My son has severe sleep apnea. He went to the hospital because of vertebrae wedging. Dr. Cipriano didn't listen to what we said and prescribed my son a
very STRONG dose Gabapentin without any explanations or warnings. Because of this, my son had to go to the ER for different severe symptoms (some which were life threatenings) of this medicine 6 times in two months. Dr. Cipriano admitted that he prescribed Gabapentin just based on weight and age ONLY: he didn't even check my son's pre-existing medical history, completely ignored the 2019 FDA warning to all physicians about starting from lowest dose with close monitor for patients with sleep apena. At the same time, after our research, we found clinical reports and researches showing Gabapentin is NOT beneficial for vertebrae wedging patients. Dr. Cipriano not only prescribed the wrong medicine but also prescribed an excessively high dose of 300mg three times per day for long-term without any warnings to us. Because of him, our whole family deeply suffered these 5 months. Many nights, we could sleep at most 1 or 2 hours and because of his irresponsible behaviour, appalling carelessness, and lack of basic medicine knowledge, my son had to face the severe side effects continuously in these five months. If every prescription is based just on weight and age, why hospital and doctors need a patient's medical history and FDA guidelines? Why would we need this type of so-called doctor? Any of his patients should be very very careful about his prescriptions because he only considers age and weight and does not care about FDA warnings or pre-existing conditions of his patients at all. It's a shame that he can work at Primary Children's Hospital.

Submitted March 12, 2024