help! my dad went crazy!

[chuckrocks]

my sister is checking the med websites, i thought i could get some input from my community.
he's 64, a retired pipe fitter, and lives in hahira ga. we're on the way there for xmas tonite. he got a case of what was thought as an infection in his lungs, so they dosed him with telethromicine(sp?) 10 the first day, then down by 2 per day until 1 the last day. then gave him zertec for an allergy reaction(he does yard work for my g-ma's church)and prednizone for a rash he had most likely from the yard work.
it all started with a fever. about 102. mom gave him some tylenol and he felt better. then came the walking pneumonia. he got on the antibiotics and was sleeping most of the day. thats when he started pacing the house like he was lost. my mom asked him what his son's name was, and he just stared at her. she took him to the doc, and he had him count the buttons on my mom's blouse (10) he got up to 36. they have done a cat scan, he has no abnormal blood counts, he hasn't had a stroke, and they say this is too sudden to be Alzheimer's. we are all dumbfounded, including the doctors.
if you know anything or have been through this, i'd appreciate a little guidance. i'm sick to death, my last memory of HIS father was a curled up 80lb bag of bones in a hospital. Alzheimer's is not new to his family.
edit: thanks everyone for your input and thoughts. i've got a host of questions for the doctors tomorrow. i also have a ten hour drive starting in about a half hour. talk to ya'll from GA!
thanks again!

[miss_kitty]

1. ER Room NOW!

I mean it. He needs medical care stat.

On Edit: Oops saw he's been getting care... I hope he'll be ok. Has the medicine had a chance to leave his system?

[chuckrocks]

3. he's been in the hospital for 2 days now

thanks

[miss_kitty]

9. Sorry

I hope that your dad will recover.

Did they give him a PET scan? CT Scan?

On Edit: Bad reader here. How about a spinal tap?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. I'm with Kitty.

Call the squad NOW. He sounds shocky.

[unblock]

8. E.R. NOW. GO.

many things it could be, some of the very time critical.

go. now.

[karlrschneider]

2. I have no idea what's wrong, but here's a good thought for your dad.

Hope he gets better.

[chuckrocks]

5. thank you!

lots of people pulling for him. appreciate it!

[hickman1937]

6. Alzhiemers doesn't happen that fast

sounds like a clash of med's. Emergency room now!

[hickman1937]

11. sorry. Just read the rest

He's in the right place. I'll say a prayer.

[TNDemo]

7. He sounds septic,

which means the infection is out of control. He probably needs to be on IV antibiotics. I would agree that this is an ER situation. A sudden change in mental status is a danger sign. This is definitely not Alzheimer's - my family is full of it and it is very slow and never presents quickly like this. I have seen septic people and it really interferes with their mental status. The time is now to get medical help.

As a PS - they may need to get a culture because antibiotics won't work if it is a pneumonia caused by yeast or something like that.

[Mills Street]

10. doesn't seem like Alzheimer's

because the onset is so quick. Alzheimer's is slow and insidious. Makes me wonder if it is med-related? Hang in there and best wishes to you and your family - I hope you find out what is the matter soon!

[Guaranteed]

12. Did he take any antihistamines/decongestants?

They have some very speedy stuff in them that can really WHACK you out, depending on your tolerance.

[Catchawave]

13. Lyme Disease ?

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001319.htm#Symptoms

It's usually very difficult to diagnose, quite treatable, just needs to be on the right meds.

Good luck, sending positive thoughts your way and hope he feels better soon!

[preciousdove]

23. BINGO!

Lyme Disease is a deep tissue infection and is usually not detected in standard blood tests. CBC/White Counts or other shot gun tests. It can infect the brain but that is usually a slower process, however when an acute infection anywhere is treated with antibiotics there is a die off of spirochetes after a few days produces toxins that create a dementia that is not quite as bad as Aids dementia. Check the www.lymenet.org forum for a Lyme Specialist. Flushing Cholesterol out of the body helps get rid of the toxins much faster. Otherwise they keep being reabsorbed in the gut.

