Eliminate Medications

Malka

     My LO is 94. He is taking a multitude of medications, including Memmatine for his dementia. I want to talk to the doctor about eliminating some of his meds. He is still taking Rovostatin that he has been on for close to 30 years now. The doctor approved him being off the aspirin that he takes, since he take Plavix.

Does anyone have experience with this. I know I need guidance because statin have to come off of slowly.

Thanks for any suggestions.

M1

Hi malka, there is no need to taper a statin, you can just stop it. If it were up to me, I'd keep the aspirin and drop the plavix. Or you could discontinue both.  Aspirin is known to have some protective effects by itself but plavix has only been studied with aspirin, not without it.

harshedbuzz

Malka-

We looked at all of dad's meds in the late stages of dementia and discussed this with dad's geriatric doctor. Dad was around 85 at the time and had COPD and COPD. The decision was made to remove his BP med (with weight loss his BP was not as elevated as it'd been) and the statin. We discontinued the Metformin he took as well as it had always given him GI issues.

We kept anything that assisted him breathing comfortably and the psychoactive meds that reduced his anxiety and resistance to care. 

HB

May flowers

When we brought my FIL home after his hip surgery, we took him off all medications. We worked with his neurologist and that was important. It was a slow process off tapering and we did go through 3 weeks of withdrawals which were rough. But once out of his system, he was more himself.  He ended up back on some meds for comfort  - acid reflux meds, Zyrtec, melatonin. After about 4 months we put him on Risperidone to help with the morning agitation and afternoon sundowning. That worked well and didn’t make him drowsy, if anything it gave him energy.

We did have to do something about his urinary retention and Flomax made him agitated, so we chose a natural prostrate supplement that has boron and saw palmetto. That supplement worked great, with no side effects. Our hospice nurse was so impressed she took a photo of the supplement and the agency doctor now recommends it to others who can’t tolerate the Flomax and related supplements.