Wow, after reading the previous comments, I feel like we're not even talking about the same doctor! I have found Dr. Garcia to be extremely kind, patient and understanding. I've suffered severe chronic back pain for 12 years and he's the first to have more than one idea about how to treat me. After complaining for over 2 yrs. to my former pain doc that my pain pump was no longer working, Dr. Garcia figured out the problem in one visit. After testing the integrity of the line, he discovered that it was compromised and that nothing was flowing through it. He said it was a common problem with that model (so why didn't my other doctor know this?). Dr. Garcia talked with me for a long time about the various options for relief. Since my morphine pump battery is about to expire anyway, the entire pump and malfunctioning line would have to be replaced anyway. After considering that option, he also explained a variety of spinal cord stimulators that might do the trick. I opted for a trial run of the "Nevro" brand. It's the "latest and greatest" on the market and, in addition to being MUCH more powerful than the older brands, it has the added benefit of not causing "parathesis", which is a buzzing or tingling sensation. 4 days into the trial, I was experiencing NO pain at all! (I think the avg. is 80% reduction). So I am looking forward to the surgery to remove the pump and install the stimulator. Thankfully, the stimulator lines do not go into your spinal cord, like the morphine pump. My only fear is having that thing removed, which will require careful suturing where the pump line is removed from my spinal cord. Leakage of cerebral spinal fluid can cause extreme head aches (I saw my husband go through that after a botched spinal tap). Dr. Garcia tells me I will have to lie flat on my stomach for 5 days after the surgery, getting up only to use the restroom and eat. I'm not looking forward to that, but after what my husband suffered, I will gladly do it.
I have found Dr. Garcia to be extremely knowledgeable, kind and considerate and never dismissive or condescending. I can't recall if he's ever called me "honey or darlin'" as another patient mentioned. But I wouldn't think anything of it if he did, because that's just the way we talk here in Texas. It's meant to be a sign of caring and compassion, not condescending. But I have seen women from up north take exception to it....so I guess it must be a regional thing. But I can say that Dr. Garcia is anything but cold, uncaring or dismissive. As for his staff, he must have done some house cleaning, because I've found them to be very professional and nice. His PA, Denise is extremely nice and does an excellent job of patient education. One day, Dr. Garcia caught me crying in the hallway after a brief visit with Denise. It was just a combination of stress and personal matters, but he stopped me, asked what was the matter, and took me back into the exam room where he and Denise talked with me at length. I can't say enough about Dr. Garcia and his staff and am just so grateful to have a GOOD pain doctor after so many bad years. I see the previous negative comments were made a while back, so maybe the office staff under went an overhaul. All I can say is that I have already recommended 4 friends with severe chronic back pain to see Dr. Garcia. Sure glad Imfound him!

