Why I hate mirtazapine and E.E.G.s

Holy cow, I might as well go downtown and get Mum a spliff and some yeyo. We don't take drugs, doctors. Get it? No, you don't.

Which part of 'WE. DON'T. TAKE. DRUGS" don't you understand?

I took Mum to a geriatrician to get a definitive diagnosis. I think she has early Alzheimers. Multi-infarct dementia has been ruled out by the MRI scan. She doesn't have Picks disease. Her kidney problem isn't too bad (it affects the red blood cells which carry oxygen, hence dementia possibly caused by that). The doctor put her in hospital allegedly for THREE days and it has now been THREE WEEKS.

I hoped for some thorough tests to be done. I hoped for advice on how to manage her behaviour. She had a couple of 'bad turns' on 28th December. She kind of spaced out and stared straight ahead. These may or may not have been seizures. There are other things that cause these symptoms. She wasn't connected to an E.E.G. when she had these turns so no-one really knows. She's never had them before and she's never had them since.

So firstly the doctor puts her on Mirtazapine. I tell the nurses she is not to have it as I have guardianship and I say no, but they order it from the hospital pharmacy anyway. An Australian government website warns about mirtazapine, also called Remeron:

http://www.tga.gov.au/adr/aadrb/aadr0310.htm

Mum has kidney disease. The renal specialist told me to warn any G.P.s she sees that she is not to have any drugs. In the case of antibiotics, they are to be half strength.

Mum is having 30 mg of Mirtazapine every night. This is double the dose recommended for the elderly. It is causing her to have diarrhoea.

SHE DOES NOT HAVE A DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS. On the day the doctor asked if she was depressed she said 'yes', but she meant 'SAD', not depressed. There had been a family falling-out. She is NOT DEPRESSED and take note geriatric specialists and G.P.s dealing with the elderly in early dementia, you cannot take their answers as gospel. They are unable to answer any question accurately. They really have no idea and are giving you the answer THEY THINK YOU WANT. For God's sake ask the CARER for a more accurate answer.

As for the claim by nurses when I said I don't like this drug that she needs it to increase her appetite, it would be impossible to do so. Although she is thin, she eats like a horse and has the appetite of a hyena. Five minutes after we've had a huge lunch at the club she's saying "We have to eat, I'm starving." So the hell with that excuse.

So why is she having this dangerous and possibly deadly drug mirtazapine at double the usual dose? You tell me.

As for the alleged 'epilepsy', what nonsense. She has had no ongoing seizures. On the day she had the two 'funny turns', which may or may not have been seizures, there may have been factors that lowered her threshold for seizures such as being unwell or having low blood pressure or low blood sugar.

Why the hell would you medicate something that's not there? As for their dodgy E.E.G. result, you could drag in anyone off the street, give them an E.E.G. and nine times out of ten there will be an 'abnormal' result, sufficient to persuade a doctor keen to give business to the multinational drug dealers to write a script for Epilem.

I would guess that MOST elderly people would have an alleged 'abnormal' result. And yet no-one has noticed them suffering fits. This is because during an E.E.G. the brain is tormented by the person being made to hyperventilate and having strobe lights flashed at them. These things don't happen in normal everyday life. Strobe lights can induce fits in a person who most definitely does not have a seizure disorder. To hell with E.E.G.s, they are one step down from witchcraft if you ask me.

The specialist told me Mum could go into one of these (alleged) seizures and not come out of it alive.

What garbage. I can't find a single case of someone dying of a complex partial seizure, even if that is what she has.

