[VillagesFlorida]

My husband and I were both patients of Dr. Villas for several years. I liked her and felt that in most areas she tried to monitor our health and prescribed a lot of natural supplements when blood tests showed we needed them. When we first began going there all calls were routed to The Phillipines. Communication was difficult and impossible at times. There were tons of complaints and as far as I know she now has local staff who handles phone calls. I stopped going to Dr. Villa after a disastrous 20-month period on a prescription drug that she prescribed. It was for sleep problems I had been dealing with for years and years. After a few months on the medication I began noticing weird symptoms that left me light-headed, weak, unbalanced, and my memory was declining. I had trouble walking across my livingroom. For about 15 or 16 months she ordered every conceivable test as I kept coming back with the same complaints. I saw specialists of many kinds, had MRIs and CT scans. The MRI DID show that I had had a tiny stoke at some point, so from then on that is what she blamed my symptoms on. The first thing I realized was that most stroke patients don't keep declining, usually. If anything, they improve with therapy and time. Near the end of all of this long time period I had to stop driving, as I knew I wasn't safe on the road. I kept going downhill and began trying to diagnose myself. I thought I MUST have some sort of terminal illness due to the increasingly severe symptoms. The lightbulb moment came to me the day I fought so hard, yet couldn't drive my husband home from Gainesville, after his cancer surgery. I knew that day that I had to fix myself. I went out on the internet and it didn't take me long to find the problem and the fix. I searched for side effects for the drug she had prescribed for my sleep problems 20 months previously. I knew that a test Dr. Villa had ordered for "inner ear problems" showed "nystagmus", This condition affects the eyes and causes very rapid, involuntary eye movements. Down the list of severe side effects of this drug was "nystagmus". The word jumped off the page and I knew I had found my smoking gun. I weaned myself off the "hypnotic drug" she had prescribed and was horrified that SHE never once looked at what the possible side effects might be. I asked her several times if the drug could be causing all of the symptoms I was having and she pooh-pooed my concerns every time. Wouldn't you think that the first thing any doctor should look at when a patient comes in, time after time with debilitating symptoms, MIGHT be the drugs he or she is taking?? I found my problem, I took myself off the drug, I found another doctor who prescribed a supplement, magnesium, for my sleep issues and most nights I sleep just fine. As far as I am concerned Dr. Villa robbed me of 20 valuable months of my life. I looked into suing her but I didn't end up a vegetable and I didn't die. Case closed.