Dr. Lendel M Taylor, MD

I have been seeing Dr. Taylor over the past year or so for anxiety issues. The only reason I stayed with him for that lo...ng was because of insurance issues and finding a psychiatrist that was covered by my plan, otherwise I would have gone elsewhere. On my first visit to Dr. Taylor's office the receptionist staff seemed to be alright, I payed my co-pay and was told I would see the doctor shortly. I assumed there would be a 20-30 minute waiting time, but I was wrong. I sat in the waiting for a little over an hour before my name was called, then I was led back to one of the rooms where I waited for another 30 minutes before I finally saw him. My first impression of Dr. Taylor was that of arrogance. We talked for a little bit and I explained to him what was going on with me. He wrote me a prescription for Paxil an SSRI (Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) and orders to obtain blood work and an EKG. The blood work made sense to me but the EKG did not, so I questioned him about it. I work in the medical field and I'm pretty well educated on EKG's, medications and medical language in general. There are some psychotropic medications commonly prescribed that require close monitoring of your blood work and can possibly cause heart dysrhythmias. I am well aware of these drugs and told him I would not take them. An SSRI medication does not necessitate the need for an EKG. An EKG that he wanted a copy of so he could interpret it, which I though was funny because I likely have extensively more training and experience with EKG interpretation than he does. I can easily obtain an EKG from work so I didn't really argue about it with him for very long...After being on Paxil for about a month my anxiety was reduced quite a bit. Over the next year my appointments consisted of the same routine of waiting times of at least an hour to see him and when I finally would see him my appointments were very short and mainly consisted of a few pertinent questions along with small talk while he was writing a refill on my prescription. I felt like he was just throwing medication at me and collecting my money, the appointments seemed pointless other than to get my refill. Also over this year I noticed the receptionist staff could be very rude and condescending at times. There were a couple times where I was going to be a little late to an appointment because of extenuating circumstances and was told if I was 15 minutes late I would be charged a $35 missed appointment fee and have to reschedule. I thought this was hilarious since I would consistently have to wait at least an hour to see him anyways. Once the roles are reversed though and they mess up with scheduling an appointment they accept no responsibility. I called to make an appointment once and they gave me the dates and times available, I selected a date/time and the appointment was made. I showed up for the scheduled appointment and they said there was no record of me having one. I was outraged, mainly because I drove an hour to get there. The head receptionist basically insinuated that I was lying about the appointment and just kept repeating the same thing in a condescending tone "There's nothing we can do, we have no record of your appointment, we can schedule one for you though". I was amazed at how unprofessional and rude they were...After about 6 months of taking Paxil it didn't seem to work quite as well and Dr. Taylor decided to slowly take me off Paxil and put me on Prozac. And all I can say is WOW. The withdrawal from Paxil is absolutely terrible! It's probably the worst thing I've ever been through. Beware if you start taking this medication and ever want to come off you're in for quite an awful experience. Dr. Taylor never told me when I started this medication that there would be any type of withdrawal. And he actually outright denied that there were any possible withdrawal symptoms from Paxil, other than just the resurfacing of the prior anxiety. I can tell you first hand this is an absolute lie! After about a week I couldn't take the withdrawal symptoms and went back on Paxil...But over the last month I decided I really didn't like the way Paxil made me feel. Yes it does help with anxiety and depression, but along with that it decreases your ability to feel any other emotions. I didn't feel quite as anxious like I once did but I also felt numb to everything else, I had no drive and didn't really care about anything. I made the decision to come off Paxil cold turkey and just deal with the withdrwal, after about 2 weeks of absolute misery I'm finally feeling normal again and more like myself. I had an appointment with Dr. Taylor this morning and told him I was not taking the Paxil anymore and expressed my concerns about the effects of long term use and severe withdrawal from this medication and that I didn't want to be on this medication for the rest of my life. I was very surprised at his reaction when he got rather mad. He angrily said that I shouldn't have done that and I should have talked to him first ( which I can understand him wanting us to talk first). Then he said "we talked about this before" (which was a lie, we did not), then proceeded to tell me that I don't listen, and I don't do what he says. And once again he denied that there were any withdrawal symptoms from discontinuing Paxil, and basically insinuated that I was lying. He handed me my sheet to take to the front desk and got up and left the room without another word. I asked if the appointment was over since we had only been talking for about 5 minutes, he uttered "yeah". and walked into his office. I could not believe how unprofessional he had just acted, this man is supposed to be a psychiatrist but he acted just like a child that didn't get his way. Please don't waste your time with Dr. Taylor and his office, they run a very unprofessional practice. more details