Rafi-Zadeh Ebrahim MD

I went to see Dr. Ebrahim because of an allergic reaction that I developed suddenly with no obvious cause. It was an awful experience. He was running very late and was obviously rushed when he finally saw me. He asked questions but cut me off before I could answer. When I tried to show him the hives on my arms and legs, he said, «That’s eczema. It’s just dry skin,» and refused to take another look. I’ve had hives all over my body as an allergic reaction to penicillin before, so I know what hives look and feel like. And since when does eczema clear up and reappear within a 24 hour cycle? When I tried to ask him some questions he abruptly cut me off again, insisting my symptoms were just eczema. I should have walked right out the door the second I realized I this allergy specialist doesn’t even recognize one of the most common allergy symptoms on sight. But I’d waited a long time for this appointment, so I stuck it out.
It got worse as he readied me for the prick tests. Dr. Ebrahim’s cart of supplies and instruments was extremely dirty and covered in dust. He put my arms on a VERY dirty, yellow stained pillow (without a pillowcase, so god knows when that pillow was last washed), then started pricking my skin. He said he wouldn’t prick my skin hard enough to hurt me, but I was bleeding in several places and worried I’d get an infection from his dirty office. Then he dripped the histamine fluids on each prick without marking any of them. He said he could do it by memory. But the pricks were so close together that the histamine fluids pooled together. My arms immediately turned bright red and started swelling up, and I watched as a red streak started forming under my skin, along one of my blood vessels. The streak started climbing up my arm when the receptionist or nurse came in and said a patient in another room was having a severe reaction and couldn’t breathe. Dr. Ebrahim rushed off and left me sitting there for about 20 mintues.
When he came back, he diagnosed me with hayfever, a dust allergy and «high stress» and said I should take Benadryl every day for a month to bring down my body’s histamine levels. That was it, no explanation for the symptoms I’d suddenly and recently developed. I would never recommend him. He wasn’t knowledgeable or professional, and in an environment where patients may have severe allergies and skin is being broken, having such a dirty room to see patients in is unacceptable.