Submitted June 9, 2016

Initially, I began seeing Dr Garcia in 2012 after 10+ years of seeing Dr Moshe Allon with no results - just got worse. Dr Garcia tells me I have no back problems but that I have Fibromyalgia and asked me to look it up on the internet when I got home. He doesn't believe in opiates for this diagnosis and placed me initially on a spray (expensive waste of money), compound creams (an even more expensive waste of money) and Savella. Two months on Savella I developed acute liver failure and pancreatitis and it was promptly removed while in the hospital. That's when I found out he has no Dr priveledges to see his patients at the surrounding hospitals but only a privately owned hospital aptly named, The Doctors Hospital. Getting pain relief was a nightmare that week! Then, I'm put back on the Savella and returned in two weeks with the same serious side effects. Dr Garcia said he'd never heard of anyone having such a reaction to this new drug for Fibromalgia. He wanted to put me on Lyrica but I had already tried that before I saw him and it closed up my throat! So I was left with Cymbalta and Ultram (tramadol). It was good for a few months but did not last. I was then given a back spasm reliever (Baclafen) which did wonders when used sparingly when pain was at its worst. But 2 years later, that no longer cut it. My tramadol was increased to the maximum daily allowed, my Baclafen was increased to the maximum daily allowed and my Cymbalta remains just 60 mg daily. I have put on 60 pounds in 3 years from the Cymbalta, alone. Now I'm being told to "exercise". And the pain it causes? "Just do what you can", he told me. His P.A. was great initially but then he got a P.A. who is argumentative, insensitive to pts feelings, and gave me a hard time on the phone when she didn't remember what she actually told me she was going to do on one of my RXs. Even my RX was puzzled! I also told the ladies at the closed windows I would no longer allow pts (myself or others) to leave their pain evaluations on the counter until she felt she could open the window to retrieve them to the chart. Left out in the open for anyone to see is a HIPPA violation of about $30,000+ in fines. Being an RN helps me know what I'm talking about. The woman taking and giving the charts gave me a dirty look and slammed the window when I gave her another pts and my pain evaluations and announced they were violating HIPPA laws by doing what they were doing. She rolled her eyes, it got very quite behind those windows, and the next time I went back there are now TWO windows - one to retrieve the evaluation and another to return the evaluation so as not to be left out for others to read. That's about the only nice thing they fixed. I refused to see the P.A. any longer and told Dr Garcia what his P.A. said to me in person and by phone. He defended her by saying she was reading me back a different drug and made a mistake. I had already told her that and she refused to acknowledge or recheck her facts and wanted to know why I was picking a fight with her! Dr Garcia has since fixed the issues but that P.A. is something to be reckoned with. I go back in 3 months to see Dr Garcia again. If I have anymore issues or feel he is making me feels like it's all in my head (which he claims Fibromalgia really is), I already have a pain Dr. in line to see that my daughter goes to and absolutely loves. It's a bit of a drive but I've been told, "she's worth the trip". Sorry Dr. Garcia, but your staff is unkind, unprofessional, and you don't even believe in the medicines you prescribe your pts (something you told me 2 visits ago when you yourself get hurt and have chronic pain). So why are you doing this again???

Submitted Nov. 16, 2015

My experience with Dr. Garcia and his P.A. were positive. Dr. Garcia's office staff needs some serious training in professionalism and just basic common courtesy. Not sure what to do at this point, because I just don't want to deal with his office staff.

Submitted Oct. 28, 2015

Dr. Garcia tends to come off as quite dismissive concerning the severity of my pain level. His bedside manner can at times be unprofessional, and got to the point in which it caused me to feel very uncomfortable and feel a lack of respect from him as though he wasn't taking me seriously (i.e. "Look here, honey" or "Are you sure the injection didn't work, sugar?" or "Now, darlin' I already told you, we have to give the injection another week to work, ok, sweetheart?") I'm in my mid 30s, but I had the feeling he spoke to me condescendingly because I'm single and never had a man present with me who would hold him accountable for speaking to me respectfully and professionally. Furthermore, he's very short staffed, which means if you call the office, your call may not likely be returned for several days. The longest time it ever took for him to respond to his RN so she could respond to me was 10 business days. During the length of that time period, I had scheduled an appt with another pain specialist, transferred my medical records to her, and received an entirely new plan of treatment. One particular office visit, I waited 3 hrs before I was seen by him. During the time I waited, I spoke with another patient who had called the office and left messages for Dr. Garcia's medical asst multiple times only to receive no response no response over the previous 4 business days. The patient was elderly and was due for a pain medication refill, and walked in to the office, praying that she could be seen since no one would return her calls. The rest of the full waiting room sought to comfort her as she was stoically almost reprimanded and told to make an appt. She sighed, pulled herself together, and calmly told the nurse that she would appreciate a mere response to her phone call "as a common courtesy next time." But who's to say if she'll even return after that embarrassing, unnecessary encounter? There's no doubt that Dr. Garcia is very knowledgeable and capable skill-wise; however, his staff is much too ill-equipped to accommodate the patients they have now, let alone anymore patients. My encounters with his office manager have been very disappointing, as she has done everything from accuse me of seeking pain medication prescriptions simultaneously from Dr. Garcia and my previous pain specialist (due to a misunderstanding preceded by a mistake on my pharmacist's part), to verbally reprimanding my dear pharmacist during a telephone exchange because of the previously mentioned misunderstanding on his part (which she also subsequently boasted about and seemed to oddly enough find humor in). When I mentioned one example of an indiscretion on this staff member's part, to Dr. Garcia, his response was not to offer a statement of displeasure or apology. His reaction was to immediately become defensive, and tell me, his patient, that I shouldn't expect him to "punish his staff that's under a lot of stress." I was very disappointed in his response because he assumed that I wanted this staff member "punished," and he also basically told me that it's completely understandable if his staff treats the patients disrespectfully (such as the time when this same office manager raised her voice at me because I accidentally called the wrong office extension in an attempt to leave her a voice message regarding a prescription). A high amount of stress does not serve as a sufficient justification for treating others disrespectfully. Needless to say, Dr. Garcia is no longer my pain specialist. The chronic physical pain with which I've been dealing for 12 months now is quite enough for me to have to deal with without the added stress of having to engage an incompetent healthcare staff that follows the lead of an arrogant physician who could benefit from a seminar on how to stay relevant in pain management medicine strictly as a researcher rather than a practitioner, because that's where Dr. Garcia is headed if he doesn't implement some significant changes within his overall practice.

