I'm a 63 y/o PhD. Marcus lied when he agreed to continue 5-years of Ritalin approved by two Neurology Specialists for SEVERE Parkinsonism. He did not try to contact my 8-year Neuro-Specialists or my previous 3.5-year Ritalin-prescriber PCP (who moved out of town, leaving me without a knowledgeable prescriber). anything I said, and a dozen neuro-research study papers I gave him.
Instead, openly violated my Special Population/MCC directives by "consulting" unqualified non-Specialists... Why your Pharmacist-friend, but not my Neurologists or former PCP, Marcus? Hmmm, why? That is ABSURD.
Marcus flat out, easily-disproved by a credentials-check, lied to me that a Sleep-Study Neurologist-friend he "consulted" (over and over) and was trying to force my to see (in violation of my 5-year Neurology Treatment Plan, by using critical-medication-reduction-threats as coercion) is a Movement Disorder (Parknisonism) Specialist.
Marcus rePEATedly threatened my Ritalin dose-amounts. He CONstantly tried to disprove and change my diagnosis. He persistently implied that I lie about my symptoms and my need for Ritalin.
One day I realized that he never asks how I am doing and how he may help. Never. I had major surgery on March 29. I saw Marcus on April 15 wearing a huge 6-pound, rib-pillow-padded, arm-immobilizing, chest-&-back wrap-around buckled-strap, Orthopedic sling-apparatus. The palm and fingers of my left hand were exposed but flacid other than involuntary tremors when my torso moved.
Marcus did not ask how I was doing or anything about this elephant-sling, now-dead arm, or post-surgery dibilitating pain. Nothing. He was too busy diagnosing me as Hyperglycemic based on a single recent A1C blood-glucose test.
I interrupted him to say, "No. Diagnosis requires two or more tests. Plus my score is on-the-cusp and Lab Reports give a single-number but A1C statistics have a +/-.5 accuracy range so there's much chance as not that my glucose is .5 below 'high'. I can see you don't know this. Do you?
Anyhow. My big problem right now isn't blood-sugar. See my elephant arm-immobilizer here? I had major surgery two weeks ago. The surgeon sent me home from Friday surgery through the weekend with just 50%-strength of normal AMA post-sugery pain meds. I was suffering badly and my messages and Monday phone call got no reply until Tuesday. That was five days of meds that did virutally nothing for major surgery.
The pain was crazy-bad. I mean crazy-bad. It put me into Parkinson symptoms that made the pain worse plus the added convulsing and tremors and cognitive shut-down. I'd cut down on cigarettes by 50% to help the surgery to heal faster but by Sunday night I was smoking three times more than ever. Everything became so weird that I could tell something was going to Hell with my inability to produce Dopamine despite my Dopamine Replacement Ritalin and Carb-Levo.
I found some research studies on pain and Dopamine production, and Dopamine effects of cigarettes. In normal people pain and stress trigger mass amounts of Dopamine production as a tool of normal-functioning homeostasis. That means my no-production body-in-pain cannot get the large volume of special-circumstances Dopamine it needs.
I need more Dopamine than my meds can handle. Cigarettes provide some Dopamine. My body grabs for it and my smoking went through the roof to feed a little bit of Dopamine to my pain. That's not good and I was going to ask for a Ritalin increase to make each dose through the day to 20 mg. It is my optimal dose-amount and I have it in two out of my three daily doses. I wish to have the 20 mg 4-hour normalcy of functioning in the last dose too so I can be my normal self for 12 hours instead of just 8 hours that I currently have. Its just adding a final 10 mg to the 10 that is already in place. I need this. Will you do this Marcus?
I reminded him that my other daily doses were 20 mg and were going quite well. I reminded him that I’d been titrating doses to discover optimal dose-amounts/frequencies for five years at a slow pace to assure safety by monitoring vital signs between increases. I said I found 20mg is optimal foe my needs and this happens to match new research in this field of treatment.
