Hypochondria

elizabethsb

Hello! My mother was diagnosed about two years ago. She has likely been struggling with it much longer but was very independent and hid it well... plus, well, the pandemic and isolation. Fast forward to today. She has had a "sore throat and aches" every day since February 2022. She wakes up and is "very sick" often refusing to go out with friends for fear of getting them sick etc. She was diagnosed with acid reflux caused by alcohol consumption (which she refuses to stop). It is soooo hard to know how to support her. It is true that she has had a cold here and there, but the consistent every single day complaint of how sick she is, just doesn't seem possible or reasonable.

I do push back and tell her it is her bursitis (arthritis of her hips) and give her pain meds, or remind her that she has acid reflux but that she is not sick or contagious. Also, if any of us mention feeling sick or get sick, she instantly has the same illness, it has gotten to the point that our family does not share if we are sick to her for fear it will set her back.

Doctors don't know what to do given that she has had the same symptoms and a million different treatments with no resolve AND they never check her chart to see that she has ALZ so they believe her when she says she just started getting the symptoms.

Some of this was venting, but my real question is... is this common? Do you see this with your loved ones? How do you support them when they get stuck in this cycle of being sick? I suspect she might be depressed or confused and that doesn't help us clear things up. Any insight would be greatly appreciated :)

harshedbuzz

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your need to be here but glad you found this place.

A couple of thoughts come to mind about this.

If your mom is "time-traveling" she may be regressing to a time when she was young and illness brought attention and TLC. She may not recall the bursitis and arthritis if she's mentally traveled back in time.

Even if your mom is still good verbally, she may be struggling with conversation and using vague ailments as a way to interact and get attention. My dad this a lot; he even complained of pain pointing to his elbow and saying it hurt because he'd just had knee surgery. FTR, my mom was the one recovering from TKR.

She may be using illness as a way to get out of social interaction with her non-impaired friends. Many PWD develop apathy and lose interest in friends and activities that used to be very important to them. Or it could be that she can't easily follow group conversations and it stresses her out.

If you think she's depressed, schedule an appointment with a geripsych to explore medication options. There are treatments to improve mood and help PWD get unstuck.

HB

HollyBerry

I read something recently that mentioned "illness halucinations" (there was another term used) and it resonated because my partner has also had weeks of GI discomfort that led to all sorts of tests; headaches, that led to various interventions that actually helped for a while (dentist, eye doctor, allergist); hip pain followed by xrays and a recommendation for PT and yoga, which she wouldn't do - you get the idea. I think in her case there was probably some basis for truth but her brain blows it up into something bigger and then she perseverates on it. It does seem worse when she's anxious about something. It seems like she almost enjoys being "sick" for a while, maybe for the attention or maybe because she gets out of doing things she doesn't want to do, but eventually she gets sick of being sick and suddenly she feels better. I have a drawerful of OTC meds and I can often break up the perseveration by saying "let's get ahead of it with some (whatever) so we can go to (something she likes)" It might be worth a conversation with her provider to see if treating some underlying anxiety might help.