Submitted Oct. 24, 2014

Dr. Garcia is completely unreasonable. I was working between him and my primary care physician in California while we were living in a motorhome traveling the country. Dr. Garcia started a program for mailing my prescription to the locations we would be traveling. It was a service that neither my primary care doctor or I had ever heard of. So, when we back in California my primary care doctor suggested that he write a prescription to take care of me if this service we were unfamiliar with failed to provide the medication. His thinking was that if the service did come through I could use the extra prescription as a back up if I was somewhere in the country and unable to get my medication. Dr. Garcia thought I was trying to double order the medication, so he dropped me. He would not listen to any explanation from me or my primary care physician. I feel that he should have at least considered my primary care physician's explanation, but he refused. This is unreasonable and unfair.

Submitted July 29, 2014

Dr. Garcia was great. He really helped me as best he could. He was honest with me, and had my health as his main concern. Don't know what I would have done without him.

Submitted July 14, 2013

becouse when i call about the symtomes on the cymbalta the staff is like i realy don/t think its the med they tell me that it just something alls going on.try doing this see if it helps

Submitted Dec. 15, 2011

I was told that I was too young to take meds for my pain. He also suggested that my pain was psychosymatic even though he aknowledged that I had legitimate pain from my tests. He also mocked my financial situation and wanted to play psychiatrist to me. He told me the best thing I could do was go to a library and research a condition I was born with and have no control over, but he decided that I should be a "big enough person to get over it myself". Most confusing, frustrating, and insulting experience I have EVER had with a doctor.

Submitted March 26, 2009

As a chronic pain sufferer for many years, I've seen lots of specialist and he is my all time favorite. He is very compassionate, always listens, checks on me even when I see the PA who is also very nice. I have been his patient for almost 3 years, never had problems with meds, procedures or referals. I am under 30 and never had problems with him. I would refer any friend or family member to this doctor. The staff is very nice and I never have to wait to get in.

Submitted March 10, 2009

This doctor was not really interested in helping my pain subside by use of medications, his explanation was that due to my age he couldn't treat me as well as he could someone twice my age. He acted as if my pain was just a minor inconvenience to me and told me that it wasn't really as bad as I was explaining it to be. Did an injection that helped for awhile, though, so that was a good thing. His staff is very responsive if you call them and need information, but don't expect to get anywhere with anyone unless you visit the office. Even then, let's hope you're not under the age of 40.

Submitted April 1, 2008