Robert S Marks, MD

I admit that I’ve been sitting on writing this review. I’ve feared that if word gets out about the quality and compassion of Dr. Marks that his practice will grow so large that it’ll be impossible to get an appointment, the quality of care will suffer, etc. The real reason is I’ve been super busy handling life emergencies. I have been seen regularly by a pain management physician or PMR doctor for the past 11 years. One of my former doctors was director of the #1 Rehabilitation Hospital in the U.S. (RIC in Chicago) at the time. I’ve participated in the top chronic pain rehab program. Dr. Marks is just as good – perhaps even better in his ability to truly listen to and willingness to understand his patients. He is also up on all the latest procedures and treatments. What makes this practice outstanding is that every staff member exhibits the same courtesy and friendliness. I actually look forward to my monthly appointments, which says a lot whenever one is dealing with a chronic condition, because of the relaxed yet professional atmosphere of this office. I cannot recommend Dr. Marks and this office highly enough.

I am one of «those» that typically stray away from doctorIt was the weekend, I was stricken with an issue, he called me back on a Sunday and gave me ample time (on his day off) to listen to my problems and help me figure out a great course of action.

Dr Marks is THE pain doctor to go to if you want to get the pain resolved instead of just treated with drugs. In fact, if I could clone him to replace every other doctor, I totally would, and the world would be better for it.
He’s extremely friendly, will take the time to explain everything to you and, not only does he take a lot of notes, but he actually READS said notes so that, next time he sees you, he knows what’s going on with you. His ONLY downside is that he sometimes runs a bit late. However, I have learned that every good doctor ends up running behind because they actually take the time to understand what their patients are telling them and to explain things.
My wife went to him with RSDS, a very painful and somewhat rare nerve issue where the nerves register pain for no good reason, and you can eventually lose use the use of whatever it is that is hurting because the body starts to shut it off. In my poor wife’s case, it was her right hand. Dr Marks tried some shots on her, but they were only temporarily helpful. Each and every time the shots did not help, Dr Marks was truly and genuinely upset. This is a man who not only wants to help relieve your pain, but takes a personal stake in his success at making you feel better. I can’t say I’ve ever felt that any other doctor has really cared one way or the other, aside from hoping that I wasn’t upset with them about things not working.
In the end, Dr Marks implanted a spinal stimulator in hopes that this would ease my wife’s pain. When he was implanting it, a procedure that involves placing leads in the spine to stimulate specific nerves, the procedure took quite a bit longer than expected because Dr Marks wasn’t 100% sure that everything was exactly as he wanted it to be, so he re-​did the procedure instead of just sending her home and profiting from a second attempt, like most doctors would have done.
The result has been nothing short of miraculous (so far, knock on wood). She uses the stimulator maybe once a week, and her pain level is down from about a 7 when just sitting around and not actually using her hand to a 0, even when doing hand-​intensive things like chopping vegetables or operating a computer mouse. Now, whenever we go see Dr Marks for MY issues, he’s just glowing about the success of the stimulator, and gets noticeably excited about my wife’s use of her right hand.
It’s also worth mentioning that my wife was and still is terrified of the idea of spinal surgery, and is also scared of electricity. That should tell you how much of a kind soul Dr Marks is, that someone so scared of both of those things would allow him to implant an electric spinal stimulator.
With me, I went in wish issues with my hands hurting all of the time. I’ve had major surgery on both arms (ulnar nerve transposition) to try and address the issues, but nothing has changed. I still have major pain in both hands. I have been unable to do meaningful work in years due to this constant pain, which eventually turns into cramps so bad that I can no longer grip. My hand doctor had continuously told me that it was just a matter of time, but as my hands are nearly useless for any real work, and I’ve already waited a year for the right one to heal up with no change over my pre-​surgery pain, I had pretty much given up, and was expecting Dr Marks to do nothing but medicate or somehow mitigate the pain.
Instead, he sent me to have a sitting MRI (a what?) done to see if there was an issue in my neck causing nerve issues. Sure enough, there it was, the cause of my hand pain — a herniated disc in my neck that is flattening some of the nerves in my neck. My old family doctor didn’t catch it when they were searching for the source of my headaches back there. My hand surgeon didn’t even think about checking that area (which, in hindsight, is kind of strange). But Dr Marks, someone who I thought was mostly pain management, essentially diagnosed a spine issue.
He did one steroid shot on me, and it was the simplest, lowest impact medical procedure I have ever had done. I couldn’t even tell you where he did the injection. Unfortunately, my body didn’t react to the steroid shot at all. Instead of trying to get me to redo the shot, as is often suggested in these cases, Dr Marks was up front and honest and said that, due to the severity of my issue, it was probably best to go ahead and see a spine surgeon. So, that’s my next step.
Even though he wasn’t able to directly cure my issue, it’s possible that Dr Marks has effectively turned my life around simply by finding an issue that no one else seemed to take into consideration. If nothing else, he at least definitely found a problem that no other doctor had even thought about.
So, in summary, this is not your average «pain doctor». He takes his business title seriously. He wants to find the cause of your pain, and fix it. And he’s very good at doing just that.