My MIL has moderately severe Altzheimers, and she has suffered for years with arthritis in her neck which gives her crippling headaches. She's had a brain scan to rule out a brain tumour.
Pain management is a real problem at the moment. She was on paracetamol and codeine but it was felt that the codeine was possibly making her confusion worse, so that was stopped and she did seem to improve slightly. She was still really struggling with the headaches, so the doctor prescribed patches (I'm not sure which drug) but the headaches continued. He prescribed stronger patches, but there seems to have been some confusion and she accidentally ended up effectively doubling up, which put her in a terrible state last week. Hopefully she is back on the lower dose, but her Altzheimers symptoms are much worse and she is still in pain with headaches.
We are at a complete loss what to do to help. Has anyone any experience of chronic pain with Altzheimers? I'm starting to wonder if she is hallucinating or remembering the pain, in which case no amount of strong painkillers could take it away. We are in a catch 22 where she can't function without the painkillers because of the pain, but the painkillers are knocking her out to the extent where she can't function.
Pain management is a real problem at the moment. She was on paracetamol and codeine but it was felt that the codeine was possibly making her confusion worse, so that was stopped and she did seem to improve slightly. She was still really struggling with the headaches, so the doctor prescribed patches (I'm not sure which drug) but the headaches continued. He prescribed stronger patches, but there seems to have been some confusion and she accidentally ended up effectively doubling up, which put her in a terrible state last week. Hopefully she is back on the lower dose, but her Altzheimers symptoms are much worse and she is still in pain with headaches.
We are at a complete loss what to do to help. Has anyone any experience of chronic pain with Altzheimers? I'm starting to wonder if she is hallucinating or remembering the pain, in which case no amount of strong painkillers could take it away. We are in a catch 22 where she can't function without the painkillers because of the pain, but the painkillers are knocking her out to the extent where she can't function.