Jeffrey Sassmannshausen, MD

I went through the 5-FU therapy 6 years ago, ended up with a horrible acid type burn on my face. Now we are going with PDT and I am scared to death (only because of my previous experience).

This is scheduled for Friday 10/14/2011 and I am really nervous that my face will look like a freak show when I go back to work on Monday...blah. I have the best dermatologist and trust him completely. I will have the gel applied for 1 hour and then the blue light for 4-6 minutes. With my reaction to the 5-FU, I just cannot fathom what PDT will be like. Somebody, please give me some tips, reassurance, anything! I did finally find some Aquaphor tonite that I plan to use if that will be okay. Any other suggestions? I plan to take before, during and after photos and will include those as well.

The doctor appears and happy go lucky, but he's not engaged with the patient. He talks to the nurses, but isn’t interested in the patient and in a race to get out of the room. The nurse wouldn’t honor the price of treatment quoted by the doctor and told me the doctor doesn’t know his own price. She also pushed a very expensive OTC cream that was at odds with my skin condition. The doctor exercised really bad form by exclaiming very loudly “What’s that?” regarding a flat scar I had on my neck that I was self-conscious of. The staff also consistently looked at and talked to me like I was from another planet. After a series of visits, the final straw came when they told me I would have to drive the 50 minutes trip to get a new consultation for laser treatment and then have to drive back again another day for the procedure. I had been having laser treatment in my entire face for rosacea, and they wanted to book multiple appointments for a request to only do my nose, which is part of my face and was done previously. I told them I’d go somewhere else and hung up.