He agreed to prescribe it and reminded me that, because he is a newcomer in my five-year Treatment Plan, he was not familiar or comfortable with the frequency and amounts of doses. He said he’d feel better if, when I return in three months, I bring a copy of a 20mg-validating research study to scan it into my Record. He trusts me and a research study will formally further justify this increase. He knows I can do that so, despite his own bit of inexperienced discomfort, everything is fine with him.
I reminded him that I do Neurobiochemical Research Analysis, “I can bring a hundred studies.” He smiled and said, “No. Just one will do, but I will not go any higher.”
I said, “I agree with you there. If I ever ask to go higher, please slap me, Marcus.” We laughed and shook hands. He wrote this increase and agreement in my Medical Record on April 15.
Oddly, when we met earlier that expected two months later on June 5 (see “The May 15 incident” below), Marcus said we’d agreed to a temporary increase to help me cut down my smoking. He remembered it wrong and insisted. He wouldn't believe me when I said its in his April note in my Record.
In our June 5 visit he was literally paranoid. He disbelieved any-and-every thing I said. Our smiling trust, happy Personal-Physician-style partnership, cooperative agreements, friendly laughter, and warm handshakes disappeared from his memory. He became, and henceforth remained, obsessive and dictatorial. He started speaking in cold platitudes rather than from empirical data in my Medical Record.
Every Doctor’s job is to quote longitudinal medical evidence, analyze and discuss it including input from the patient, and mutually derive potential options. From there, overarching Patient-Legal-Rights put the patient in up-front control of medical care decision-making. That is the truth of medical providers’ licensure-ethics because that is obliged upon providers by Law. I know this because I, too, am a State-License-obliged provider.
It is illegal and unethical for a provider to use license-power-misrepresentations and rhetorical control-platitudes to replace medical evidence and patient rights. Without the support of valid/scientific/documented medical evidence and without informed-patient-consent, platitudes that can sound powerful and authoritative to suggestible people are meaningless, dishonest, and manipulative.
My first visit with Marcus was January 21, 2019. Marcus’ actions and words were medically appropriate then and at our second meeting on April 15. He suddenly changed on May 15. From then-onward all medical evidence, medical necessities, Patient Rights, and my lifelong honorable and honest character were totally disregarded.
Those things were replaced by perpetual platitudes, including: “I will use my medical judgment” and “It is my medical judgment” and “Patient safety is paramount” and “In the interest of patient safety” and “Based on review of the medical history” and “I have consulted with expertise” and “We must” and “We need” and “We need you to…”
I am not a suggestible or gullible person. Thus, every time a platitude arose, I compared it with my medical data. He was not using my medical data. He was overcome with bad judgment in pursuit of an unspoken agenda that became a two-month habit of 1) confabulating false “data” and 2) falsely claiming it came from “reviewing” my Record.
I confronted and disproved these inaccuracies as they arose, but rather than Marcus apologizing and correcting himself, I received more platitudes with no evidence. He deflected attention from, and responsibility for his errors. Then, several times over, he switched to pursuing some new track of false statements backed by platitudes without evidence.
Through each change-up he maintained recurrent threats to decrease my Ritalin doses and he coercively threatened to decrease it even more if I didn’t get the Sleep Study. He was obsessed by his “Sleep Study” idea, insulting my use of Ritalin, and “consulting” with unqualified people instead of calling the people I approved (my Neurologist and my former prescribing-PCP).
Marcus accused me of lying and accused my two Neurology Specialists of incompetence. The accusations were embedded into his confabulations, platitudes, tangential efforts to discredit my diagnosis and medications, inappropriate-oppositional “consultations”, and inappropriate-oppositional demands for a Sleep Study second opinion.
He also accused me of lying by ignoring my words and doing the opposite of whatever I said. He accused me of lying, yet when asked for evidence he went blank. He could not quote or recall any longitudinal data-histories or even meaningful details within single data-reports.
He made stupid demands and misdiagnoses that I easily disproved by using the most basic medical evidence. He did these wrongful things frequently and obsessively. Amid all of this, I started noticing something physical inside my body was changing for the worse. He was my doctor, so I reported to him that his pressured actions were making me physically ill. I asked him several times to stop. Rather than acknowledge my concern, he silently mocked me by continuing his actions.
