 week check up and that same day he put me in the hospital to do a DNC because of the bleeding.

I had very bad cramping before the DNC and they gave me nubain through my IV and it did nothing at all for the pain from the cramping.
I had no kind of tolerance to any pain meds at that time and still dont.
After the DNC was done I had VERY BAD cramping and they tried the nubain again through my IV and it helped ZERO...nadda so they started giving me 10mg of percocets and that helped control my pain.
Now if I need anything at all for my pain Tramadol works for me as I only take it as needed.
IMO nubain will not help/work for those with chronic pain who have been on hydrocodone or other narcotic pain meds for a extended period of time.
This is just my opinion only.
If it didnt work for my cramping then why in the world does this doctor think it is gonna work for those with severe chronic pain?
I just dont get it....it sounds to me like this place is only in it for the money and not for the chronic pain patients who need treatment.
On another note...if this medication is not controlled like this Dr.G says it is, why in the heck would anyone spend so much money to fly to where he is at,pay for the visit,then pay for the phone consults every 3 months(?) when they can go to their local doctor and use their health insurance?
I assume that Dr.G doesnt take ins?
It seems to me like it would be a whole heck of alot cheaper for those who want to try this medicine to see a local doctor and have it prescribed to them just to see how well it works to control their pain.
Since it sounds like it is easier to get prescribed so this Dr. G says verses hydro or any other controlled pain med.

I would be very surprised if any doctor with a functioning brain cell would prescribe Nubain injections self-administered by a chronic pain patient.

This new "treatment" plan seems highly irresponsible. It does sound like the doc just wants to keep the cash rolling in.

My service used the Dr C G - does anyone know if this doc was to lose his license to RX scheduled meds, would my refills become invalid?

I do not believe that he is accepting any new telemed consults/reconsults right now. I got in under the wire for my reconsult and have one refill left. AFAIK things are still ok, but you have to schedule a F2F in order to get meds at this point. I guess I will know when I go to get my last fill in a few days whether or not he is still in operation.

I've finally been referred to a pain intervention specialist who will give me steroid shots in my cervical vertebrae once I have another MRI done. This Dr. does not write scripts for pain meds tho, go figure... So now back to jumping through hoops for my insurance company to get this MRI scheduled and approved so I can finally get some sort of treatment. I'm really, really hoping these shots are going to help (since nothing else has, other than the pain meds).

The only way the refills would be invalid is if the pharmacy found out about it, which is not likely.

We do not know yet if they were told to quit or just did on their own. They, A and C, are father and son, and have a joint practice. I think, but am not sure, there may be at least one other doc in the F2F brick and mortar practice.

I have found a lot of contradictory information so far on the medication he is suggesting. It seems that the practice of prescribing it is not uncommon in some parts of the US. Abuse is generally thought to primarily occur in the medical fields and by body builders.

Two doses a day at $4 a dose is a lot of money.


Oddly enough, neither I nor any family member who uses CD has had any communication yet about this change. My F2F was/is later this month. My sister has already had hers. The others were scheduled for April.

I am sure Jeff/ConsultsDirect are upset, and I am sure the other services that utilized these doctors are as well. They were definitely blindsided, my communication with them over the weekend seemed puzzled by people worrying, they were sure it would be back to normal this week. In the past when they were told it would be a couple of days it happened as they were told.

Lack of response at this time from the services could be because they want to give us more choices than they are able to do at this exact moment. I am sure they are scrambling, but I do not hold out much hope.

When I remember what I had to go through to get Imitrex (back in the days before it came in pills) in the local pharmacies I get a sick feeling. My sister and I were in the test group when they released it in the US. When the study was over we had a hard time for awhile trying to get it. I know people who take insulin and injectable Imitrex who have been given major problems by local LE, I am afraid this would be worse.

I would doubt it since they work out of the same clinic and are related. If he was, CD patients would have gotten their scripts. My last one was written by C. Garica, not A. Garica.

If the doctor's license to prescribe is suspended, the usual course of action is for the office of the Florida Board of Medicine to send a notice to all pharmacies in the state notifying them of the change. Any pending refills would be voided.
Retail pharmacies nationwide are also notified but am not sure how long it takes for that notice to be delivered.

Bluefairy,

I haven't received any communication from CD either. I straight called Dr. Garcia's office to see what the heck was going on. I actually had about a 30 minute conversation with him. I don't really know what to say about the conversation. He was nice and he seemed to know a lot about my conditions. However, I am not sold on the Nubain stuff. He said he was going to write me a one week supply and forward it on to CD for them to send it to me. I don't know what I will do from there. I am not about to pay a $200 consult fee when I am only getting a weeks worth. On top of that, I have no idea if it will work or if I will even tolerate it well.

I talked to an EMT friend of mine about the Nubain. He was kind of shocked that it was being used outside a hospital setting. He had also only heard of it being given in an IV, not being used IM. He did however say it was some good sh*t.

I thought that Angel Garcia was under investigation. I'll have to do some research. But it makes sense. If he could rx scheduled meds, he would. Nubain is a very old drug & they have come up with much better options in the recent years for pain, IE: hydro, oxy, MS.
We have all been around the block with meds for a long time & we're all right. This is his cash cow, still trying to make money off of suffering pain pts. But he isnt able to write for any kind of satisfactory meds. What happens when you call & tell him the Nubain isnt working. Most Docs would bump you up to a sch 2 or 3. Here we have no options.
I'm not being fooled by this one. Not an option for me.

Oddly enough, neither I nor any family member who uses CD has had any communication yet about this change. My F2F was/is later this month. My sister has already had hers. The others were scheduled for April.

I am sure Jeff/ConsultsDirect are upset, and I am sure the other services that utilized these doctors are as well. They were definitely blindsided, my communication with them over the weekend seemed puzzled by people worrying, they were sure it would be back to normal this week. In the past when they were told it would be a couple of days it happened as they were told.

Lack of response at this time from the services could be because they want to give us more choices than they are able to do at this exact moment. I am sure they are scrambling, but I do not hold out much hope.


Bluefairy,
Thank you for your very nice post.
Linda

Are you related to Jeff? Your posts offer about as much insight as his. I mean, c'mon, the best you can do is thank Blue. Seriously, try to post when you have info. Even Jeff wouldn't want this stuff at the top of the board all day. Are you "damage control"? If so, they really were blindsided. Sorry to be harsh, but you're confusing people, myself included.

LS

Remember when Jeff was so brazen about ConsultsDirect and how they are doing everything right...blah, blah, blah. He is a salesman, and CD is taking a bunch of folks down with them. I'm sure they didn't plan on these issues, but to be oblivious to them is borderline fraud. I said it a bunch when Madison Pain Clinic got busted a little over a year ago: discretion is key. You CANNOT write 1000's of hydro scripts that are sent around the country without sending up flags. Sure it takes awhile for the audits to paint a clear picture, but they always show what's up eventually


Thank you Landshark,
Linda

I came into the office on Friday Night, Saturday and Sunday and responded to over 55 Personal Messages.
Debbie was away at a GS function and came home not feely well on Sunday. Both her and I were here Monday and Today.
Are you trying to make it sound that Debbie is taking people's money or trying to rip people off?
Just Wondering..............

You are fooling yourself ! Most Likely the Alphabets have sent Faxes to all Pharms about the Situation!!! They have done it before!!! .....They will do it Again!!!!JMHO

WOW!!!

Im not saying your wrong.
But I have to ask, how in the world could the DEA send a fax to every pharmacy in America?