My DW just started taking 5 mg of Aricept last week. We started on Monday. During the week her sleep patterns were off even more than before. She wasn't sleeping too well at night, and slept a lot during the day.
As of this week, she got back to sleeping through the night, and her moods are so much better over last weekend and into this week. She was on 200 mg of Seroquel a day. That was really knocking her out last week. So after speaking to the neuro, who wanted to decrease the Seroquel, we are now only at 50mg of Seroquel at night.
They had stopped the Aricept back in Sept. of 2010 when she was in the hospital. We were dealing with aggressive behaviors then so they wanted to stop everything to and then start addding meds back one at a time. The started her back on the Namenda in November, and just last week the Aricept. She is also on Keppra for seziures.
What I cannot understand is her calm and pleasant moods since last Saturday. The neuro said that it would not help with her behaviors. Well, if it isn't the Aricept then something else has changed. She is much calmer, eating well, sleeping better and much more cooperative.
Of course this could change at any minute, but I find it odd. The geri psych wanted to add Paxil 10mg, but I didn't want to start two meds at the same time. Now, I don't know. I called the geri pysch and left a message about how she was doing Still have not heard back from him. I'm going to enjoy this, and I hope my DW is 'enjoying' her peaceful state for as long as possible.
No, GG, I don't get it either. I often think their moods, behaviors, etc., have nothing to do with their medications. Sure, some medications may alter their moods or behaviors, but then, something else pops up. It's just a coin toss as far as I'm concerned.
But just enjoy the peace and calm as long as it lasts!
GG, maybe the problem was the seroquel. This is how it worked for my DH...started on 25 mg a day to control rages. It seemed to work wonders. After 3 months it no longer worked so dosage was increased to 50 mg. Wonders, again. Unfortunately, for my DH the dosage needed to be increased just about every three months for 18 months. When the neuro wanted to increase to 250mg, I decided that maybe seroquel was not the best thing for my DH. Within a couple of days of stopping the seroquel, he was happy and contented. He has been off the Seroquel for over a year. Now the only the thing he takes is 30mg of Lexapro and .5mg of Xanax as needed. Not sure why this is, it just is.