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Rajasekhar Buddhavarapu MD

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Conditions I Treat — Rajasekhar Buddhavarapu, MD
Conditions I treat

I care for patients with complex, stubborn conditions.

Many of my patients arrive after a long road — years of searching, treatments that helped only partly, and the exhaustion that comes with both. My role is to bring fresh eyes, time, and the full breadth of my training to the problem. This page describes the work I do and how I think about it. It is not a menu. Every plan I build is singular, because every patient is.

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The office on Main Street
Wide, calm, no people. The waiting area, the window light, or Main Street itself.
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01
Complex & chronic pain

Pain is where all suffering converges — and where my work is deepest.

More than half of palliative training is, in truth, the study of pain — and across twenty years it has become my central clinical pursuit. Conventional medicine offers remarkably little for severe chronic pain beyond narcotics, and so I assembled a different approach: carefully supervised ketamine therapy for neuropathic pain; medical cannabis where it is appropriate; integrative treatments; and a structured, patient method for tapering people safely off long-term opioids while other supports rise in their place.

When a patient needs hands other than mine — an interventional procedure, PRP, acupuncture — I refer honestly, most often to Dr. Peter Zheng, the board-certified pain and rehabilitation specialist with whom I share my office. For problems beyond us both, I keep relationships with specialists I trust, a circle of like-minded, integrative colleagues. The point is never a particular tool. The point is relief.

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The consultation room
Two chairs, unhurried. Or a detail — hands, notes, the desk lamp.
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A real photo of the room where these conversations happen, rather than a picture of pain.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)

Among the most severe pain conditions known — and the one where I have seen supervised ketamine therapy do what nothing else could. Persistent burning pain, swelling, and skin changes after an injury or surgery deserve a physician who has made this condition a study.

Neuropathic pain

Burning, electric, stabbing pain from damaged nerves — including postherpetic neuralgia after shingles and phantom limb pain after amputation. Nerve pain rarely answers to ordinary painkillers; it requires a different pharmacology and a patient, systematic approach.

Fibromyalgia and widespread pain

Whole-body pain with fatigue and unrefreshing sleep, too often dismissed because tests come back normal. The pain is real. I treat it with a combination of medical, integrative, and lifestyle approaches built around each patient's pattern.

Long-term opioid dependence

For patients who have been on opioids for years and feel trapped — my particular focus. We taper slowly, never abruptly, while layering in alternatives so that relief is never sacrificed for safety.

02
Care for older adults

Geriatrics is the medicine of the whole life.

I was Chief of Geriatrics at New York Downtown Hospital and directed geriatric care at White Plains Hospital; I still serve as medical director to nursing and rehabilitation facilities across the region. Older adults are where my training runs deepest — patients carrying several conditions, many medications, and decades of history that deserve to be understood, not rushed.

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Dr. B with a patient
Consented, candid, seated at eye level. Never a stock “smiling senior.”
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Complexity and polypharmacy

Multiple diagnoses and ten medications often do more harm together than any disease alone. I review everything, simplify what can be simplified, and coordinate the specialists so someone finally holds the whole picture.

Dementia and cognitive change

Care for the patient and for the family carrying them — managing behavioral symptoms gently, planning ahead honestly, and preserving dignity at every stage.

Pain in later life

Opioids in older adults raise the risks of falls, confusion, and dependence. My opioid-sparing approach matters most here — controlling pain while protecting independence.

03
Palliative & supportive care

Comfort and dignity are not what we offer when treatment fails. They are treatment.

Palliative medicine is often misunderstood as giving up. It is the opposite: it is the refusal to let serious illness take more from a person than it must. I work alongside your oncologist or specialists — never replacing them — to manage the pain and symptoms that steal quality of life.

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A quiet detail
Window light, a chair, a plant, a hallway. Something still and warm — no clinical equipment.
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Refractory cancer pain

Pain that persists despite standard oncology treatment. Advanced medication strategies, low-dose ketamine where appropriate, and close coordination with your cancer team.

Chronic migraines

Recurrent, disabling headaches addressed through both prevention — triggers, lifestyle, medication review — and treatment, including infusion therapies for the difficult cases.

Symptom management in serious illness

Nausea, breathlessness, fatigue, anxiety — the symptoms that medicine too often treats as afterthoughts. To me they are the work itself.

04
Integrative medicine & IV therapies

Trained at the Andrew Weil Center — practiced with a physician's judgment.

My integrative medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona's Andrew Weil Center taught me to take healing traditions seriously — and to hold them to a physician's standard of evidence and safety. I offer IV therapies not as a wellness menu, but as clinical tools: individually assessed, medically supervised, and woven into a larger plan. I also draw on Ayurvedic principles where they serve, and I am a certified medical cannabis practitioner in New York.

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The infusion chair
The actual room where infusions are given — calm and clinical, not a spa.
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Shows this is medicine rather than a drip bar — which is exactly what the copy claims.

Ketamine infusion therapy

For neuropathic pain — particularly CRPS — and carefully selected cases where conventional treatment has failed. Every course begins with thorough evaluation, individualized dosing, and structured follow-up. This is medicine, not a drip bar.

NAD+, vitamin C, glutathione, Myers' Cocktail

Nutrient and antioxidant infusions for fatigue, recovery, immune support, and migraine — offered when your history and my assessment suggest genuine benefit, and declined when they don't.

Medical cannabis

As a New York State certified practitioner, I guide appropriate patients through certification, product selection, and dosing — particularly as part of opioid reduction.

Lifestyle medicine

Nutrition, sleep, movement, and stress — unglamorous, and more powerful than most prescriptions. Every plan I write includes them.

A note of honesty: not every therapy on this page is right for every patient, and I will tell you when one isn't. Saying no to an unnecessary treatment is as much my job as offering the right one.

If any of this sounds familiar

If you're still searching, I'd be glad to talk.

Call or write, tell me a little about what you're facing, and we'll see together whether my practice is the right fit. If it isn't, I'll do my best to point you toward someone who is.

Office 69 Main Street, Tuckahoe, New York