drug reactions

The care of an elderly adult can be harrowing at times. Understanding the nature of their debilitation takes undercover agent trained to recognize out of the ordinary symptoms.

While your charge is riddled with anxiety you must be careful to pay attention to their worries. Expressing concern at every new crisis that is discussed by the many physicians you encounter as you move through the maze of hospital tests will put your loved one at ease.

Illness that eludes diagnosis can kill. When i arrived at my mother's apartment the shock of her appearance immobilized me. i had no idea how to help her. She kept telling me she was dying and she looked like she was dying.

At first, i tried to encourage her to get out, to take on life, but as the reality sunk in that she really couldn't i searched for other alternatives. i quizzed her relentlessly and finally focused on the drugs she was taking to treat her heart disease. i needed help but knew no one locally.

i am the grand inquisitor, i can drive friends nuts with my probing questions, even though i am a relatively private person. This trait alone saved my mother's life. i quizzed everyone i encountered. i gained information about avenues i had no idea even existed when the crisis was at its height. i refused to back down when clerks said no appointments to see doctors were available. i insisted it was an emergency and we needed to see someone.

Spironolactone, an aggressive heart medication, was at the root of her illness. All her symptoms matched the ones listed under adverse effects. She had previously questioned her doctor about the drug but he told her drug companies had to put all those things down just in case and not to worry.

She tried to ignore the symptoms and tough it out as her condition worsened but her voice on the phone couldn't hide her deterioration. Finally after many conversations i could wait no longer and had to go see for myself what could be done. We loaded up all her drugs, all her paper work and off we went. i had been in town three days and her condition had worsened in that time.

Thankfully it was a general practitioner that heard my plea for help. He heard my concerns about the drug combination she was on and called in a pharmacology student to go over everything. While at the computer the students eyebrows kept raising and i knew we were on to something. i asked him what he thought and he said he had to defer to the doctor. They both left the examining room to consult and the doctor returned saying my mom needed a blood test. We went to the lab for the test and went home. That was in the morning, by that afternoon while I was out taking a walk the doctor had called and said he had called 911. She had to get to the emergency room immediately and couldn't wait for me to come back from my walk. Needless to say, i came back to a shocking note on the door saying she was at the hospital. i had no idea where the hospital was.

The emergency room went to work immediately draining out her overloaded system. She was experiencing renal failure, astronomical insulin levels, over the top potassium levels and was near to having a heart attack. She almost died. They saved her and within two days the change was phenomonal.

My mother was back, she no longer looked like a ghost and no longer thought she was going to die. She started laughing and now a week later has a raging appetite, can walk without looking like she is going to topple over at any minute. A home health nurse visits every other day, a physical therapist has her on a mild exercise program and the doctors are stabalizing her medications.

She still has issues which i believe are drug related so we are working on those with the doctors. Seven years ago she had a stroke that affected her right side. It made any use of her right hand and right foot difficult but two days ago her hand straightened out and her foot is not falling over. S

She thinks she is the new Benjamin Button.

All of this is truly miraculous and it was all done on Medicare. i've always been in favor of universal health care and this has reinforced my leanings. So all you naysayers out there slamming health care for all...get a grip. Any one of us could go through this on private care with insurance companies questioning every move. Insurance companies are in business to make a profit. Making a profit off illness is wrong. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. On Medicare they act...they don't have to wait for any approval and from what we have just experienced it works. No insurance forms to fill out...just hand them your card.

She could sue but she won't. What she does want is to alert everyone to the realities of over prescription of drugs and the issues relating to their interactions. All medications need to be checked to make sure they are not making the person more sick. If you think it is your medication it probably is. She is also singing the praises of all the medical personel who work on Medicare patients.