I don't know what to do. I've stopped them giving her anti-convulsants and will get her off the mirtazapine slowly and carefully at home. I don't want her having it for one more minute, but it seems if I don't let them continue it they won't give her the tests that she needs to get on the nursing home waiting list, just in case things ever get desperate enough. The doctor suggested if I deny my mother 'treatment' there's no point in having her in the hospital. This is almost blackmail. She knows I'm desperate for help, advice and a diagnosis, but she won't let me have it unless I allow my mother to be tortured. And she is. She wakes up feeling groggy and terrible every day and sleeps through the mornings. Her memory has got worse. She's frightened. When they gave her the one and only anti-seizure pill, she went into shock, shaking all over and feeling weird in the head. Before the nurses responded to her buzzer she rang me and said "Come quickly, they gave me something and I'm terrified, I think I'm going to die."

The 'F' word is right on the tip of my tongue but I am trying hard to be polite on this blog.

I was so angry when I got home from the hospital last night, after the doctor again trying to cajole and bully me into agreeing to anti-epilepsy drugs, that I slammed the front door and swore so loudly that the next door neighbours slammed their front door and the Macedonians across the road came out onto the footpath.

"All your base are belong to us"

Unfortunately, at the moment, yes. But if you don't behave, I will just sneak her out of the hospital without even signing out and take her home, because I've had enough, and so has she.

I am now so paranoid about doctors and hospitals I doubt I'll ever take Mum near one again.

The Butterfly Bush

Since Mum moved into her house about four years ago, she's been obsessed with the idea of chopping down every tree in the yard and chopping out every bush.

I was devastated when she paid someone a ridiculous amount of money to remove a rainforest garden planted under the huge old paperbark tree. Then she started getting quotes to get rid of the paperbark tree itself: $3000-$5000. I had to stop her, so I got the kids (now aged 22 and 23) to send her text messages that if that tree was chopped down they wouldn't be able to visit her any more because they'd be too sad seeing the placed where the tree used to stand.

When she started tearing things out of the garden, old roses and so on, it didn't occur to me that it is part of the dementia, but it is. It's caused by paranoia. She believes that trees are going to fall on her or on the house, no matter how far from the house they are. Now she is paranoid that burglars are going to get in, and she thinks if there are no trees or shrubs blocking the view of the windows, the neighbours will be able to watch for burglars. It's no use telling her the neighbours are not out on the road watching her house at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Yesterday I arrived at her house to a horrible sight. The butterfly bush that had been planted probably more than forty years ago, and was absolutely beautiful, was chopped into pieces and lying all over her front yard.

How had she managed to get someone to do this without me knowing? It had to be after I dropped her off in the afternoon. I thought she'd be so tired every day after going to the shops and the club for lunch, that she wouldn't have the energy to cause any problems. I've been watching her to make sure she doesn't employ workmen at inflated rates to do 'work' in the yard unless I have approved it. But it's not helping. As well, she paid the man $130 in advance for carting the dead tree away and of course he hasn't been back.

I am so upset! On Tuesday I took over guardianship of her, signing the necessary document at the solicitor's, and I thought I could stop these kinds of things from happening. Well I now know it is not a magic piece of paper that keeps people out of her yard.

But unless I am over there twenty four hours a day, I realize I can't stop it. She went through $45,000 in the last four years, paying workmen to do all kinds of unnecessary jobs around the house. I had no access to her bank accounts until a few weeks ago, so I had no idea she was taking out thousands of dollars at a time from her investment account to pay these people, some of them very dishonest. I didn't realize the extent of the work she was getting done or the amount it was costing. I thought the money she was paying out came from her fortnightly income.

There were signs of odd behaviour and beliefs, paranoia and forgetfulness, but over the last couple of years I have not questioned her ability to make decisions about the house and garden. I should have. If you are reading this and your elderly parent has some forgetfulness, hurry and get access to their accounts so you can check what they are spending.

I will spread the word in the street that I am now officially her guardian and that no work is to be carried out without my approval. But that's probably not going to work either. She'll call some gardener or handyman that she's found in the newspaper and they won't know they're not supposed to be there.

The worrying thing is that she could go back to the solicitor and revoke the guardianship. If she convinces the solicitor that she is mentally alert at the time, she can do that. She can also revoke the Power of Attorney.

