He gets his medicines in the mail, sent from Honolulu. For the first time they are late!! And I have had to give him his dose of seroquel a bit smaller. Yes I have been on the phone with the doctor in town, and if it does not arrive tomorrow I will have to drive the 2 hours to Kona to pick up a special batch she will order, to hold him over.
Of course I should have sent the refill request in a bit earlier I guess, and I will next time. When I talked to the doctor today I told her I have a few 10MG. valiums in the house, should I use that tonight as I have only one seroquel left, and he usually takes 1.5 . I also need a half pill in the morning.
She said, she did not really want me to give him the valium, but if I felt I had to, give it to him at NIGHT tonight...and save the seroquel for his morning dose.
So up until tonight, the only change that happened is he got 50mg of Seroquel at bed last night, instead of 75 mg. He got his usual half dose this morning. I swear, even with that very small change, he seemed more irritable today. ( I could be imagining that in fear....)
UGH!! I hope I don't have to drive to town tomorrow, but if it is not in the 3 o'clock mail I will have to .
Here is my feedback. I would get up in the morning and drive to your doctor and pick up the pills she has. That way you will know you are covered until the pills from the VA arrives whether it is tomorrow or two days from tomorroqw. Who knows how late they might be and you have a pill for in the morning and that will get you to town. I have done the same thing. Forgot to order when I was suppose to order and had to get a prescription from the local doctor. Doesn't hurt to have a few back up pills. Especially the Seroquel.
The VA doctors can set up automatic shipments. My husband's PC was doing that for his galantamine but due to moving around we sometimes missed it. Got it stopped after much problems, but this works for us. For you, talk to the doctor about the auto ship making sure it ships at least 2 weeks before you need it.
Oh Coco, I agree with Judith. I tried taking my DH of Namenda twice after I ran out of the pills & noticed an increase in his aggression. I also order his pills by mail & I knew that it would take a few days to get, so luckily our PCP had some starter sets of Namenda so I went & picked them up. I only had a 5 minute drive, but I would have driven 2 hours if I had too. Good luck, Sweetie!
messing with the doseages as we know can cause some quick changes. i would ask the local dr closest to you for a few samples of each med if they can get some for you as backup only. if not i would pay for a weeks worth out of pocket for emergency issues like this. its always a concern to get meds late -hope you get them soon. divvi
Coco, set up the automatic refills so you're covered in the future. Can you call the dispensing company (VA, Caremark, Medco, whoever they come from) and see if they've been sent yet and if they have when were they sent and when they would be expected to arrive? I agree, you should make the drive to the dr.
They are now going to send pills for 3 months at a time.And....I will order the refills WELL ahead of time.
He has his dosage this morning, the last of the last, and I gave him a bit of a short dose last night, plus a crumb of valium. We are packing up the car at 3 pm, and going to the mail. If it is not there , we are driving to town for his refill.
I so appreciate your understanding and firm advice. And I don't want to know, what he is like without the seroquel, I don't want to know. He is really changed this past 2 weeks, his speech is way more compromised and he has a strange uncomfortable laugh. (thinking it is a bit of an armor)
Alot of our pres. come from Canada.When I need a new pres. our Dr. gives me to get filled for 3 mo. and a second one to have on hand should the mail be late.Works out for us. Seroquel come 100 in a bottle,very reasonably priced compared to 30 here in US.I also keep extra Zoloft on hand and Prozac for the dog.Some days I am tempted to take the Prozac,the heck with the dog.
We get our drugs from Walgreens, 3 months at a time, they automatically send refills out every 3 months, e-mail when they do, allow me to check via the Internet and notify the doctors when prescriptions need to be rewritten.
here I go to the Post office, cross your fingers and toes. I will report back. If you do not see it here within the next hour...means I drove to the "big town".......
well...........no it did not come. And so I called the Dr. in Honolulu, and she said, don't drive to town, he will be allright for a couple of days. I have to go Saturday anyway and she said he should be fine. This is what she said-Seroquel is out of the system real fast and does not really have withdrawal symptoms. She did say he may exhibit the behaviours that he had before he took it, which was extreme agitation and not sleeping well through the night. To use a very small dose of valium if it gets bad.
I could have driven in there, she advised me it would be ok, so I did not. Now, it SHOULD COME TOMORROW, something is wrong with the mail this time that is for sure. But if it does not come by Friday, she will write a prescription the I will pick up in town the next day. This is the week I do not have the Home Aide, so he will be with me. It is very very hard taking him to market but it is either that or ...no cash. (ok that is exaggerating, as you will see on my other thread) then anal part is true though.
She is also going to send me two months supply plus the one I am getting.
I have learned my lesson that is for sure.
As to my thread of quitting my work, I have something to post there...thanks you guys for all your advice and I hope I have made the right decision.
