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Is Your Medication List Making You Sicker?
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Is Your Medication List Making You Sicker?
A Sunday Times investigation found that 1,000 elderly people a day are going to A&E in England because of problems linked to multiple medications.
The article says doctors are routinely giving elderly patients potentially harmful levels of medication, with side effects including falls, low blood pressure, dizziness and irregular heartbeats.
More than six million people over 60 are taking five or more drugs, and 85,000 are taking twenty or more.
My stepmother was remarkably healthy into her late 80s and had barely needed a doctor. Then she was diagnosed with heart failure and put on several medications.
The change was frighteningly fast. She lost her appetite and sense of taste, became increasingly frail, had to move in with her niece, and we genuinely thought we were losing her.
Then another specialist reassessed her, ran further tests, said there was nothing wrong with her heart and took her off the medication.
She turns 90 this month, and she’s back to remarkable health.
How often do we see a sudden decline in an older preston and assume it is ageing or disease, should we be asking: could the medication itself be part of the problem?
Link to the Sunday Times investigation in the comments.
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2 Replies
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This doesn’t surprise me one iota. I have a friend who is in her 80’s now, when she was in her early 50’s it was discovered that she had a tumour in her head, to the side behind her ear the size of a tennis ball. Long story short, she had it removed and started to have seizures, (she knew this was a possibility prior to having the surgery) which they quickly got under control. She has been on the same medication all these years with no further seizures.
Until recently, she had a fall and was taken into hospital where some white coated boffin decided to take her off that medication for another and within 24 hours she had had a seizure. She was kept in hospital for a further week during which time she had 3 more seizures. She told her son to bring her her clothes and discharged herself. She went back to her doctor who immediately put her back on her medication and she is again seizure free. She will now never go to a hospital again. Is it any wonder? Cynical me asks was that their aim?
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