I have discovered that under Australian law, you cannot force a person to do what you want them to, even with guardianship. You have to consult them, no matter what stage of dementia they are at. You cannot say, "No, you can't do that or buy that or go there!" In that case, it's a wonder any old person ever ends up in a nursing home, if all they have to do is say no.

I don't know what the hell I am going to do. Being on my own, it is just impossible. I am so frightened, I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. I imagined the paperbark tree in pieces all over the back yard and $5,000 missing from her bank account. I imagined her getting nasty and throwing things, which she does sometimes, and wondering how I am going to put up with that.

I also lay awake thinking of the beautiful butterfly bush that wasn't doing any harm and is now dead.

Paranoia and the Cat

Mum has a cat. Her name is Cleo. She's had her for twelve years. Mum used to be sensible in looking after the cat. She installed a cat door so it could go in and out when it wanted to. She fed it twice a day and didn't fuss.

However, over the last four years, Mum has attached a lot of paranoia to matters relating to the cat. She has stopped letting the cat outside and keeps the cat door permanently locked. If the cat's not hungry and she offers food to it and it won't eat, she'll open a new tin of food and offer it that. Then she'll ring me and say, "Something is wrong with Cleo. She's not eating."

Last year the vet told Mum that cat is way too fat. It needs less food and more exercise. It won't get exercise as long as it's locked inside. Also, the vet told her to stop leaving huge plates of dry food around for the cat to nibble on throughout the day. But it didn't stop her. There are plates of food everywhere, and every day she tips them out into a plastic bag because they might be stale and gives it to me for my cats. The dry food she buys costs $57 per bag from the vet. It's meant to last about three months. It's gone in less than two weeks. What waste of money!

Sometimes I bring my dog when I visit and on the way to the back yard, the dog passes the cat, which hisses furiously. Mum says "Your dog is giving my cat an asthma attack! Get it out of here!" I try to explain the cat is angry and hissing, but she can't be convinced.

When I look in the fridge every few days, I find dozens of opened cans of cat food - small expensive ones - with a spoonful removed from them. If I don't check and get rid of them, in a couple of months they are all in there rotting, so I've learnt to sneakily make them disappear every few days. If they look OK, I take them for my cats.

Then there is the matter of plates. Mum feeds the cat on the plates she eats off. It makes me feel sick. I've tried making her stop, but you can't. You cannot convince a person with dementia that they are wrong. They are living in another world where everything you say is a lie, and everything they believe is the truth. If you try to convince them of some fact, then you are conspiring against them in some way, so it's best to say nothing.

But then even when she was younger, she'd feed the cats on plates from the family dinner set. She was even a bit paranoid for a while there, going outside at 2 a.m. going 'Puss! Puss!' because she imagined her cat was 'lost'. My father used to get so angry about it. She was only in her 40s then. She did get over that after a couple of years of being told off.

Now Mum keeps 'losing' the cat. She can't see very well, but she can't reason that the cat door is locked, all the other doors are locked and there is no way for the cat to escape. If she can't see the cat, she believes it is 'gone'. She starts to panic. The cat is usually under a bed, but she can't think to look in all the hiding places, she just panics.

Three weeks ago Mum rang me three times from 9.30 p.m. to tell me the cat was 'gone' and that I had to go and find it for her. I refused, and on the last call, I pulled the plug on the phone. I'm glad I wasn't there to see how angry she was.

I just hope she didn't ring her neighbours, as they are getting a bit fed up. One neighbour told me recently she visited five times in one day, each time to give the neighbour the same piece of news. She didn't recall the previous visits.

Around that same time, at about 9 p.m. at night, she believed someone was standing on her back porch and called a home handyman to come and look. A small shop-door alarm she has was being set off, possibly by a stray cat or the wind. She asked the handyman to disconnect the alarm and paid him $50. If this kind of thing keeps happening she'll be broke in no time.

But I think the biggest cause of her paranoia is that cat. Sometimes I really hate the poor thing.