LalaBoss, I know exactly what you're talking about. My mother is always sick. In her case, it is every day. The doctors can rarely find anything, so it mostly hypochondria. There has also been some self-inflicted things from scratching and using skin preparations wrong. For a few months we chased around, trying to find out what was wrong, wasting a lot of time and running up the Medicare bill. Finally I said enough. Now I take her only when it is scheduled or when I feel she needs to go. The worst thing about hypochondria is that I have a hard time judging when she is really ill. She cries wolf so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore. I have to notice other things that tell me something is wrong.
This reminds me -- my mother had some nausea that was pretty bad from what she said. We ran around doing MRIs and other things, trying to figure out what was wrong. It turned out she was taking too much metformin. I discovered it when I counted her pills. Of course she was sick! The drug was making her ill. She also had an episode from overdosing on Aricept for two days. Again, I discovered what was going on by counting pills. These type things stopped happening, of course, when I took charge of her medications. If your mother likes pills and has dementia, it is something to look out for.
I think my mother may see a doctor's visit like a date. She has become less interested in going to the doctor now that her PCP retired and she has a new one. That tells me a lot.
Boredom. She has nothing to worry about but herself. Get her into daytime activities at a Senior Center near you. Now is the time to take her to look at Assisted Living, "just in case" she needs it. We did that, and Mom agreed to a one month trial.
This reminds me -- my mother had some nausea that was pretty bad from what she said. We ran around doing MRIs and other things, trying to figure out what was wrong. It turned out she was taking too much metformin. I discovered it when I counted her pills. Of course she was sick! The drug was making her ill. She also had an episode from overdosing on Aricept for two days. Again, I discovered what was going on by counting pills. These type things stopped happening, of course, when I took charge of her medications. If your mother likes pills and has dementia, it is something to look out for.
I think my mother may see a doctor's visit like a date. She has become less interested in going to the doctor now that her PCP retired and she has a new one. That tells me a lot.