Dr. Umesh Patel at Louisiana Heart Center in Covington, KA
I have thoroughly searched for an autonomic doctor anywhere in LA and was not successful. No one in LA had autonomic testing equipment either. We went to UT Southwestern in Dallas which should be only an hour or so from you. They were able to test my daughter and diagnose her but have not really helped her other than that. It was just good to at least get the official diagnosis.
My daughter is in college in Shreveport, LA studying Neuroscience with the hope of becoming a Pediatric Neurologist specializing in Autonomic Disorders. She has POTS, Autonomic Neuropathy, Mitro Valve Prolapse, and a mild form of Ehlers Danlos. She suffers daily but fights to continue in her education. We don't know if she will make it through medical school, as you all know, her symptoms may not allow such a rigorous schedule but she won't give up easily.
We live in the New Orleans area, so Dallas was a 9 hour drive for us but it was worth it to get the diagnosis. Now we just need an effective treatment. She was diagnosed 2 yrs ago and still no meds have helped for any length of time.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any specialist in that area specifically. However, I would recommend beginning with a referral to either a Cardiologist or Neurologist in a local academic teaching hospital as these specialists are most likely to have up-to-date information. Additionally, our Dysautonomia Specialists health page may be helpful to you.
Dysautonomia Specialists:
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/Neurological-Disorders/Dysautonomia-Specialists/show/717?cid=196
Hi Katt,
You can try the dinet.org site. They have a listing. I couldn't find any docs, so I just called the main hospitals and pleaded with someone to help me find a doc or suggest one. Some of the hospitals were very helpful with giving information. Depends on who answered the phone that day. But they were able to recommend docs close to me, but they were still very far away. Good luck. Sorry, wish I had more infomation.