messylttlfoodie
Member
Hi,
this is complicated so I'm going to try to bottom line it as much as possible but give all the important details to describe this situation.
So, my husband and I live with his parents, and my elderly MIL has been showing some mild symptoms of what my FIL is convinced are early signs of dementia. My husband and I spent quite some time researching and tracking her symptoms to see what's going on (highly unlikely we can convince her to get checked plus I doubt that any UK / NHS doctor would do anything other than either dismiss her symptoms or slap on some bogus medication that would do more harm than good)
She's 74 y/o and takes the following medications :
- Levothyroxine 150mg per day, (increased from I think 125mg per day about 2 months ago which is when we started noticing the cognitive issues and fatigue)
- Alendronic Acid 70mg once a week
- Amlopidine (idk the dose)
These are the issues we've started noticing maybe 2 months or so ago.
> Day Time Hallucinations / Confusion:
They spend their afternoons watching TV until bedtime. That involves a lot of falling asleep and napping on the sofa. My MIL would wake up from her naps and then start acting weird or saying weird things like seeing things moving around on the floor or saying the pictures on the wall are talking to her. This always happened when either drifting off to sleep or waking up. One time she got up and came outside on the patio to ask us where the girls are - our nieces, they come over every Monday. It was Tuesday.
Another incident involved her thinking our cat had kittens and asking us to be careful to not let them in because they'll pee everywhere. Also happened on a Tuesday (this is important to note as I'll come back to it later)
> Night Time Hallucinations / Sleepwalking / Confusional Arousal:
Several incidents where she'd get up during the first third of the night talking to herself and doing random stuff like: mumbling to herself looking for kitchen roll, my husband and I hear it so he goes to check on her and tries to get her to go back to bed, she grabs the kitchen bin to take to the bedroom because "in case the girls (she's referring to our nieces) need to use the bathroom". He managed to get her to go back into to bed (without the bin) and gently talk her out of this state, which is when she slowly wakes up and becomes her normal self, realising that something had just happened and then getting a bit flustered about it. My husband would spend some time talking to her and help her drift back to sleep.
Another incident involved her getting up and getting disoriented in the dark not knowing which way the bathroom is and fumbling around with the front door chain (!). We have since started putting a night light out in the hall which has helped a lot with her orientation when she's half asleep and needing a wee.
Another incident involved her getting up at midnight and starting to iron a kitchen towel on top of the electric cooker, because she thought my husband asked her to do it ... she doesn't even iron usually my FIL does the ironing. It really does feel like she's acting out a dream or something.
Another incident involved her waking up whimpering in distress which sounded like she was having a nightmare. My husband went in her room to check on her and her legs got wrapped up in the duvet cover and that's what upset her, so he helped her get the duvet off and gently bring her into a fully awake state. She was quite shaken up and teary but became fully coherent very quickly, and again my husband spent some time just talking to her until she went back to sleep.
> Insomnia / Nocturia / OCD:
As mentioned above, she would have random episodes of hallucinations, but we also noticed she would be up and down going to the bathroom like every 20-30 minutes, not because she actually needs to go, but almost like an obsessive compulsive urge, so her sleep is obviously severely disrupted. This usually quiets down after the first third of the night. She just can't seem to get settled and fall asleep so she keeps getting up going to the bathroom like a habit that she feels will help her go to sleep. We tried CBD with some success but noticed sometimes it has the opposite effect so we stopped, and now we're looking into other ways to help her get better sleep such as Melatonin.
Other symptoms include:
> Drawn looking, droopy facial expression
> Withdrawal and discontinuation of activities formerly enjoyed such as going for walks in nature, watering the garden etc which she claims is due to the hay fever, but they still go out to the shops regularly so it's not complete avoidance of going out
> Falling asleep in front of TV completely folded over, developing a really bad hunched over posture whilst standing and walking, it's developed rather quickly and just looks horrible like she can't even look up at me properly while talking to me....
> Persistent cough and laboured breathing / grunting despite little physical activity (claims it's because of hay fever / chronic lung issue she's had since catching a bad cold once as baby)
Now soon as we noticed the symptoms we started administering MB daily, and we were aware of her recent change in thyroid medication, but also realised that she was taking hay fever medication that may have been causing or exacerbating those issues.
She was taking Benadryl at first but switched to Clarityn because Benadryl made her too drowsy and Clarityn (Loratadine) is meant to be non-drowsy. We made her stop taking it because we found out that it can cause neurotoxicity in elderly women and lead to psychosis / hallucinations because of the anticolinergic effects which is detrimental for elderly people developing dementia like symptoms. We gave her Quercetin instead which worked great however it started to cause her vision to blur so we switched her to Polisan, a homeopathic herbal remedy, which is working well.
