Grisolia James Santiago, MD

I've been seeing Dr. Grisolia for the past 11 years. He is so friendly and very professional. His diagnoses have always been spot on, even when other doctors have told me otherwise. He also is quick. I hate when doctors drag out your appointment with them. I just want you to get to the point and send me on my way. Dr. Grisolia is thorough and always knows the answers to your questions. He always has a smile on his face and he seems to genuinely care about how you're doing. So why only four stars? His receptionist. She's the same one that's been with him the entire time I've been seeing him. She's really direct and lacks all friendliness. She shows no compassion about scheduling or anything you might need. I saw her tell a patient that was literally 8 minutes late that their options were to wait for everyone else to be seen aka until the end of the day or to reschedule. Mind you that the doctor wouldn't be able to see them for at least a month. I don't know if she has too much on her plate because it's just her and the doctor, but they should get someone else in there if that's the case because she makes the beginning and end of the appointment really unpleasant, even if she is just being rude to other patients and not you specifically.

Some other things to take note of: there is only street parking, so give yourself plenty of time to find a meter. You can count on not being seen on time, so don't make any plans immediately after your appointment time. I once waited 90 minutes after my appointment time to be seen, and I was five minutes early.

Absolutely horrible experience. This guy doesn't listen and doesn't care. I am shocked that he's allowed to call himself a doctor.

I had been searching for answers for 35 years. This Dr. Nailed it on my first visit, saved me from suicide. No words can express....

He's very nice but unfortunately I didn't get answers from him for my case and I didn't find him proactive in diagnosis. Clencher for me is he's impossible to get an appointment with. It's just him and a receptionist (who's kind of gruff)...no PA or NP. Had an exacerbation of symptoms while he was out of town. His receptionist's response was "go to the ER?" How about having someone cover for you in your absence or better yet tell patient to go to their regular doctor? Which I did and ended up at a different neurologist's office. Don't know if I'll be back to him, though he is a kind person.

Very disappointed at their service. I had an appointment and besides the fact that the setting of the building been very complicated I had called to say I was a little bit behind like 5 minutes away and they said fine but very rude. I ran across the parking and the building but I made it there in less than 3 minutes this lady said I'm not taking you in because we are booked even though I waited about a month to get an appointment. I'm young but I can't imagine them doing this to older people that wait a long time to schedule an appointment or have to ride the bus. I'm furious and I hope you guys change the way you operate your business.

I saw Dr. Grisolia first when I developed Bells Palsy and my PCP sent me to him. I am quite surprised as well by the negative reviews, considering how kind, helpful, and professional he was. It turned out that I had Lyme's disease, which often goes undiagnosed in SoCal because many doctors don't believe it exists here. I have two friends who went undiagnosed for almost a year, and they are in bad shape. Thankfully for me he got it right, and had me on the antibiotics as soon as the test came back. Three days later all the pain I was experiencing was gone, and the palsy began to heal, and since then most of the function in my face has come back online. I have developed some new symptoms (my hands shaking) and I have just made an appointment. I've no hesistation going back to him. He's my doctor and he may have saved my life.

I have not given him fivestars because of his secretary. She is clearly efficient, but her personal skills are greatly lacking and she is like a steel gate running the office. I had a quick question for the doctor, and I had to threaten to go to another doctor to get her to ask him. She was going to make me set up an appointment just to ask the question.

I don't understand how the other reviews can be so negative of Dr. Grisolia. Yes, he was put on probation, but it was because his wife died and he was the doctor prescribing her medication, and you are not allowed to prescribe to yourself or family. He was not put on probation because of anything he did in relation with his patients. He came very highly recommended to me by the Epilepsy Society of San Diego, and I have heard nothing but good things about him. I am a very unusual case, and some of my conditions are outside of his normal area of expertise, although they could still be addressed by a neurologist. He was very professional when I told him that I was going to be seeing another doctor for my memory problems, and still seeing him for my epilepsy. His conduct with myself and my family has always been very professional, and he has worked with me to explore a more unconventional approach. Compared with Kaiser, and what I have heard of other neurologists, he is a thousand times better, and I have been to AT LEAST a dozen other neurologists, brain surgeons, radiologists, and other professionals for my epilepsty over the last 10 years. He is by far the best I have dealt with.

