does anyone out there loved one have diebetes along with alzheimers?my wife is almost blind.sure gets tough at times. i dont feel i could ever leave her at a care facilty.been married 52yr.
We've been married 54 years. My wife also has diabetes, but not very severe. In view of the Alzheimer's (stage 5-6) her doctor and I have decided to lighten up a bit on her diet so she can have more enjoyment out of life. Her last A1c was 7.2, so not bad. Why can't you leave her at a day care facility? The ones we have here could handle someone with diabetes as long as they know what is on and off her diet. The "almost blind" would not be a problem as the staff could help her get around. Check with the facilities near you and see what they suggest. My wife goes happily to the care facility, and when I pick her up tells me how much fun she has had.
Welcome to my website. You will find a lot of information and support here. I hope you have visited the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - there are many topics of interest there.
My husband has diabetes also. Between the diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, and other cardio vascular problems, he is on so much medication that it is often difficult to tell which symptom is from which disease or which medication.
I agree with Marsh. If you choose a Day Care that is specific to Alzheimer patients, and have staff trained to understand and deal with AD patients, your wife would be fine there. I am sure she would enjoy it, and it would give you a little respite.
Call the Alzheimer's Association's main number - 800- 272-3900, and ask about facilities near you that are AD specific.
If my message goes into cyberspace one more time, I will lose my mind!!! This is my last attempt! I haven't written for a long time so here are the basics. My husband is now 61 and he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in January 2009. It started with difficulty speaking. It was like he was dyslexic. Then he started walking in freshly poured cement at work repeatedly so I took him to a neurologist. By that time he could no longer dial a phone, use the TV remote, or tie his shoes. The diagnosis didn't take long. He has been on Aricept, Namenda, Depakote, Trazadone, Keppra, and Coumadin over the years. Now he only takes Namenda, Trazadone, and Coumadin. The doctor said the Namenda no longer does anything for him, but it seems to help. I quit work in August 2010 because he no longer could be left alone while I worked midnights. My daughter offered to rent out her house and move home with her family to help. My son-in-law began to add a third story to my house and I packed Lloyd up with 2 teenaged grandchildren and went to Florida to spend 2 months with my ex son-in-law. Maria is now home with us along with Brett and the 2 boys (ages 17 and 18). Every problem we have had, Brett has come up with a solution. The running off (which was hell) has stopped since he has installed a lock on the front door that requires a key to get in and out. Thank God!!! No more search parties! He can no longer communicate...just a word now and then and an occasional sentence blurted out very rarely. In April of this year he had his first grand mal seizure. I called 911 and he was taken to the ER and remained in ICU and the hospital for a week. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE experience! While they made me and 10 other family members sit in the waiting area, so called medical professionals did as they pleased with Lloyd!! They did not even know what meds he was taking and proceeded to give him paralytics, sedatives, and morphine because they could not control him. They never asked any of us to help calm him. He was virtually unconscious with an airway by the time we were permitted to be with him. One of the drugs they gave him was Versed which is known to cause amnesia in normal people. By the time we took him home, he could no longer walk or use the bathroom. Now he does both, the latter with much help. That trip to the hospital made him totally dependent for everything. I feed him, dress him, brush his teeth, clean his dentures, wipe his hiney, hold his cup so he can drink, put his pills in his mouth, cut his hair (sometimes that takes days). All legal matters have now been taken care of...wills, DNR's, Power of Attorney. I have even made provisions for him to remain with Maria in my will if something should happen to me first. I always pray to God to let me live one day longer than him so I can take care of him to the very end as I promised a long, long time ago. Please get your affairs in order and be involved with your loved one's care at all times!!! Lloyd has had 2 more grand mal seizures since April. I just hold him closely so he cannot hurt me and tell him that it will pass and I will be with him. I am so grateful that when everything else is gone, the love is still there. Just today, he said "I love you" and that is a precious gift from God. I will never leave him alone in a medical facility and I will be in control of what is done to him. They are constantly wanting to sedate him and do CAT scans. No more!! There is no point. They told me he could hemhorrage in his brain and die from it. At this point, I would consider that merciful. Well, I am done unloading now. God bless all of you and keep you safe to do what it is that we must do every day.
oh my Linda, you really have been thru the wringer with DH. so sorry he and you were put thru that bad experience. i found out long ago i could never leave DH alone while in ER or hospital. and i had to question everything they did to him. you are so right that they need vigilance 24/7. i am glad the locks worked to keep him in. its a nightmare when they are 'runners' and can disappear in a heartbeat. cant you continue the keppra for the seizures? mine also has occasional myoclonus jerkings still and i have gabapentin on hand as needed. its unforunate that your DH has progressed to gran mal seizure but that can be controlled with antiseizure meds. i hope things turnaround for you both. divvi
You are taking excellent care of him! Divvi gave good advice. And as divvi said, don't let him out of your sight in the hospital or doctor's office again.