Most doctors don't have a clue on how to deal with complications and often do more harm than good. If he ends up in a psych ward Brian Fallon Columbia Medical Center is THE expert in neuro Lyme. The faster it is properly treated the better. A short course antibiotic at this point is like throwing a glass of water on a house fire. Often psych drugs don't work or make things worse.

The ticks are often too small to be seen even when engorged and YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE A RASH TO HAVE THE DISEASE!

98& of the 100 Lyme tests on the market only found 33% of Lyme infected blood in FDA approval tests. How they can let these tests remain on the market is a testament to how bad the CDC and FDA can be right now. You want IGENX tests.

I hope they find out what is wrong soon.

[benburch]

14. Start reading here.

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3447.htm

[benburch]

16. You might also write the author of that page. nt

[roguevalley]

sweetie, he could be having a reaction to all the drugs. my dad

if he takes too much medicine, can't remember his own name. that is common among older people. I think since they have done a lot of tests and it shows nothing, that that is good. Nothing is good. Let him have a chance to come off the meds and he should be himself. I will keep you all in my thoughts.

[madrchsod]

26. they did the same to my mom..

i had to check on here every few hours while she was taking cispro for 4 days..made her sick and delusional. hell it did the same to my wife and believe me she has high tolerance to drugs

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. Sorry about your dad.

We just went through something sort of like this with my mother. But the big difference is that she was 84 and was already in rather poor health. Last May she got quite sick, went into the hospital, and was never the same after that. She was hospitalized several more times, was in and out of nursing home care, on all kinds of meds, and she got more and more confused and sick. Finally it just got to be too much for her, and she passed away a couple of days ago. They said it was a sort of accelerated progressive dementia, not Alzheimers, which usually worsens very slowly. We are still rather baffled by it since it came on rather quickly and unexpectedly. But since your father is much younger, it may not be anything like that at all, and if his health is otherwise good he might get better. It could even be a drug reaction. Good luck; I hope he will be OK.

[serryjw]

17. Silly question ?

has he been exposed to Asbestos? I am not a doctor BUT what you are describing is an exposure to a foreign matter of some kind that causes brain confusion..What could he have touched while gardening?

[Guaranteed]

18. Well, it doesn't sound like just "confusion"...

It sounds like he went manic...

On edit: I guess a good question would be, was he just "wandering" around the house, or was he very deliberately PACING around the house?

[serryjw]

20. There are so many poisens in gardening.

I would try and trace everything he was physically exposed to. I would bet my next pay check it is some kind of poisen

[unblock]

19. have they tested for kidney/liver function?

just wondering if he's metabolizing the meds properly.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. Prednisone!

I re-read your post and noticed he was on Prednisone. That stuff can make you nuts -- we had to take my mom off it because she got really wild after it was given to her for back pain. The doctors said it can make people get kind of psycho sometimes. My mom's problems weren't caused by the Prednisone, but it did make them worse. After she stopped taking it she was much more sedate, though still very sick from her other afflications. Research Prednisone -- it's a steroid, and what happens to some older people is that they get a sort of "'roid rage," and the effects take awhile to go away.

[Lex]

22. Ask for a list of ALL the meds he's on right now.

Then get on the web and do some research.

My SO's Dad went batshit crazy and got put in the locked mental ward in the hospital. Delusional, hallucinating, wandering the house at night, etc.

The problem? He had a bad reaction to a medicine (a treatment for Parkinsons called mirapex).

I found the rare side-effects (delusional, etc.) while researching all his meds online (he was on blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, and other stuff). Anyway, we asked the docs to take him off the mirapex. Two days after they took him off, he was pretty much back to himself again.

They found another drug to help him with his Parkinson's.

[hickman1937]

24. I think he's gone to talk to the doc's

chuckrocks, get back to us.:kick:

[madrchsod]

25. over medicated

check each medicine for side effects. shit just got done looking the shit up.... every medicine he has taken has the same side effects that you describe! esp. zertec and prednizone can cause diabetes...get to a doctor that knows what the fuck he is doing...believe me some don`t have a clue in what they prescribe. the doctors did the same stuff to my mom and she dam near died from their stupidity.

[Lex]

28. I can attest to the fact that the doctors don't know all the

possible side-effects of the drugs. Some doctors don't seem to be familiar with *any* of the side-effects.

