Anyone have an elderly parent (or someone pretending they can’t do things for themselves), using pain killers to cope with their physical pain?
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are the underlying illnesses. I get it. There’s muscle pain and it’s hard.
But my parent is in so deep - they won’t cop to the clear reality they’re taking most of the month’s meds within 2 weeks and acting incoherently messed up, constantly yammering on without being able to remember what they’re talking about moment to moment, and most concerning, they’ve begun to routinely nod off while standing and crumpling to the ground. Clear obvious addict behavior. It’s “insisted” there’s some mysterious part of illness that’s causing “falling”. But I’ve seen it happen numerous times and it’s very clear what’s going on. They simply won’t admit it. So either they’re lying (which is completely possible and would not be unusual) or they’re oblivious. They keep saying to me, “I didn’t take much before you came over so I have no idea why this is happening.” I mean, c’mon. It’s insulting. Because of how blatantly obvious it is.
So what do I do? I say anything and they’re cut off. That means they stop paying their rent and within a couple months, show up at my door insisting they have nowhere to go. Again, that’s an engineered routine transparently designed to extract resources from me. Still, after it’s happened 5x in the past, I’m not willing to let them in my door again.
Alternately, I let it go on and what? Let them OD or fall, hit their head and bleed out sometime?
There are no good choices. I want to say, “If you’re really serious that you can’t remember what’s going on moment to moment, can’t hold things without dropping them, and can’t stay awake to walk from here to there without literally falling asleep, then you need to be in a facility where you can be monitored.” However, we can’t afford anything like that, so it would be an empty threat. And the truth is, they don’t need it. They could do things for themselves if they wanted to, But it’s a better situation for them to insist they’re “sick” b/c they take ANY action to improve their situation and it means they CAN in fact do things. Even if it’s only once in a while.
I’m feeling lied to, & manipulated into a forced “caretaker” role. I’m happy to help generally, but this is getting ridiculous. If I do one thing to help once, that means I can do it all the time. And this isn’t going to like, get better as they actually DO age. BTW, we’re taking about a 61 year old here. So there’s quite a long time to go.
Anyone dealt with this or have suggestions?
If she is on a schedule, Phillips has a pill dispenser that is on a timer. The machine says "time for your medicine" the person pushes the button and the pill/s are dispensed in a little container. Its pricy but hold 10days worth of pills. If the person does not push the button, a designated person gets a call from Phillips. It locks so no way can the person get to the pills.
Fibro can be debilitating. I don't think its muscles so much as the nerves are effected. Thats the pain. My friend does therapy in a pool and says it helps her a lot.
My friend overdosed on her pain killers. She was lucky she was found since she lived alone. After hospital stay and rehab you could tell she was taking her meds correctly.
There are pain management doctors. Maybe it would be good for Mom to see one.