A lot of them have no idea what to do for Alzheimer's patients....I took mine the first time - not knowing if it was a seizure, a stroke, a TIA, or what. After they put him through a lot of tests (and I had called his neurologist and she talked to the ER doctor on what to do), they finally released him that evening!!! After paying that bill, and realizing that it went away after a few hours, the next time, I just cleaned him up and watched him closely until he returned to himself. It wasn't a grand mall seizure though. It was just Alzheimer's disconnecting and reconnecting and causing his body to malfunction for a little while. He had four of those over the last three years. It is scary as I ever want to go through again.
I too wondered why he was taken off the Keppra & Depakote which are both seizure medication. My husband suffered from FTD, he had Absence Seizures in the beginning, he was prescribed Lamictal & Keppra, which he took until his death.
Thanks, Wolf, you made my day!!! divvi, Lloyd was on anti-seizure meds, but he would just sit around, half asleep with his mouth hanging open and slobbering. That is no way to live. He has only had 3 grand mals in 7 months so I will just take my chances. I see no point in giving him the pills and sacrificing whatever clarity he has left. Lloyd's myoclonus is worse in the mornings. If I can get him to stay in bed a little longer, it seems to pass. If he gets up too soon, he will fall. Trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night requires me almost carrying him, but whatever works! Before the locks, he was a runner. Once I found him walking down the street in the next town over. My God, it was awful. But we would make the phone calls and the kids and his brother and the neighbors would go out to look. Our neighbors have a lot to do with us adding on to the house and staying here. They are always looking out for him. The one has gone out in her car and looked for him. The one next door has gone out on his bike. The man across the street took him to the driving range before he got real bad. If he gets out of the car and wanders, the ladies down the street will stop him and talk to him until I can catch up. I used to drag him back home, but now I just take him for a walk. It is pretty hard to determine just how far he can go without having to be carried home.
Kadee and Mary, I have taken him off meds that diminish his clarity. I don't want to give him stuff that makes him even more confused. I always tell the doctor. He says I take care of him and he is my consultant. I realize someday, I won't have a choice about pills that knock him out; but for now, I feel I have that choice.
First off each person is a human being with their own rights. For me to judge what others are doing is to display my own confusion. We displace walking our own path when we do that. We all judge others but it should be viewed as entertainment - not as genuinely serious.
I also feed my wife and dress her etc. and I have her off all pills although I'm playing the game right now of Serequel which the manufacturer themselves admit does not reduce aggitation in Alzheimer's patients. However, 'medication' beyond direct cause and effect or which reduces suffering (anti depressents fall into this category - for me), is controlling the patient away from their natural state. I should say here that finding ways to manage aggression or hurtful behavious is serious and needs medication that helps.
Her clarity at times is startling although she can't function physically. It appears AD is more active in those areas of her brain first. Just yesterday my wife said to the lady that comes 3 days a week "I like you, but I love him." and she thanks me in her natural voice using our pet name usually after I tuck her in. Yes it's sweet; but, it proves to me that she still touches reality. She was a complete zombie on meds.
I wish it didn't drive me nuts that when she's here I am so stressed. A fact that is so clear now that she's in a nursing home for the week and I feel virtually relaxed and very much myself (think of it as a visit). When she's back I will return to dreading getting up and seeing what she's done and watching her deteriorate helplessly and I will be instantly back to feeling under siege. The mind is a strange thing. If I am aware of that why can't I switch it off? For the same reason we don't lose the weight, don't go to the gym, don't quit smoking, don't keep raking the same coals over the fire, and so on. Human beings. Nature of the beast.
