Drooling(2)

ImMaggieMae

My DH who is around late stage 6 has started drooling in the past several days. It isn’t all the time, but worse in the evening and before bedtime. The past couple nights he has also been coughing at night, a loud cough. I think it may be related to the drooling. He sleeps on his back, on one of those wedge things for acid reflux and also a pillow. Last night I checked his oxygen level with one of those little oxyimeters. It was between 92 and 94 . Normal is 95-100. I tried getting him up but he was so sleepy (Risperidone) that the best I could do is to sit him up for several minutes. I saw in the morning that he had spit up a lot of phlegm on the edge of the bed. After a couple hours his oxygen level was back to 98-99. His temp was normal and a home Covid test was negative, as one earlier in the week.

Has anyone else experienced this with their LO? Taking him to an ER around here is a last resort for me because he always seems to come back worse than he was for memory issues. Also, a 3 hour wait in a waiting room with an incontinent person is a nightmare. His primary doc wasn’t returning calls yesterday when I was calling to see about something else. And her advise is almost always to go to ER. 

Has anyone else had this issue? I am beside myself with worry.

Ed1937

I'm sorry you are dealing with this. My wife has started drooling at times, but nothing more than that. I wish I had some words of wisdom for you.

We just went through that ER visit, with dirty underwear. I explained to them about it, hoping to get out faster, but that didn't happen. But they did clean her up when we finally got called back.

M1

Wondering whether it could be a medication side effect.  Drooling, sweating, increased nasal drainage could all be signs of increased parasympathetic tone--something that occurs more in the evenings anyway.  Might be related to the risperdal?  I'd have to google it but it's just a thought.  

And yes:  could absolutely be the risperdal.  I'd check his other meds too.

Frustrates me too when docs answer to just go the ER.  Most don't get paid for phone calls but it's really not a very helpful response in a lot of situations.

ImMaggieMae

Thank you for your replies. He did have the respiradone increased about a month ago. The other thing I didn’t mention in my last post is that he has swallowing issues that have been going on for several months. The speech therapist at the hospital back in March said he was ok with liquids but couldn’t check solid foods because he was fasting for a possible gallbladder surgery which they decided not to do. But I add a thickener to his liquids now because he is clearly having issues sometimes. I hope this isn’t a step into stage 7. He isn’t bedridden. This thing has moved so fast since Aug.

Buggsroo

My husband was on rispiridone for about two months. He drooled a lot during that time. Sadly he had to go off the rispiridone because of the side effects. Drooling, pacing etc, were some of the effects that stopped immediately after he discontinued taking the drug.

M1

Maggie I think I'd call the doc on Tuesday, at least.  Maybe he would tolerate a different antipsychotic better.  You could try going back to your previous dose in the mean time.

jmlarue

The first thing that occurred to me is to ask, has DH ever been diagnosed with sleep apnea? I have, but I cannot use cpap or bi-pap devices because I suffer from claustrophobia. As much as I've tried to overcome that issue, the moment I fall asleep, the mask gets jerked off and thrown aside. I have absolutely no control over that. The consequence is that I have episodes where I will wake up in a panic, unable to get a breath. Once I do get that first giant gasp of air to revive me, I generally experience severe coughing, sometimes to the point of gagging. I'm pretty sure my body is trying to clear the saliva that I have aspirated from that first, desperate gulp of air I take.

You also mention that your DH sleeps on his back and is having issues with swallowing. One of the ways I try to avoid these apnea episodes is to force myself to sleep on my side by wedging a pillow at my back to keep me from rolling flat. This allows the drool to drain out of my mouth as I sleep. I'll generally have a wet pillow in the morning, but I don't stop breathing in the middle of the night quite so often.

You might be able to help your DH by making use of pillows to prevent him from sleeping on his back. It's a pretty low-tech experiment to see if it helps before resorting to a flurry of doctor consults.