Coco...just one other little suggestion for you since Dado and Jim seemed to be following the same path until Jim really went off the deep end. You might want to get the Dr. to give you a supply of Ativan just so you will have it on hand if needed. It was a life saver drug for me and Jim. Some nights I even took a small dose and I do so even now.
Now is the time to think of what might happen and what you might need. You may never need what you think you might need, but better to be prepared then unprepared when living so far away. I had all kinds of incontinent supplies and our bed all prepared and never needed that at all. Also, you might want to think of having your dr. order a walker for Dado. I use to call it Jim's car....I put a little American Flag on it and hung some old keys on it and he would laugh at how silly I was. Then when he had to be in the wheel chair...I called that his truck. He would say go get my car...and I would reply..nooo...not this time...you have to ride in the truck.
I have all the supplies sent regularly, and will ask about the Ativan. JudithKB* that is lovely what you shared about Jim and his walker and chair. ( HIs vehicles) We have a chair but not a walker.
I am not going to add to any other threads right now, Abby I am thinking of you but just too tired to comment. He was up all night and is pacing and fidgeting and obsessing like crazy today. I should not have listened to the Dr. and made the drive to town for more Seroquel. Even the valium could not calm him. The only good thing, is , what a test to see, how he REALLY is, and how he NEEDS those meds.
If they are not here at 3, it is truly off to town.
His pills arrived we just got back from the Post office...(just 10 minutes)
I cannot tell you how much he changed in just one day without that seroquel. Two things though, could not sleep for agitation, and, could not put on his slip on shoes, absolutely could not. I heard him flopping around the house with one shoe, my God what a strange disease.
Ok one more thing. His eyes were teary and sad and he just giggled almost every time I looked at him. This changes all happened in one day. I had had a dream last night in the fitful sleep. Dado was talking to me in his old regular way, and looking deeply at me. We knew he was ill but not for that moment, and he told me, "I am scared"
Sorry to be so sad. We are ok, and I hoping for solutions to the cries for help on this board.
Coco--glad you got the pills. Can you imagine dealing with an AD spouse before Seroquel was invented? That's what my MIL went through years ago with FIL. We think we have it bad dealing with this disease today--I think about all those that had to do it years ago, before the discovery of psych drugs. All they had then were drugs that knocked the person out.
He just took a really bad fall. I could not lift him up and had to call the neighbor to put him in bed. He fell right by the bedroom door. What is happening??? I hesitate to contact the doctor , yet again, this is just nuts.
I feel so self centered writing about us so much, it just seems to be over the top. This cannot be real.
Coco,, you are not being self centered. You are scared and that is when we tend to write the most. That is because we rely on each other to get thru this mess. Unfortunately this is real. It is not nice, it is scary and it is real. You are doing the best you can. Small things make our dh's change faster. Once things calm down and the meds are on board again he should calm down. I hope things get better for you because it is tough going thru this minute by minute not knowing what the next one will bring about. My heart goes out to you as I remember how this was when my dh was home. It was never ending stress for both of us. Prayers and hugs for both of you.....
coco. dont hesitate to contact the drs they are there for this purpose. and yes we know how they can be affected with so little. even minute doses or lack of meds can alter their performances so easily. i give my DH half of a very tiny ativan and he sleeps for hours. and groggy the next day. so amazing such a tiny dose. i suspect that maybe the lack of the seroquel AND the valium may have affected him more than normal. these guys are very susceptible to medications. i also would opt for ativan instead of valium. speak to his dr to have that on hand should you need a low dose? my DH is soooo very delicate with meds and its one of the only few he can tolerate without alot of side effects. hoping with the proper doses again, your dear Dado will stabilize for you in a day or so. divvi
Coco....hugs, hugs....this is so difficult right now. Hopefully he will level off today. And, every thing seems worse when we are tired. You are strong and will get through this. Keep us posted. More hugs.
He has slept through the night barely getting up to pee. That seroquel works like a charm for him.
As for the falling, he has had a few lately, even before this mix up. Yesterday he was extra unsteady BEFORE the seroquel, he had had a very small dose of valium that night before, and no seroquel, who knows how that affected him, along with the no sleep and agitation.
It was unreal how I could not lift him up no matter what I did, and he is not a large man. (I am strong, but I could tell I was going to hurt myself if I tried too hard)
I ended up dragging him over to the bed and eventually he managed to crawl on.
The biggest emotional change I noticed this past week, is the laughing strangely when I talk to him, just looks at me and laughs. Sometimes his eyes get teary after. Then , for the first time he could not remember his 4 sisters names, his sisters that have had such a big impact in his life. He said, Lucinda, Patty, Patricia and Lucinda when I asked him. ( He got the Lucinda right)
I had some sleep yes better. Now, taking it day by day, let alone week by week.