Ana M Espila Navarro, MD

Doctor Ana Espila Navarro If I could give this doctor less than one star here, I would. I cannot even begin to describe to you how much this damage this doctor did to me, how much of my life she took away from me. It is an extremely long story, but I will try to make it short and the point. But it is hard to summarize a story of an eight year period that I got neglected by this doctor. It all started when I was around 18. I started having some pains and fatigue so I went to her. She basically told me I just needed to do exercise, yoga, and eat healthier, etc. I totally trusted her, she was my first doctor. My first primary care doctor, why would I not trust her? Your doctors are supposed to have your best interest at mind, right? No. Not all the time. I did the things she told me, but my condition started getting worse and worse. I was at a friends house, sober, well slept, and I started feeling faint and I blacked out completely. He caught me, if he had not had caught… me, I would have fallen down and extremely high porch. I was extremely worried, as this has also happened a couple times after. I went to this doctor and she told me that I had “chronic fatigue syndrome“ and I just had to “deal with it as it is a chronic syndrome and there is no cure“. She actually said those words to me, she literally told me that it is something that I “just have to deal with“. And that I just “need to find things to help with the symptoms, there is no cure”. If you know this doctor, I’m sure most people know her to be a nice, friendly, caring woman who wants to help. She always seems to be in a good, happy mood. So I trusted that she was a nice, caring doctor. This is not the case. As my 20s went on, I got worse and worse. Every time I went into see this doctor, she basically told me there is nothing that I could do. She said I had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. She told me I just had to do stretches and exercises. She minimalized my condition so much that I felt like I was crazy. Then she started to tell me that I should be seeing a psychiatrist. She told me that I have a lot of pain because I went through some childhood trauma. I had no reason to not believe her. I had a bad past so I thought it made sense. When I was 21, a friend told me to get a Lyme disease test. Dr Espila was pretty weird about it, not automatically saying yes like she probably should. That one was negative. I was working with somebody at the time and they told me there are three different tests that you have to do for Lyme disease. So I asked her about them and she told me I was wrong, that those did not exist. I believed her. As my 20s went on I got so much worse. I was a young woman in my early 20s and I ended up barely being able to walk. I could not walk and you’re telling me that you are saying it’s just in my head? I don’t think so. My problems got SO much worse. I couldn’t work more than 15 hours a week, sometimes a lot less. She would not give me any help. She just kept telling me to do “exercises”. Which I did. And NOTHING helped. My partner told me that I was being extremely neglected, and I had not thought of that as an option at first. But lo and behold, I finally found a doctor that would give me all the proper tests for Lyme. I have Chronic Lyme Disease. It affects my brain, heart, and even gives me seizures sometimes. I had almost ALL the symptoms of LYME DISEASE, including an arthritic knee, which is one of the most common symptoms, also the one that is most recognized, even by doctors who don’t do all the tests. I have this horrible disease for 10+ years and this doctor legitimately minimalized my problems and invalidated me, telling me it was all in my head. I could eventually die from this, but she told me it was all in my head. I could have my life if she had actually listened to me when I told her things were wrong. I’m SO scared that she is doing this to other people so I hope my message gets out there for anyone thinking about seeing her.