Current altered reality

Just Bill

While this experience has been horrific, I am a naturally curious sort who can find fascination in everything. I really try to understand the world as she sees it. She knows who I am but I have 4 different identities in her world. She was diagnosed a year and a half ago but thinking back there was some unexplained weird behavior that was forgotten because they were few and far between incidents. Looking back connecting dots I think she may have shown symptoms as far back as 15 years. So that's the person she thinks her husband is, me 15 years ago. The current me is the caregiver. The person I am when I take her to work is the boss. The person that corrects her is someone she used to work with 15 years ago. All these people are me. She hallucinates and sees people all the time everywhere. She is always asking me who these people are. She has great hearing, she used to hear a cheerio drop in the kitchen from clear across the house. Now she says "What ?" every time I talk to her. I know she can hear me it's her brain hesitating for a second to process what I said. She has also started mumbling when she talks very low volume so now I'm saying "What ?" all the time too. She is obsessed with dying. Every other day she will say I talked to the doctor and he says I have 5 days. She didn't talk to the doctor it was a dream or hallucination. She has completely lost touch with reality. All her reality is 1% real 99% hallucination/dream/delusion. The rest of her mental scenery is pretty much in the moment. The rest of the day I am narrating existence to her and trying to fill in as many blanks to her distorted memory as I can. She has little to no short term memory so this is an endless loop every day. She will have a moment of brilliance now and again and say "See I don't have it." And I'll say "That's it ! You are cured ! Back to work !" She always laughs so I keep saying it. Over all she is pretty happy and cooperative her meds cocktail seems to be on point. No more anger that is a very welcome relief.

ImMaggieMae

Bill, what type of medication is she taking?  What was she like just before starting the medication? The more I read here, the more I believe that getting the right medications are the only thing that can make a difference once a PWD is at a certain point. And then it can still change from time to time, like a moving target. Has that been your experience? It also seems like even neurologists and psychiatrists don’t really understand how these meds are going to work because everyone is so different.

Just Bill

She takes lamotrigine for an existing epilipsy condition as well as an antipressant (effexor) in the morning. At night she takes a donepezil and 10mg of ambien. The ambien has been a real game changer. Both of us getting a good night sleep is a win. I saw a youtube video about Dr Mary Newport on type 3 diabetes. I reduced her sugar and she has been taking a swig of mct oil at meals. That made a difference. I'm not sure about the mct oil, she cut out enough sugar to have a positive benefit on its own.