Talking to the Doctor

Well I talked to the Doctor yesterday. He said that it's very typical to give a dose of seroquel to patients who are experiencing symptoms like my mothers. I asked him about the dose, the side effects, and he said that my mother needed something to calm her down, and that is the most typically prescribed meds. I'm still not convinced, but I'm going to give it a chance and see how it goes.

So what symptoms was she exhibiting? I asked, and he said she was very anxious and 'wound up'. I guess that's fair, she was anxious about not having her license. but I'm not sure she needs 50mgs of this medication.

He also did not increase the Aricept. Apparently, there are no studies that prove that increasing the dose helps at all, and the doctor said that actually it's shown to decrease the effect in recent studies. So is it working for my mom? Most likely not. Dr. XXXXX said it only works in 30% of the patients, and unfortunately, it's the best thing on the market right now for Alzheimers.

The doctor my mother is seeing is one of the best doctors in the field of Alzheimers. I'm going to trust his professional opinion and see how it goes. It just seems like there should be something else out there. We need something more. . anything.

Finally, I asked were there any studies, any clinical trials my mother could do, he said at the moment there weren't but they were working on some coming up in about a year. In about a year it might be too late for my mom. He didn't tell me this, but he didn't need to.


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I just called my mom, to check and see how she was feeling and she said the new medicine was making her feel extremely tired and she felt sleepy all the time. I asked her if she slept good last night and she said she slept for over 10 hours. That's actually a good thing for my mom, because she didn't sleep well before, so maybe this will help her fall asleep, but she said she didn't think she was going to take it during the day anymore because it made her sleep all day. I have to say I agree with that, I don't want her sleeping all day, that's not ok, but I do think it will help her at night. I'm going to call her back later and see how she feels. She seemed to be in good spirits on the phone. She said it was raining and she was working on a puzzle. She also said she didn't have any money and she wanted some broccoli salad from wal-mart, but they were out of it. I'm going to call my Uncle and see if he can pick her up some on the way home from work today.