Marcus knew my body was already vulnerable and weak from my disabling primary illnesses (Parkinsonism-Spectrum “Severe Willis-Ekbom Disease” and “Somnolence”), from the disabling side effects of my high dose anti-Parkinson medications (Carb-Levo and Pramipexole), and from major surgery’s severe pain that was further compounded by starting painful twice-weekly Physical Therapy on May 1.
I knew something was going wrong on top of everything else, but I did not know what it was. I was angered by his coercions, as any person should be, but this felt odd. I told him his stress was making me sick. But he continued his bad behaviors.
Blood tests on June 15 showed my Thyroid functions collapsed. A perfect TSH of 2.060 in late-November was 4.620 on June 15). A previous Iron level dropped by 33% and Ferritin went up 18%. When this sort of rapid TSH change has no prior history of Thyroid disease and coexists with Iron drop and Ferritin rise, it is by medical definition, a result of Chronic Stress. My only current stressor was Marcus. He collapsed my Thyroid by mistreating me constantly since May 15.
On July 8, without medical evidence and with no advance warning, Marcus terminated the Ritalin and his "services." He abandoned me and wrote false notes in my record so no doctor would want me. I ran out of Ritalin days later. In less than a week I became so ill that Urgent Care sent me to the ER. The ER MD was shocked by Marcus' actions and prescribed 30 days of Ritalin so I can function well enough to look for a new doctor. Marcus is DANGEROUS... STAY AWAY!... He is going to feed you with cheesy platitudes to defend his harms. DO NOT LISTEN!... HE LIES!... I walked out in disgust 20 minutes into our last exam. He says Ritalin made me so "paranoid" that I "stormed out". No, Marcus. It wasn't the Ritalin. It was YOU and your stupid pal who came into MY exam with you. And I wasn't paranoid, I was infuriated by your cold heart and your incompetence.
Marcus T Higi, MD Reviews
I'm a 63 y/o PhD. Marcus lied when he agreed to continue 5-years of Ritalin approved by two Neurology Specialists for SEVERE Parkinsonism. He did not try to contact my 8-year Neuro-Specialists or my previous 3.5-year Ritalin-prescriber PCP (who moved out of town, leaving me without a knowledgeable prescriber). anything I said, and a dozen neuro-research study papers I gave him.
Instead, openly violated my Special Population/MCC directives by "consulting" unqualified non-Specialists... Why your Pharmacist-friend, but not my Neurologists or former PCP, Marcus? Hmmm, why? That is ABSURD.
Marcus flat out, easily-disproved by a credentials-check, lied to me that a Sleep-Study Neurologist-friend he "consulted" (over and over) and was trying to force my to see (in violation of my 5-year Neurology Treatment Plan, by using critical-medication-reduction-threats as coercion) is a Movement Disorder (Parknisonism) Specialist.
Marcus rePEATedly threatened my Ritalin dose-amounts. He CONstantly tried to disprove and change my diagnosis. He persistently implied that I lie about my symptoms and my need for Ritalin.
One day I realized that he never asks how I am doing and how he may help. Never. I had major surgery on March 29. I saw Marcus on April 15 wearing a huge 6-pound, rib-pillow-padded, arm-immobilizing, chest-&-back wrap-around buckled-strap, Orthopedic sling-apparatus. The palm and fingers of my left hand were exposed but flacid other than involuntary tremors when my torso moved.
Marcus did not ask how I was doing or anything about this elephant-sling, now-dead arm, or post-surgery dibilitating pain. Nothing. He was too busy diagnosing me as Hyperglycemic based on a single recent A1C blood-glucose test.
I interrupted him to say, "No. Diagnosis requires two or more tests. Plus my score is on-the-cusp and Lab Reports give a single-number but A1C statistics have a +/-.5 accuracy range so there's much chance as not that my glucose is .5 below 'high'. I can see you don't know this. Do you?
