Dr. Anne Valsa Xavier, MD

For pain management and anthesisia, there is no one above Dr. Xavier. She helped me back in 2002-2004, where I leveled out on Methadone 10mg 4x a day. She then suggested that I get my primary physician to take the prescription up, but it wasn't mandatory. She just explained that she needed to try and make room for new patients. She sent my primary physician all my files and a signed OK letter saying she was still my pain physician and any dosage adjustments would have to be OKd by her. I would recommend Dr. Xavier to anyone. When I was seeing her, she was at the Kirklin Clinic,, but in 2004, I think all of UAB's pain management moved to the old Healthsouth hospital in the Highlands.

By the time I got to Dr. Xavier, my previous pain management doctor had me on 2 - 100Mcg patches of Duragesic (fentanyl) every 2 days. As anyone that's had it, day 3 of those patches suck, the insert says some people need to change every 2 days, read your inserts. I had just had intestinal surgery and my tolerance was through the roof due to fentanyl. The nurse actually told me that in her 30 years of nursing she had never seen anyone on that high a dose of pain medicine.... and I was still hurting, bad. Dr. Xavier worked with me, never pushed me, we backed off the fentanyl a bit then switched to methadone (totally my idea, I didn't like being a junkie). I had done a ton of research and figured I'd need 150-200mg of methadone to start. She had also done similar research and figured 80 would handle it. with something for break-thru pain (I had been taking the lollipops). I'm thinking we used MSIR. All of this was around the time she moved from Kirklin down to Highlands. By the time she moved, I had managed to get down to 30 of methadone and no morphine with very little discomfort. I figured 30 to zero on the methadone wouldn't be all that bad, so I never followed her to Highlands (I was working at UAB at the time and I really didn't wanna take off to go down there). It was a rough couple of weeks. Thank the good lord for klonopin and an understanding PCP. After 2 weeks it'd get rough from time to time (that all-consuming gotta find a doc feeling), but I'd eat enough klonopin to chill out and it'd go away in about 30 min or so. 2 more weeks and I was completely fine... Back to Xavier, though, She's smart, compassionate, and if you're not a junkie that keeps saying 'up up up' or fail a drug test and have the records to back up whatever condition you're there for, just tell her what's worked for you in the past, and she's great. You'll probably need a referral, but if you're really in need, she'll take care of you. Some docs are 3 months, some are one. As I was leaving (2004), she was switching to one month scrip pick ups. Visits at 3. The guys I'm seeing now are every 3 months. Could have been a DEA thing or a UAB thing. I don't know. She's great though. Go in with a plan of what you need with the intention of getting off. Not that you actually will, but pick something to go up and down on. It looks good that way.