If we hadn't researched OURSELVES about the side-effects of my SO's father's drugs, we wouldn't have known that the mirapex was making him hallucinate and delusional.

The doctor seemed stumped about the whole thing at the time, until we printed out the stuff about the mirapex side-effects and handed the paper to the doctor.

[Red State Rebel]

27. Have they done a spinal tap?

I had hallucinations when I had menningitis - the hospital blood work only showed elevated liver numbers so they thought I had hepatitis - put me in a private room and waited for me to turn yellow. When I didn't, they did the spinal tap and found the menningitis.

[bettyellen]

29. find him a really good geriatric psychiatrist -- the elderly have a lot

very complex issues and the many meds make it all the more difficult. my mom has alzheimers, dad had a rare kind of parkinsons that includes alzheimer symptoms...and neither has a sudden onset like this. get detailed answers from mom as to whether he has been confused often lately - she may have been not wanting to worry you- but it's time to come clean for dad's sake. usually the first Alzheimer's confusion is about where he is or where he should be-or a lot of talk about the past as if it's present that's very common too.
could he have been very dehydrated from the fever? i have heard of young people having temporary delusions and confusion from bad bouts of pneumonia. that plus an excess or bad interaction between the of meds. i'm really hoping that this is what it is.
geriatric psychiatrists rock, mine gave my mom a good three year reversal in AD decline that i absolutly treasured, as well as forcing my mom my brothers and i to cope and decide on strategy for dealing with in the coming years. without him, she'd have an useless 40 year old will, no power of attorney or living will . we would be so up shits creek without him. he actually gave us kids a lot of coping advice as well as making sure that all her care was mind and body intergrated.
i encourage all of you with elderly parents to make sure they take advantage of this relatively new medical specialty.
good luck chuck, as i recall you do really rock, and you ain't alone in this. feel free to pm me if you need questions.

here is a link and a hug --
i will see if i can find something more local for you too!
:hug:
http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/yourhealth/Articles/a2003-07-29-ger_psych.html

[bettyellen]

36. Mr Rocks. I sent you a PM with the names of a couple of

specialists in Ger Psy. Also sent the same in an email because I thought I was PM ing you.
Good luck and take notes.
Betty

[Mz Pip]

30. Predisone

can make people really loopy. My Hubby's aunt was taking it for a blood desease and she was acting really weird. After she quit taking it she got back to her normal self.

Might want to have the doctors check that out.

Sending good thoughts your way. Have a safe drive.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[n2mark]

31. Sometimes I wonder

about all the drugs doctors prescribe to their patients. The FDA is proving this.

[hickman1937]

32. I don't know how much longer I'll be up,

but i'm going to kick it for chuck. I think it would be cool if, when he came back, the thread was still here. Kind of a chucksdad watch.

[hickman1937]

33. My last time. sorry chuck I tried.

:kick:

[SKKY]

34. You mean this isn't normal????

My Dad's a pipefitter and he does this all the time. I thought that's just the way they were.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. My father was like this

about 24 hours before he had a fatal heart attack while he was in the hospital for what they thought was gall bladder trouble. He was confused and disoriented, and became belligerant and rude with the nursing staff.

I hope this isn't what's happening to your dad...
~sending good thoughts~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[bettyellen]

37. A kick and a toast to Big Daddy Rocks !

:toast:

[bettyellen]

38. kick for the morning crew.....

[RadicalMom]

39. I went wacko when I went septic and it took them a bit of time

to figure out what was wrong. I had an infection which was the result of surgery 6 weeks prior. They tell me I went crazy, flailing about, yelling at everyone, insisting I go home, kicked a nurse, they had to put me in restraints. I remembered none of it from the time my husband came to take me home, cause I had started to feel a little weird and called him to get me at work, until I woke up from a coma eight days later. No Alzheimers, no brain damage, luckily. Sepsis can occur from any infection, really, and could possibly be the cause. Will have good thoughts for your father.

[Cuban_Liberal]

40. Locking.

We at DU are not qualified to give medical advice in what aooears to be a dire medical situation. Please call 9-1-1 for the paramedics, or get your father to the nearest emergency room a.s.a.p..

Thank you for understanding.