Wolf, I deal with the aggression at times, too. To be perfectly honest, if he comes at me like he's gonna hit me; I call him on it. I tell him to go ahead and make the first punch good because I am going to knock him on his ass. So far, it has worked every time. I guess his basic instinct for survival without any more pain keeps him in line. There's cause and effect aka consequences for ya.
Let me add, Wolf, that we are all stressed doing this. I manage to sneak away on rare - very rare occasions - a trip to the store, taking my grandson to school. I'm stressed when I'm away from him, too. I worry if he is ok or if he is wandering around looking for me. My sister-in-law says I am his security blanket - his comfort.
Linda: The thing that was amazing to me about your dh is how fast he went down hill. Did the doctors have anything to say about that?? Did you think he had something wrong long before you could get him to the doctor ? Sounds like you have your hands full and I really admire all you can do.
JudithKB, we always are able to look back and see that the signs were there. Difficulty speaking was the first sign and that happened about 2005. Walking in the cement was about 2006 or 2007. The doctor thought he had experienced some TIA's, but never ran the appropriate tests. I realize all this now. He used to tell the same old stories over and over and over. Medical care was never an issue. If he was sick, I got him to the doctor. The first grand mal seizure and the hospital stay were the real pivotal point. It's been downhill ever since. I used to try every new thing I could find starting with Focus Factor right up to maitake mushrooms and Chinese moss extract. I used to have hope, but there is no hope any more. The only thing I still stick to is no tap water. I only give him purified water. Our water here has fluoride in it and aluminum is a by-product that I don't want in his system. Things aren't so bad since my daughter and her family are here. There are always teenagers in and out of the house and they all call him Grandpa and give him lots of attention which he mostly enjoys. The kids help to keep my mind busy so I don't dwell on all this. I just don't think about it. I just do what I gotta do.
Thanks Linda for your answer. You have your hands full,but it is good your daughter and family are with you. At least you can get out a bit and I am sure the family keeps you busy. My dh has had a couple of very minor seizures. Seems like you have learned to handle them I hope I can continue to be as brave as you are.
Yes, my DH has Diabetes and Alz plus other issues. For a long time the concern was too high glucose readings, now it is the reverse as the eating can be irratic. Our doctor now has him on 1.2 mg of Victoza in the morning along with the long actinb Lantus at 26 or 28 units both morning and night depending upon his glucose. If lower than 80 I dial back. Some days are better than others and when he is off base or shakey or clammy I know it is blood sugar levels.
Mimi, I fell I may be negligent in looking for other things to be wrong. The doctor he sees the most is the neurologist. I basically look for signs that he may be in pain. I've noticed for the last 2-3 days that if he gets up too quickly in the morning he seems to get a headache. I've got a cousin with a glucose meter so I think I will check his blood sugar myself. If there is anyone whose loved one has passed, please share with us what to look for .
Linda, I would suggest you not use your cousin's glucose meter because when it is checked it reveals all the readings for that period of time and one reading that is not hers or his, will give an unreliable average. My DH used to do this until his doctor told him to stop that. See if you can't get the doctor to order a glucose test for your DH and if in fact he is diabetic, then order a meter for him.
Symptoms of diabetes include thirst that is beyond what is more normal, frequent urination, getting up several times a night to piddle, loss of wt without being on a diet to mention a few of them which were the tip offs for my DH some years ago.
My dh has diabetes. He checks his glucose level once a day. He is on pills only no insulin - so far so good as he can check his own. His hands are always so cold it takes several sticks sometimes to get any blood. I urge him to run warm water over his hands and sometimes this just aggravates him. Strange isn't it how something so mild should cause irritation for him. Oh well could be worse.
Oh, he hardly ever pees, so I guess he's ok. And he never gets up at night if I take him to the bathroom before bed. I think the weight loss is just the Alzheimer's...the constant pacing and never wanting to relax and settle in one place. He goes to get his blood checked for the coumadin so I suppose they could check his blood sugar there.
Wolf, where are you? I was curious how your wife handled the nursing home when she first got there. Were they willing to comply with your wishes as far as her meds went? I know we are of the same mind that less is better. I know the feeling of finding what has been done while asleep or just tending to other things, too. Lloyd touches and handles EVERYTHING! He has absolutely no sense if he wants to touch something. I have to really watch him around the stove when I'm cooking because he would touch hot pans and never hesitate until it was too late. He follows me wherever I go which is a mixed blessing. Do you have that too?