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Ask local pilots or flight schools about AMEs in your area and find one that is a real aviation medical examiner, not some occupational medicine hack who's added the AME credential to his title to add a few cash-paying customers to supplement his regular constituency of L&I insurance claims. And read all you can about FAA medical exams and the deferral process. I even read through the AME Guide. Its available online from the FAA for free.
I was deferred on a class III for a simple torn meniscus. After 4 months of being strung along by this "doctor's" staff, I finally (with the help of the AOPA) learned that once he deferred me, he washed his hands of me and it was up to me to figure out what to do from there.
I wrote letters from the primary care doc and the surgeon to the FAA (in the proper format) myself. I carried them to the doctor's offices, ran the gauntlet of office staff and nurses to finally get to each of the doctors in question, and explained to them what the deferral was all about and why the letter I wrote, on their behalf's, was worded the way it was, and got them to agree that the letters accurately reflected the facts. Then I explained to them how I needed them to reproduce those letters on their professional letter head and with their signatures, titles and contact info. I then forwarded those letters plus all the other info required to the proper FAA office (again with the AOPA's help) and waited. Another 2 months and I had my 3rd class medical.
About a month later, I went to a seminar and met an AME who confirmed for me that the AME that Deferred my medical 7 months previously had had no reason to defer me, that a torn meniscus with a prognosis of normal recovery is not a reason for deferral as long as the range of motion and strength has returned to within normal limits.