Anyhow. My big problem right now isn't blood-sugar. See my elephant arm-immobilizer here? I had major surgery two weeks ago. The surgeon sent me home from Friday surgery through the weekend with just 50%-strength of normal AMA post-sugery pain meds. I was suffering badly and my messages and Monday phone call got no reply until Tuesday. That was five days of meds that did virutally nothing for major surgery.
The pain was crazy-bad. I mean crazy-bad. It put me into Parkinson symptoms that made the pain worse plus the added convulsing and tremors and cognitive shut-down. I'd cut down on cigarettes by 50% to help the surgery to heal faster but by Sunday night I was smoking three times more than ever. Everything became so weird that I could tell something was going to Hell with my inability to produce Dopamine despite my Dopamine Replacement Ritalin and Carb-Levo.
I found some research studies on pain and Dopamine production, and Dopamine effects of cigarettes. In normal people pain and stress trigger mass amounts of Dopamine production as a tool of normal-functioning homeostasis. That means my no-production body-in-pain cannot get the large volume of special-circumstances Dopamine it needs.
I need more Dopamine than my meds can handle. Cigarettes provide some Dopamine. My body grabs for it and my smoking went through the roof to feed a little bit of Dopamine to my pain. That's not good and I was going to ask for a Ritalin increase to make each dose through the day to 20 mg. It is my optimal dose-amount and I have it in two out of my three daily doses. I wish to have the 20 mg 4-hour normalcy of functioning in the last dose too so I can be my normal self for 12 hours instead of just 8 hours that I currently have. Its just adding a final 10 mg to the 10 that is already in place. I need this. Will you do this Marcus?
I reminded him that my other daily doses were 20 mg and were going quite well. I reminded him that I’d been titrating doses to discover optimal dose-amounts/frequencies for five years at a slow pace to assure safety by monitoring vital signs between increases. I said I found 20mg is optimal foe my needs and this happens to match new research in this field of treatment.
He agreed to prescribe it and reminded me that, because he is a newcomer in my five-year Treatment Plan, he was not familiar or comfortable with the frequency and amounts of doses. He said he’d feel better if, when I return in three months, I bring a copy of a 20mg-validating research study to scan it into my Record. He trusts me and a research study will formally further justify this increase. He knows I can do that so, despite his own bit of inexperienced discomfort, everything is fine with him.
I reminded him that I do Neurobiochemical Research Analysis, “I can bring a hundred studies.” He smiled and said, “No. Just one will do, but I will not go any higher.”
I said, “I agree with you there. If I ever ask to go higher, please slap me, Marcus.” We laughed and shook hands. He wrote this increase and agreement in my Medical Record on April 15.
Oddly, when we met earlier that expected two months later on June 5 (see “The May 15 incident” below), Marcus said we’d agreed to a temporary increase to help me cut down my smoking. He remembered it wrong and insisted. He wouldn't believe me when I said its in his April note in my Record.
In our June 5 visit he was literally paranoid. He disbelieved any-and-every thing I said. Our smiling trust, happy Personal-Physician-style partnership, cooperative agreements, friendly laughter, and warm handshakes disappeared from his memory. He became, and henceforth remained, obsessive and dictatorial. He started speaking in cold platitudes rather than from empirical data in my Medical Record.
Every Doctor’s job is to quote longitudinal medical evidence, analyze and discuss it including input from the patient, and mutually derive potential options. From there, overarching Patient-Legal-Rights put the patient in up-front control of medical care decision-making. That is the truth of medical providers’ licensure-ethics because that is obliged upon providers by Law. I know this because I, too, am a State-License-obliged provider.
It is illegal and unethical for a provider to use license-power-misrepresentations and rhetorical control-platitudes to replace medical evidence and patient rights. Without the support of valid/scientific/documented medical evidence and without informed-patient-consent, platitudes that can sound powerful and authoritative to suggestible people are meaningless, dishonest, and manipulative.
