Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Office of the President, Paul Levy. The Sural Nerve Biopsy (which was done to me) and other Unnecessary Medical Procedures Boston, Massachusetts

Precious state and federal money is wasted on sural nerve biopsies and other unnecessary procedures. It's time to end unnecessary procedures and spending on them.

Ever since a sural nerve biopsy was performed on my right foot in the year 2,000, I experience severe chronic pain and consequential sleep deprivation. After reading some things on line about experiments with rats and sleep deprivation I found out they die after 2 weeks of sleep deprivation. This makes my situation even more concerning. I'm writing about over 10 years of sleep deprivation. So, I would say I average about 3 hours a night after taking into consideration many nights with no sleep or less than 3 hours of sleep. Often on the sleepless nights I might be able to get in a little day nap. But more often then not, I could experience pain all day long as well so forget about the nap.

I've seen a total of 7 neurologists-neurosurgeons at the top hospitals in the Boston area. All they could recommend was another surgery, with no certainty of being helpful and high percentages of negative side effects or pain management, which turns out to be some form of medication for anti-depression, that also has no certainty of success and likely bad side effects.

In my opinion, this is all totally wrong and unfair. After searching online, I discovered that the procedure is not uncommon and patients inevitably suffer. Patients are essentially uninformed about the consequences of the procedure. I would image if they were informed, they would not want to have it done. Now, some doctors are questioning the usefulness of the procedure, mainly because of the suffering of the patients but also because it is mostly fruitless.

Biopsies are performed on patients to hopefully determine what is wrong and how to treat it. From what I read, sural nerve biopsies are performed, theoretically, to determine what kind of neuropathy the patient has and therefore how to treat it. But as far as I was able to find out, there really are no successful treatments for neuropathy and it's not really curable medically. All of this, the procedure and the possible treatments for the consequences of the procedure, seem very illogical, unfair and wrong.

On the one hand, its no wonder why so many patients, myself included, become cynical. On other hand, so many of the doctors and the medical professionals make tons of money and lack compassion. Their egotism is so big that they are unable to admit to the patients that they do not always know what they are doing or that they are human beings and can make mistakes. I hope and pray for help for me and for all those who suffer similarly.

Sincerely and truthfully, Eustathios Stratis

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