Yes it seems that generation thinks things can be solved with a pill. My father in law used alternating medicines for diarreah and constipation and then died of intestinal cancer. So you do have to have the dr office aware of all their meds and interactions and dose amounts.
Me. I have to do that. I get tired of it, but the alternative is to live either with congestion, headaches, nausea, irritable bowel syndrome and arthritis pains.
hard to really answer since there is no real info provided. Don't know age, sex or if there are any physical ailments, or if your parent would know if getting pills. Having said that, you can always [talk with doctor first] provide some vitamin supplements which should take care of issue
It doesn't help matters that every third commercial on TV is a commercial for some sort of medication. And Every. Single. One. that is for a condition you see commonly in elderly patients shows happy, smiling, active seniors pursuing their favorite hobbies, including kayaking, swimming, hiking, etc. - the underlying message being "take 2 of these and get your youth back!".
My dad recently got home from the hospital and the stupid infectious disease doctor put him on Augmentin and Doxycycline twice a day. That Augmentin pill is about twice as big as a multi-vitamin!!! We cut it in half and he still complains. He used to have one pill, a blood thinner. No problem. But now, it’s a small miracle if he takes them all. He takes 5 in the am and 6 in the pm. He has Alzheimer’s and it’s a battle every darn day.
You can feed him the pills in applesauce. Just drop the pill on the spoonful. My 95 year old father in law used to do that himself, as he had about 20 pills a day to swallow. The applesauce is thicker, so easier to swallow. Also, if a person has trouble swallowing water, please have them tip their head forward, not backward, to aid in swallowing. You can also buy commercial thickeners for beverages.
Arimethea33: My late mother never was at all eager to take pills, but of course there were those that she required, e.g. Preservision Areds 2 and Coumadin being a few.
Yes! Give the person their pill. There are those harmless herbal remedies that look like tiny round "pills." They make them for practically every ailment.
You can also use vitamin "pills." Or TicTacs (or other candies) as another person suggested.
Unless the have Alzheimer’s and think you’re trying to poison them! My father went from one pill a day to 5 in the am and 6 at night because he got a bone infection. Not all pills are little or herbal. Go look at the size of a high milligram Augmentin. It’s a horse pill and we even split it in half.
It's too bad we can't take motrin or tylenol everyday. You get a lot of aches and pains when you get older. There is a lot of herbal stuff out there but I don't know how well they work.
Aha aha--I can identify. I tease my daughter that at 80 (partner is 82) it is one thing after another and one thing per day, if not more. She is 60 and says she can see it coming. I tell my doc, laughingly, "Let's start at the stop and work our way down. Thinning hair and word searching, poor balance and right ear is out as well as the right eye. Fracturing teeth and receding gums. The allergies cannot be attributed to age, nor the sore neck muscles I have always had. On down to the atrial fib, more breathlessness on the uphill, bad back. Working our way down we can get to "more urgency", ordinarily crank stomach now intolerant of my favorite things including potato chips and ice cream.' I could go on. All the way down to the feet and the ingrown toenail it is increasingly more difficult to get at. Shall I? Go on, I mean. It sure isn't for sissies. And I am one! I think for ourselves, my partner and I think that the decade between 70 and 80 saw the most "change". We are lucky. Up and around and walking and can still make change (barely) at the grocery. But it is now clear that things aren't on the upswing. And we are increasingly aware of what can/will be coming at us. You made me laugh. With all that I think it is whether you have to "lay this" on your partner, your daughter, your friends every day (or your fellow forum members). And that is kind of down to habit. But yeah, a pill a day. At least one. The anti inflammatory or the allergy or the headache or the anti- spasmodic or the extra atenolol because--hey, the labile blood pressure just bumped up. It's always good to hear from you, Arimethea, and it is especially lovely to have someone else to COMPLAIN TO!!!!!! Always willing to help your elder out. Best out to you.
Love it. What with the known about placebo affect, they will likely work as well as anything else. When I ran into a bout of diverticulitis (yet ANOTHER complaint!!!!) I had to give up almost any pain pills of any kind, esp. the beloved NSAIDS, my drug of choice. At that time I learned I felt just about as good without them as I did with them. That was 9 years ago. I am headed out for some tic tacs for myself on the way to the library!
Seems common that as we age we each get our little (or big) fixations. If pills are your parents is a pill for every little thing and you are concerned about the use of these regularly you could try placebos. Not sure if your parent is independent enough to be shopping for them on their own and know what each looks like but if not a fib about new manufacturer or something might work. Just a thought. If your just wondering about the behavior every so often my mom is a Paul Ed at how many pills she needs to take even though the number hasn’t changed it quite some time. Her harmful obsession is picking at herself until she bleeds, then picking at the scab until it gets worse, all of this easy because she’s on blood thinners which make her bleed easily and is diabetic which makes her heal slowly. 🤦🏼♀️ Good luck!
