Favorable Outcome

I have spoken to the practice and I have received a favorable outcome. I feel a lot better. Advanced Dermatology definitely deserves more than 5 stars. Thank you.

Removing this...

I have keloids on my face chest and shoulder. 2 small ones on the right side of my jaw line, 1 in the center of my chest and 3 in the back of my left shoulder, and 2 tiny ones underneath my chest. Keloids are scars that never stop healing, so for example when a normal person who doesn't get keloids has an injury their body will form a scab and close the wound, but once the wound is closed collagen will stop forming in the area. When people with keloids get an injury the collagen keeps piling on top of the scar causing the scar to grow bigger and bigger. So in other words a keloid is a scar that never stops healing.

My keloids started forming about 5 years ago and since then I only had the ones on my face treated, never the ones on my body. I tried everything from kenalog injections to over the counter scar gel sheets to liquid nitrogen applied from the outside. Nothing ever worked permanently, they worked temporarily and the scars always grew back.

So I was very happy to have discovered a new procedure called "cryoshape" which is said to have a very low recurring rate of 97% according to their website (later I would find out that this number is meaningless since the study was paid for by the company itself).

Only a handful of offices offered this service and Advanced Dermatology PC was one of them. I tried to contact the other places since ADPC has less than stellar reviews but none of the other one's worked out. When I would call they would either not know what the procedure even was (although they were listed as offering it) or they couldn't do it any time soon. So I booked an appointment with ADPC and reading their website I saw that Dr. Fox would be the best doctor of theirs to go with since he had the most experience. I scheduled for an appointment with him and here came problem number one.

The person I booked the appointment with assured me that I would see this particular doctor only and I made it clear that I didn't want to see anyone else. Yet when it came time I rode my bike for about an hour and a half (no subways exist near there) to visit their offices for no reason, Dr. Fox didn't work on that day. I was massively frustrated but swallowed my anger and just made another appointment for the Wednesday in the following week to have the procedure done.

That day I was surprised to find out the price of $1300 that was quoted to me wasn't for all my keloids but only 2 (the ones on my face and chest), for the rest Fox said I would have to pay another $600 making it a total of $1900. The appointment fee of around $150 which I later found out they did not wave and another $80 or so for the false appointment I had received the prior week made it all a total of over 2 thousand dollars.

Now here is the medical malpractice that took place that night:

Fox told me that since he was only prepared (time wise) to do the keloids on my face and chest and not the ones on my back that he would have to leave the room to see other patients (while liquid nitrogen was being applied to my skin inducing frostbite). And that he did. He would inject me with the needles, put the can of nitrogen on one of the nurse’s hands and leave and come back 20 min from then. THIS IS WHY SO MUCH OF THE SURROUNDING AREA OF MY KELOIDS WAS AFFECTED IN THOSE PICTURES YOU SEE. For example rather than having 2 small wounds on the keloids on my face so much more of the surrounding skin was destroyed and color lost.

He kept leaving the room causing much more nitrogen to be applied than what should have been used. There was another thing that he did that lead to this. He was doing 2 keloids at once on my face and shoulder. Since each keloids took about 20 to 30 minutes to be frozen he didn't want to stay in the office too long so he would ram the cryoshape needle through 2 keloids at a time to finish quicker. This lead to the line between keloids. Again instead of 2 small areas being affected a huge circumference was affected instead.

* HE KEPT LEAVING THE ROOM TO SEE MORE PATIENTS (MAKE MORE MONEY) WHILE MY FACE WAS BEING FROZEN

* HE RUSHED THE PROCEDURE TAKING A SHORTCUT WHICH CAUSED THE RESULTS TO BE AS BAD AS THEY ARE

* WHEN THE KELOIDS ON MY FACE WERE BEING DONE HE DIDN'T INJECT ENOUGH LOCALIZED ANESTHESIA WHICH CAUSED ME TO FEEL MOST OF THE PAIN AND IF FELT LIKE MY JAW WAS BEING CRUSHED AND FROZEN AT THE SAME TIME

The nurses he left me in the hands of had no idea what they were doing, I felt like I was a guinea pig and this was the first time the procedure was being done by any of them. Fox kept instructing them throughout the whole thing. There were times when the nitrogen canisters would stop making noise and they didn't know if it became empty of not so they would try to hold onto it with one hand use the other to buzz the Dr. in from another room because again HE WASN'T THERE.

+++++

POST PROCEDURE:

The next day I woke up to find my neck swollen to the size of a football (pics posted above). I began to panic and call the office, they told me to come in right away. I thought I was either having an allergic reaction because I saw pictures of people swelled up like that when they had an allergic reaction to peanut or something or I thought the procedure caused this permanent result and I was horrified.

I rushed to the office and they had me waiting. I got up after 10 min and said "hey I am having an emergency, I need to see someone now" and only then did they take me in.

Fox wasn't there that day so they had another doctor see me and told me it was just swelling and to give it time to go down. I saw Fox twice after that day to hear the same thing.

My swelling was horrible for 3 weeks during which time I worked from home (thank goodness I have an employer who was understanding and didn't fire me). I did not go outside at all during that time because I did not want to be seen like that. The swelling is still there as I write this but has gone down a lot. Swelling isn't completely unusual for this procedure but rare and I think it would not have happened to the degree that it did if so much nitrogen wasn't used to kill more skin than was needed due to Fox's negligence.

My last appointment with him was 2 days ago exactly 1 month since the surgery. I finally told him how unhappy I was with the results and brought up most of the things I wrote above including how his leaving the room and doing 2 keloids at once caused so much of the bad results. To all of this he kept making excuses to relieve himself of any wrong doing and tried to actually convince me that the results are better than what was there before. For the loss of color his told me to use a spray tan or get another laser procedure by him which may bring some color back. As if I will ever get anything done again at the hands of this filth.

+++++

So there you have it. I thought about suing this evil crook but due to the waivers he made me sign I doubt I would have won and then I would have been left with lawyer bills to add insult to injury. The best I can do is share my horror story with this subhuman as a warning to others who may be thinking about seeing him or any of the other doctors run by this crooked business. There are many other legit dermatologists out there with good reviews, please see one of them and not these monsters.