Dr. Grisolia is an exceptionally gifted diagnostician. I'd been going to physical therapy for two months for pain in my left thigh and sitz bone area that wasn't sciatica, but they didn't know exactly what it was. Then I developed pain in my right thigh and began limping on that leg. The PT's couldn't figure it out, but as my symptoms continued to increase, I became concerned about worrisome possibilities (MS, Lou Gehrig's disease, fibromyalgia). My PT agreed that seeing a neurologist was a good idea. I looked on Yelp and choose Dr. Grisolia. I am deeply glad that I did, as I doubt that many, if any, other neuros would have correctly diagnosed me. He performed various assessments, but my symptoms weren't fitting any consistent picture. He was calm, caring, thoughtful, took time to really listen and ask questions throughout the examination. Suddenly his face lit up and he said he just happened to know what it was by a previous interesting clinical experience, non-neurologically related. He diagnosed me with rotated pelvis and explained the physics and anatomy that caused and accounted for my pains. He gave me a clean bill of neurological health and referred me back to Physical Therapy or, if I choose, to chiropractic care, as they are both trained to treat this condition. (It turns out that my avid slalom water skiing years ago had resulted in my right side pelvis shifting/rotating forward, as I came up out of the water with my right foot forward). This accounted for the intense left sitz bone area pain I began experiencing on my long (3 hrs) drives back from the slalom courses outside of Barstow. A few months after I stopped skiing (about 10 years ago), the pain stopped. But about a year ago I began experiencing left inner thigh pain that I thought was a pulled tendon during one of my weekly Pilates classes--even though I'd never felt any moment of onset of injury. I kept thinking the pain would go away if I just backed off the hamstring stretches that activated the pain. But a few months later my left sitz bone area became painful while sitting at my office desk, then while driving, then while sitting on my couch at home. That's when I headed to my doctor, who recommended physical therapy. Anyway, I will refer myself and any one I know to Dr. Grisolia. His presence, kindness, gentleness, caring and truly gifted diagnostic abilities make him a great find, a great resource--a healer thaI I can deeply trust. [I've worked in healthcare for 20 years, my father was a veterinarian, so I've known/know a lot of doctors--he is as Good As It Gets!]

I am so grateful that Dr. Grisolia was available to see me. After weeks of excrutiating pain in my arm and non responsiveness from my primary care phys., I was given a personal reccomendation to see Dr. Grisolia. He was professional, considerate and compassionate. He thoroghly tested my reflexes and pain receptors...finding that I most likely had a compressed disc in my neck. He wrote a thorough diagnosis to give to my primary care doc with his suggestions for care. The therapy and prescription he wrote were exactly what I needed and the pain began to dissapate within a few days. A follow up to a different neurologist stated that what Dr. Grisolia prescribed was right on and the best initial treatment. I am so thankful and will not hesitate to see him again if I have issues with my spine, discs, pain, etc.!!

I was so disappointed. I saw Dr. Grisolia five times. I really liked him. When I was not getting better he ordered more tests. Both on the phone and in person he told me everything was perfect on the tests. When I requested a copy for my primary care physician appointment I was shocked to see that my autoimmune thyroid antibodies were 10 times higher than they should be. My primary doctor immediately sent me to an endocrinologist to get it under control. I wrote to Dr. Grisolia to ask about the findings and also to see if I should continue the treatment plan he had suggested (I was running out of sample medication and would need a RX to continue). I both faxed and mailed the letter. I had absolutely no response whatsoever! Either he missed the result or didn't think it was important. Either way I deserved a response.I felt very betrayed. I trusted Dr. Grisolia and he couldn't even bother to talk to me about what happened. It was such a shame as I really liked him before this incident. The complete lack of response made me lose my trust in him. If he couldn't care enough to call or respond then how could I trust him to take care of my health problems? I hope he sees this and realizes how disappointed I was to have to go to someone else. Just a simple phone call could have saved the relationship.