My first visit with Marcus was January 21, 2019. Marcus’ actions and words were medically appropriate then and at our second meeting on April 15. He suddenly changed on May 15. From then-onward all medical evidence, medical necessities, Patient Rights, and my lifelong honorable and honest character were totally disregarded.
Those things were replaced by perpetual platitudes, including: “I will use my medical judgment” and “It is my medical judgment” and “Patient safety is paramount” and “In the interest of patient safety” and “Based on review of the medical history” and “I have consulted with expertise” and “We must” and “We need” and “We need you to…”
I am not a suggestible or gullible person. Thus, every time a platitude arose, I compared it with my medical data. He was not using my medical data. He was overcome with bad judgment in pursuit of an unspoken agenda that became a two-month habit of 1) confabulating false “data” and 2) falsely claiming it came from “reviewing” my Record.
I confronted and disproved these inaccuracies as they arose, but rather than Marcus apologizing and correcting himself, I received more platitudes with no evidence. He deflected attention from, and responsibility for his errors. Then, several times over, he switched to pursuing some new track of false statements backed by platitudes without evidence.
Through each change-up he maintained recurrent threats to decrease my Ritalin doses and he coercively threatened to decrease it even more if I didn’t get the Sleep Study. He was obsessed by his “Sleep Study” idea, insulting my use of Ritalin, and “consulting” with unqualified people instead of calling the people I approved (my Neurologist and my former prescribing-PCP).
Marcus accused me of lying and accused my two Neurology Specialists of incompetence. The accusations were embedded into his confabulations, platitudes, tangential efforts to discredit my diagnosis and medications, inappropriate-oppositional “consultations”, and inappropriate-oppositional demands for a Sleep Study second opinion.
He also accused me of lying by ignoring my words and doing the opposite of whatever I said. He accused me of lying, yet when asked for evidence he went blank. He could not quote or recall any longitudinal data-histories or even meaningful details within single data-reports.
He made stupid demands and misdiagnoses that I easily disproved by using the most basic medical evidence. He did these wrongful things frequently and obsessively. Amid all of this, I started noticing something physical inside my body was changing for the worse. He was my doctor, so I reported to him that his pressured actions were making me physically ill. I asked him several times to stop. Rather than acknowledge my concern, he silently mocked me by continuing his actions.
Marcus knew my body was already vulnerable and weak from my disabling primary illnesses (Parkinsonism-Spectrum “Severe Willis-Ekbom Disease” and “Somnolence”), from the disabling side effects of my high dose anti-Parkinson medications (Carb-Levo and Pramipexole), and from major surgery’s severe pain that was further compounded by starting painful twice-weekly Physical Therapy on May 1.
I knew something was going wrong on top of everything else, but I did not know what it was. I was angered by his coercions, as any person should be, but this felt odd. I told him his stress was making me sick. But he continued his bad behaviors.
Blood tests on June 15 showed my Thyroid functions collapsed. A perfect TSH of 2.060 in late-November was 4.620 on June 15). A previous Iron level dropped by 33% and Ferritin went up 18%. When this sort of rapid TSH change has no prior history of Thyroid disease and coexists with Iron drop and Ferritin rise, it is by medical definition, a result of Chronic Stress. My only current stressor was Marcus. He collapsed my Thyroid by mistreating me constantly since May 15.
On July 8, without medical evidence and with no advance warning, Marcus terminated the Ritalin and his "services." He abandoned me and wrote false notes in my record so no doctor would want me. I ran out of Ritalin days later. In less than a week I became so ill that Urgent Care sent me to the ER. The ER MD was shocked by Marcus' actions and prescribed 30 days of Ritalin so I can function well enough to look for a new doctor. Marcus is DANGEROUS... STAY AWAY!... He is going to feed you with cheesy platitudes to defend his harms. DO NOT LISTEN!... HE LIES!... I walked out in disgust 20 minutes into our last exam. He says Ritalin made me so "paranoid" that I "stormed out". No, Marcus. It wasn't the Ritalin. It was YOU and your stupid pal who came into MY exam with you. And I wasn't paranoid, I was infuriated by your cold heart and your incompetence.