Hi,
My mother-in-law was diagnosed with memory loss, most likely due to Alzheimers in early 2008. She was initially prescribed Exelon, but reacted very badly to it with nausea and vomiting. Her medication was changed to Reminyl. She has been on this for nearly 6 months now, and it has been a horrible battle for her - after a long and difficult battle to tolerate Reminyl she has managed to get onto 8mg daily, but cannot tolerate the 16mg which makes her violently sick. She still struggles some days with nausea, and describes a strange sensation at the back of her head which she finds distressing. She has lost over 2 stone in weight trying to get onto this medication and finds it very hard to eat.
Over Christmas we decided to go back to the consultant and she was told not to worry about trying to get up to the 16mg dose, and to stay on the 8mg. The trouble is, her quality of life is still badly affected by taking the 8mg.
What I want to know is whether it is worth her fighting like this to be on this drug. Obviously that is a hard question to answer, but I would love to hear of others' experience with this treatment. It is horrible to see her suffering so much with these awful side-effects - on her bad days she is like the living dead, no colour, just gripping onto things.
She is at mild-moderate stage, and generally manages pretty well at the moment, with support from my father in law who is brilliant with her.
Thank you for reading,
Cat xx
My mother-in-law was diagnosed with memory loss, most likely due to Alzheimers in early 2008. She was initially prescribed Exelon, but reacted very badly to it with nausea and vomiting. Her medication was changed to Reminyl. She has been on this for nearly 6 months now, and it has been a horrible battle for her - after a long and difficult battle to tolerate Reminyl she has managed to get onto 8mg daily, but cannot tolerate the 16mg which makes her violently sick. She still struggles some days with nausea, and describes a strange sensation at the back of her head which she finds distressing. She has lost over 2 stone in weight trying to get onto this medication and finds it very hard to eat.
Over Christmas we decided to go back to the consultant and she was told not to worry about trying to get up to the 16mg dose, and to stay on the 8mg. The trouble is, her quality of life is still badly affected by taking the 8mg.
What I want to know is whether it is worth her fighting like this to be on this drug. Obviously that is a hard question to answer, but I would love to hear of others' experience with this treatment. It is horrible to see her suffering so much with these awful side-effects - on her bad days she is like the living dead, no colour, just gripping onto things.
She is at mild-moderate stage, and generally manages pretty well at the moment, with support from my father in law who is brilliant with her.
Thank you for reading,
Cat xx
