Just over one year after my mom's first stroke and a full year of multiple new prescription medications to "prevent another one," she acquired an intestinal infection that put her in the hospital. Her primary care doctor prescribed a powerful antibiotic, Flagyl, for the infection, but apparently did not check for interactions with the blood thinner that they already had her taking, Coumadin. Shortly after getting home and starting on the antibiotic, she stared feeling very badly, so my younger sister called 9-1-1. By the time she got to the E.R., she was vomiting blood. They found her coumadin level was three times the level that it was supposed to be at! They quickly gave her something to start clotting her blood to stop the internal bleeding so she wouldn't die from this event. The Gastrointestinal doctor who saw her pumped the blood from her stomach, then put a scope down her esophagus and found a tear in the lining of her duodenum (the first section of the intestines after the stomach). He started her on a powerful acid-suppressing drug, Protonix, and planned to have her take that the rest of her life. At the next chance I had, I researched drug interactions online and found that Flagyl had a Major Interaction with Coumadin because the Flagyl prevents the liver from breaking down the Coumadin, leading to high levels of Coumadin in the blood that can cause internal bleeding. That was exactly what my mom experienced! I'm not a doctor, but shouldn't a doctor look this stuff up before prescribing drugs??!!
Although the hospital saved her life, the clotting intervention that stopped the bleeding also caused a second stroke. This stroke damaged the part of her brain that was responsible for recognizing letters and numbers and also created a "void" area in her peripheral vision where "phantom images" would appear (the brain projects these images to fill the "dead space" in the visual field). So this avid book reader and math whiz could no longer enjoy the reading hobby she had for the majority of her life, nor could she make sense of her checkbook and bills that arrived or count out the various vitamins and supplements that she had been taking for years. This was a serious loss of independence, so my siblings and I had to start taking over things for her. One of my older sisters and I took over the vitamins and supplements, counting and putting them in the pill organizer she had been using, which made it easy for her. And since she had already put me as a second person on her checking account, I eventually took that over along with the bill-paying after my younger sister had taken it over first (up until she started forgetting to pay bills and was obviously getting tired of helping our mom, claiming "caregiver burnout"--I'll have much more on dealing with sibling problems in a future post).
Two months after this bleeding event/second stroke, she was scheduled to have her gall bladder removed due to inflammation there. It was starting to be risky for her to have surgery with general anesthesia. She told me before the surgery that, if she survives, she wanted me to find another primary care doctor for her, since the one she had nearly killed her. She had previously mentioned not being happy with him because every time she would start to tell him about some new ache or pain, he was reaching for his prescription pad before she could finish, so she was hesitant to tell him things any more. This was the only way he knew how to practice medicine and, as I learned later, was the worst possible type of doctor for anyone over 65. Over 100,000 people die every year from prescription medications taken properly and it's partly due to doctors like this one.
I didn't know of any good doctors in her part of the county, which is almost an hour from where I live, so I went to the independent health food store in a town near her to ask the owner for recommendations. She mentioned a chiropractor, a doctor an hour away, and a female doctor in that same nearby town who was an MD but also practiced alternative medicine. I discussed the options with my mom and we decided to schedule an appointment with the alternative MD. Two months after her gall bladder surgery, I took my mom to her first appointment with the new doctor. As we left the appointment, she and I discussed how we were both very pleased with her new doctor. Thanks to the health food store owner, we had found a doctor who was friendly, caring, intelligent, had common sense in dealing with an elderly person, and was capable of helping my mom go off unnecessary prescription medications, while also recommending vitamins and supplements that would help her. What a blessing it was for my mom to have this new doctor!!
Her new doctor asked about each prescription medication, vitamin, and supplement that she was taking and why she was taking each of them. After explaining the intestinal bleeding event to her, the doctor felt that the powerful acid-suppressing drug she was on "for the rest of her life" was no longer necessary and would negatively affect her digestion. This drug is only supposed to be taken for two weeks to heal a digestive ulcer, which should have been healed by then. The new doctor contacted the G.I. doctor who started her on the drug and his explanation was that "she's in such bad shape" so the drug was necessary. My mom's doctor described to him what good shape my mom was in, so he hesitantly agreed that she could take a less powerful acid-suppressing drug. Her new doctor put her on one that's even available over-the-counter. A couple years later, I heard Julian Whitaker, MD, discussing using DGL (licorice) chewable tablets as the only form of maintenance for duodenal ulcer that he uses at his clinic. With guidance from her new doctor, my mom started on DGL, chewing two tablets twenty minutes before each meal, and was able to eventually discontinue the acid-suppressing drug entirely. I'll have more on what I learned about the successes of her natural and alternative treatments in a later post.
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