Quitting the antihistamines and administering the MB has really brought about a lot of improvement, to where she's almost back to her old self most of the time - except for the bad hunched posture, terrible sleep patterns and the very bizarre once a week night time incidents, which are giving us great cause for concern.
Now these once a week night time hallucination incidents tend to happen on a Tuesday/Wednesday, and then go away again, except one time it was on a Saturday (!)
I then noticed that she usually takes her alendronic acid 70mg every Monday or Tuesday, and that's when those incidents happen, a day/night later, every Tuesday or Wednesday, except the one time it happened on a Saturday night, she had taken the alendronic acid on the Friday... (!!!)
Soooo I researched "alendronic acid hallucinations" and came across the following:
Medications That May Cause Hallucinations as a Side Effect.
"OSTEOPOROSIS MEDICATIONS
In rare cases, medications like alendronate (Fosamax), etidronate (Didronel), and pamidronate (Aredia) have been reported to cause visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations."
Alendronate-induced auditory hallucinations and visual disturbances - PubMed
It seems like what's happening to my MIL is a result of various adverse drug reactions / interactions paired with a change in thyroid medication and it all just triggered a cascade of issues that impact her cognitive function and cause her to develop a sleep disorder, "confusional arousal" maybe. The antihistamine's anticolirgenic effects may have caused some damage to her brain which the MB is remedying but it probably takes time to recover fully, if that.
The alendronic acid which she's been on for ages now seems to exacerbate the issues but I have no idea what the mechanism behind that would be.
And finally, I think her extremely poor sleep hygiene and overall lifestyle habits (lack of movement, fresh air, sunlight, overloading on blue light) are leading to her being so sleep deprived that it's all just really messing her up cognitively. Add to that a hypothyroid mess and a pinch of depression.
With all that said, I can't help but doubt that this is dementia because it doesn't quite seem to fit the bill. I could be wrong as I have zero experience with dementia in other relatives or friends.
So, if anyone here has any ideas, I'm grasping at anything else we can do to help her, within the realm of what she's willing to do, she won't change her lifestyle but she might try some drops or pills we give her as we do with the MB, or collagen, minerals or vitamins in her coffee etc, me taking over dinner more often so I can prevent some crappy ingredients and add some good ones, stuff like that.
Thanks in advance!
this is complicated so I'm going to try to bottom line it as much as possible but give all the important details to describe this situation.
So, my husband and I live with his parents, and my elderly MIL has been showing some mild symptoms of what my FIL is convinced are early signs of dementia. My husband and I spent quite some time researching and tracking her symptoms to see what's going on (highly unlikely we can convince her to get checked plus I doubt that any UK / NHS doctor would do anything other than either dismiss her symptoms or slap on some bogus medication that would do more harm than good)
She's 74 y/o and takes the following medications :
- Levothyroxine 150mg per day, (increased from I think 125mg per day about 2 months ago which is when we started noticing the cognitive issues and fatigue)
- Alendronic Acid 70mg once a week
- Amlopidine (idk the dose)
These are the issues we've started noticing maybe 2 months or so ago.
> Day Time Hallucinations / Confusion:
They spend their afternoons watching TV until bedtime. That involves a lot of falling asleep and napping on the sofa. My MIL would wake up from her naps and then start acting weird or saying weird things like seeing things moving around on the floor or saying the pictures on the wall are talking to her. This always happened when either drifting off to sleep or waking up. One time she got up and came outside on the patio to ask us where the girls are - our nieces, they come over every Monday. It was Tuesday.
Another incident involved her thinking our cat had kittens and asking us to be careful to not let them in because they'll pee everywhere. Also happened on a Tuesday (this is important to note as I'll come back to it later)
> Night Time Hallucinations / Sleepwalking / Confusional Arousal:
Several incidents where she'd get up during the first third of the night talking to herself and doing random stuff like: mumbling to herself looking for kitchen roll, my husband and I hear it so he goes to check on her and tries to get her to go back to bed, she grabs the kitchen bin to take to the bedroom because "in case the girls (she's referring to our nieces) need to use the bathroom". He managed to get her to go back into to bed (without the bin) and gently talk her out of this state, which is when she slowly wakes up and becomes her normal self, realising that something had just happened and then getting a bit flustered about it. My husband would spend some time talking to her and help her drift back to sleep.
Another incident involved her getting up and getting disoriented in the dark not knowing which way the bathroom is and fumbling around with the front door chain (!). We have since started putting a night light out in the hall which has helped a lot with her orientation when she's half asleep and needing a wee.
Another incident involved her getting up at midnight and starting to iron a kitchen towel on top of the electric cooker, because she thought my husband asked her to do it ... she doesn't even iron usually my FIL does the ironing. It really does feel like she's acting out a dream or something.