Did you mean harmless? That’s how I see it after lo these many years. Of course aunt doesn’t have diabetes and isn’t on blood thinners so perhaps less harmful to her. I can’t imagine how awful with the blood thinners. She manages to tear her ear up pretty good when stressed. Blood under the fingernails looks like poop. I found CBD oil beneficial.
“Her harmful obsession is picking at herself until she bleeds, then picking at the scab until it gets worse, all of this easy because she’s on blood thinners which make her bleed easily and is diabetic which makes her heal slowly”
Kind of. But mine prefers COMPLAINING about every little thing instead of doing something about it. And the problem is that these pills don't typically get to the root cause of their complaint. And all the pills my LO takes are necessary and not even very many for her age. I finally had to cut out the supplements due to excessive complaining about "too many pills". No - too much complaining is the real problem. Guess it depends on your perspective, right??
Yes. When my LO was independent, pills were her hobby. Picking up the pills from the pharmacy, wondering if they were the right pills, seeing doctors to get more pills, remembering to take the pills, wondering if the pills were working. Meanwhile, calling me all the while to DISCUSS the pills.
A meddling family member REPEATEDLY demanded that I "transfer" all of the pills to a mail order service. Why? Her pills are her life. Chatting with people at the pharmacy was a social experience. Buying junk food at the grocery store in the same trip as when the picked up her diabetes meds at the in-store pharmacy satisfied her childish need for rebellion.
Pills, pills, pills. Statements such as "I don't know what's going on. I think I might need to take something......" and then finding a way to get yet another pill.
Not quite like that, but my mother ate aspirin like candy for a good 70 years until it finally burned a hole in her stomach. She was always "stiff" and she blamed it on having had rheumatic fever when she was five years old.
Amazingly, once she was banned from aspirin, she didn't feel any different than she did before. I really think it's a generational thing -- a pill is the last thing I reach for when I have something going on, unless it's a bad cold, then just try to keep me away from my Nyquil. :-)
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My father in law used alternating medicines for diarreah and constipation and then died of intestinal cancer.
So you do have to have the dr office aware of all their meds and interactions and dose amounts.
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You can also use vitamin "pills."
Or TicTacs (or other candies) as another person suggested.
I tease my daughter that at 80 (partner is 82) it is one thing after another and one thing per day, if not more. She is 60 and says she can see it coming. I tell my doc, laughingly, "Let's start at the stop and work our way down. Thinning hair and word searching, poor balance and right ear is out as well as the right eye. Fracturing teeth and receding gums.
The allergies cannot be attributed to age, nor the sore neck muscles I have always had. On down to the atrial fib, more breathlessness on the uphill, bad back. Working our way down we can get to "more urgency", ordinarily crank stomach now intolerant of my favorite things including potato chips and ice cream.'
I could go on. All the way down to the feet and the ingrown toenail it is increasingly more difficult to get at.
Shall I? Go on, I mean. It sure isn't for sissies. And I am one!
I think for ourselves, my partner and I think that the decade between 70 and 80 saw the most "change". We are lucky. Up and around and walking and can still make change (barely) at the grocery. But it is now clear that things aren't on the upswing. And we are increasingly aware of what can/will be coming at us.
You made me laugh.
With all that I think it is whether you have to "lay this" on your partner, your daughter, your friends every day (or your fellow forum members). And that is kind of down to habit.
But yeah, a pill a day. At least one. The anti inflammatory or the allergy or the headache or the anti- spasmodic or the extra atenolol because--hey, the labile blood pressure just bumped up.
It's always good to hear from you, Arimethea, and it is especially lovely to have someone else to COMPLAIN TO!!!!!! Always willing to help your elder out.
Best out to you.
“Her harmful obsession is picking at herself until she bleeds, then picking at the scab until it gets worse, all of this easy because she’s on blood thinners which make her bleed easily and is diabetic which makes her heal slowly”
A meddling family member REPEATEDLY demanded that I "transfer" all of the pills to a mail order service. Why? Her pills are her life. Chatting with people at the pharmacy was a social experience. Buying junk food at the grocery store in the same trip as when the picked up her diabetes meds at the in-store pharmacy satisfied her childish need for rebellion.
Pills, pills, pills. Statements such as "I don't know what's going on. I think I might need to take something......" and then finding a way to get yet another pill.
Amazingly, once she was banned from aspirin, she didn't feel any different than she did before. I really think it's a generational thing -- a pill is the last thing I reach for when I have something going on, unless it's a bad cold, then just try to keep me away from my Nyquil. :-)