New med and new side effects

Dad has started on a new medicine Namenda on Thursday.  This now brings his daily meds to a total of 3, great for an 82 year old. Of course with any new med brings possible new side effects.  His other Alzheimer medicine Aricept is supposed to make him tired, not sure how much it effect’s him.  You can never tell. 

Yesterday was a long day for him, the farmers market, the flat tire, and replacing tires at Wal-Mart and he was up to 10pm, possibly a record for him in Wisconsin we were back home by 8pm, yet he seemed to be full of energy despite being up all day and having little or no chance of his daily cat naps.

This really doesn’t match the listed side-effects for Namenda, but of course everyone is different I take an allergy medicine that is supposed to make you tired but it actually doesn’t affect me in that way.

What side effects can this medication cause?

Memantine may cause side effects. Tell your doctor if any of these symptoms are severe or do not go away:

·         extreme tiredness

·         dizziness

·         confusion

·         headache

·         sleepiness

·         constipation

·         vomiting

·         pain anywhere in your body, especially your back

·         coughing

Quoted from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000250

Seeing the TV on in the living room at 3am, after using the restroom I investigated and  was surprised to find dad up watching TV or was the TV watching him. After such a long chaotic day I was sure he would be tired I decided to let him sit on the couch and headed to back bed. When I woke up at 7 a.m. I found the TV off and he was in his room still.

Flat tires and the farmers market

Went to the farmers market yesterday, got back to the car and found the car had a flat front tire. Dad seemed to take it okay, changed the tire and headed over to Wal-Mart and got two new front tires, its always best to replace at least 2 tires at a tire. Of course it took 4 hours.  Good prices, good value, or quick, choose any two is the way it works these days.  But dad took it in stride, which is pretty amazing. 

 Only a issue was dinner time, he has gotten over sensitive about fat in his food, we have resorted to draining and drying all his food with paper towel but that doesn’t work out well at restaurants, we ended up at Wendy’s thought he might like chili, but he said it was too fatty, more likely he took the liquid as excessive fat.  He ended up having a chive potato no sour cream, just chives.  But at least he ate.

Sundown in the afternoon

 Late in the afternoon or evening, usually 5pm and later life becomes more interesting nothing but evening  news if there is any on the TV, or some old TV shows can even keep him entertained, his usual hobby’s fail to keep his attention.  Movies are usually dismissed as “its not real, so is a waste of time” things that are perfectly fine and even laughed at in the morning will never do during this time.

Getting dinner into him is a chore when in the sundown effect, it’s all too easy for him to dismiss food and say he is heading off to bed no matter the time. Yesterday he said he was going to bed at 5pm the sun was still up and it was bright in the cloudless sky, yet he still wanted to head off to bed, luckily dinner of beans and wieners, one of the meals he talked about having was luckily just finishing at this time on the stove.  

He managed to stay awake for another few hours to 7pm before heading off to sleep. We don’t really care when he goes off to sleep, it’s the early wakeup call the next day, if he goes to bed early surely he will be up at 4 or 5am far too early for us that are usually up to 11-midnight so it usually means one of us being up at 6am just 6 or so hours of sleep and if we are lucky a nap in the morning after someone else is awake. 

My own Alzheimer moment

Woke up this morning and put on a pot of coffee, 10 minutes or so later dad goes to get him self a cup of coffee and finds no coffee, I go and look and find that I forgot to pour the water into the coffee maker.

I'm sure dad could make the coffee on his own except that I own one of the most complex coffee makers on the planet, it grinds the coffee beans right into the filter, and makes the coffee all by itself it, makes the freshest coffee possible but is complex to setup, you can disable the grind part of the process but that is another step in the process. Dad wouldn't appreciate the loud coffee grinder going off each morning. So most of the time I use ground coffee now.

Child locks friends or foes

My dad’s room is equipped with child locks that were popular in the 70’s they are built right into the plug itself, they require you to turn the plug 90 degrees from normal to line up the prongs on the plug and then twist the cord back to normal alignment to insert the plug. They have outwitted my dad numerous times, not sure why he feels the need to unplug the TV and clock radio almost daily but he has yet to get it back in on his own.

When we move, we will be getting this type of child proof device designed to keep the plugs in the wall. So that its less frustating for him when he can't figure out why his TV doesn't work and the rest of the family is asleep at 5am.

Choices

Last night Dad didn’t take his Aricept for Alzheimer’s. We had been having issues with getting him to eat 3 meals a day; we were lucky to get him to eat his pre-breakfast snack(candy), and his breakfast, and dinner, lunch was out of the question. I’m not working I don’t need to eat anything.

Today he was ravenous, ate two bowls worth of cereal, plus 2 eggs, sausage, and a hash brown patty. Then an hour or so later he ate the rest of the wife’s egg sandwich that she didn’t want to finish.

So now the choice becomes Alzheimer meds or eating decent I guess its something to discuss with Dad’s doctors. He may just reducethe dosage, that he increased a couple week previously a couple weeks ago, I guess we really didn't notice the effect of the dosage increase.

Busy Day, 2 stores, 3 meals and a shake

Went to Wal-Mart and Sam's club, tired him out, bought dad a magnifying glass $4.88 but he was like a kid with a new toy at Christmas. So he can study the coins in his collection.

weights 104lbs, yet thinks he is gaining too much weight, but got him to enjoy a choclate shake at Sam's Club, and 3 healthy meals today.

Exercise its a win for everyone.

Got grouchy thanks to sundown effect and went to bed at 7:30pm, he will probably be up at 6am or earlier.