Another incident involved her waking up whimpering in distress which sounded like she was having a nightmare. My husband went in her room to check on her and her legs got wrapped up in the duvet cover and that's what upset her, so he helped her get the duvet off and gently bring her into a fully awake state. She was quite shaken up and teary but became fully coherent very quickly, and again my husband spent some time just talking to her until she went back to sleep.
> Insomnia / Nocturia / OCD:
As mentioned above, she would have random episodes of hallucinations, but we also noticed she would be up and down going to the bathroom like every 20-30 minutes, not because she actually needs to go, but almost like an obsessive compulsive urge, so her sleep is obviously severely disrupted. This usually quiets down after the first third of the night. She just can't seem to get settled and fall asleep so she keeps getting up going to the bathroom like a habit that she feels will help her go to sleep. We tried CBD with some success but noticed sometimes it has the opposite effect so we stopped, and now we're looking into other ways to help her get better sleep such as Melatonin.
Other symptoms include:
> Drawn looking, droopy facial expression
> Withdrawal and discontinuation of activities formerly enjoyed such as going for walks in nature, watering the garden etc which she claims is due to the hay fever, but they still go out to the shops regularly so it's not complete avoidance of going out
> Falling asleep in front of TV completely folded over, developing a really bad hunched over posture whilst standing and walking, it's developed rather quickly and just looks horrible like she can't even look up at me properly while talking to me....
> Persistent cough and laboured breathing / grunting despite little physical activity (claims it's because of hay fever / chronic lung issue she's had since catching a bad cold once as baby)
Now soon as we noticed the symptoms we started administering MB daily, and we were aware of her recent change in thyroid medication, but also realised that she was taking hay fever medication that may have been causing or exacerbating those issues.
She was taking Benadryl at first but switched to Clarityn because Benadryl made her too drowsy and Clarityn (Loratadine) is meant to be non-drowsy. We made her stop taking it because we found out that it can cause neurotoxicity in elderly women and lead to psychosis / hallucinations because of the anticolinergic effects which is detrimental for elderly people developing dementia like symptoms. We gave her Quercetin instead which worked great however it started to cause her vision to blur so we switched her to Polisan, a homeopathic herbal remedy, which is working well.
Quitting the antihistamines and administering the MB has really brought about a lot of improvement, to where she's almost back to her old self most of the time - except for the bad hunched posture, terrible sleep patterns and the very bizarre once a week night time incidents, which are giving us great cause for concern.
Now these once a week night time hallucination incidents tend to happen on a Tuesday/Wednesday, and then go away again, except one time it was on a Saturday (!)
I then noticed that she usually takes her alendronic acid 70mg every Monday or Tuesday, and that's when those incidents happen, a day/night later, every Tuesday or Wednesday, except the one time it happened on a Saturday night, she had taken the alendronic acid on the Friday... (!!!)
Soooo I researched "alendronic acid hallucinations" and came across the following:
Medications That May Cause Hallucinations as a Side Effect.
"OSTEOPOROSIS MEDICATIONS
In rare cases, medications like alendronate (Fosamax), etidronate (Didronel), and pamidronate (Aredia) have been reported to cause visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations."
Alendronate-induced auditory hallucinations and visual disturbances - PubMed
Will you have Hallucinations if you take Alendronic acid? | eHealthMe
There are 16,291 people reported to have side effects when taking Alendronic acid. Among them, 113 (0.69%) have hallucinations. These people tend to be female, 60+ old, have been taking the drug for 1 - 6 months, also take medication Paracetamol, and have Depression
www.ehealthme.com
It seems like what's happening to my MIL is a result of various adverse drug reactions / interactions paired with a change in thyroid medication and it all just triggered a cascade of issues that impact her cognitive function and cause her to develop a sleep disorder, "confusional arousal" maybe. The antihistamine's anticolirgenic effects may have caused some damage to her brain which the MB is remedying but it probably takes time to recover fully, if that.
The alendronic acid which she's been on for ages now seems to exacerbate the issues but I have no idea what the mechanism behind that would be.
And finally, I think her extremely poor sleep hygiene and overall lifestyle habits (lack of movement, fresh air, sunlight, overloading on blue light) are leading to her being so sleep deprived that it's all just really messing her up cognitively. Add to that a hypothyroid mess and a pinch of depression.
With all that said, I can't help but doubt that this is dementia because it doesn't quite seem to fit the bill. I could be wrong as I have zero experience with dementia in other relatives or friends.
So, if anyone here has any ideas, I'm grasping at anything else we can do to help her, within the realm of what she's willing to do, she won't change her lifestyle but she might try some drops or pills we give her as we do with the MB, or collagen, minerals or vitamins in her coffee etc, me taking over dinner more often so I can prevent some crappy ingredients and add some good ones, stuff like that.
Thanks in advance!
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