Hallucinations and Seroquel

June 2, 2002

Sally,

The first doctor to prescribe Seroquel for Peg was Dr. Weiner at the U of

land Hospital in Baltimore. He only prescribed it in the evenings and as

an aid to sleep. There is now a new neurologist on Guam, a person who

specializes in pediatric neurology but who, working out of the local

hospital also sees adults. We discovered that he had previous experience

with Parkinsons Plus including MSA so we have been using him on referral. He

was the one who worked Peg up to the 100 mg morning and evening dose over a

period of four weeks. According to him 100 mg is not an unusually large

dose. At this point Peg doesn't seem to be more sleepy than ususal but maybe

now that the dosage is established it may be time to try cutting back. I

will keep that in mind the next time we talk with the neurologist. You are

right about the balancing act. The biggest problem I find now is Peg's loss

of sharp memory and her difficulty in articulating a standard thought

sequence (ie subject, verb, predicate). It's like she consistently loses the

last half of her thought and repeating the sentence doesn't help her capture

the lost thought. She also has a lot of thought fragments which reqire a lot

of listening to figure out how they fit into the context of the current

discussion.

Peg and Jim from Guam

Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 22:47:23 -0500

Subject:

Jim

Wow, that's a lot of Seroquel. That's what we have mother on for her

paranoia and hallucinations with Pick's Disease. She takes 25 in the

morning and 100 at night down from 75 in morning and 100 at night. It

was making her sleep too much during the day. She also takes Prozac

along with Zyprexa. It's a balancing act no matter what you do.

Sally in KS

********************************

*** Peg & Jim

*** # 29 Cruz Heights

*** Ipan-Talofofo, Guam 96930-4736

*** USA

***

*** Note: Guam is 15 hours ahead of

*** Eastern Standard Time (EST).

*** 14 ahead of EDT.

********************************

June 2, 2002

Jim

Her thought process does sound fragmented. Mother's has been that way

for many years and has progressed down to almost nothing that makes

sense now. One of her doctors suggested she may have LBD which is

possible but she has no Parkinson problems at all. She is more flexible

than all of us put together. At 81 she can still put her foot behind

her head. I never could do that!! Her BP is stable always at 120 over

70, wish mine was. She does not shuffle, she runs and has to be watched

at all times because of it.

The Seroquel has been a godsend as far as helping keep her mind from

going to hallucinations, stories from outer space and sexual garbage

that would make Stern blush. The Zyprexa is also helpful. The

head nurse says it really helps keep her on a more even keel or at least

as much as possible.

Do you still have Peg on Aricept or Exelon? They tried to put mother

back on it and I stopped it as quickly as possible. Pick's Disease

seems to react adversely to it and we had tried it early on with no

results and maybe some harm but LBD is seemed to be helped by it as Barb

found out.

I feel like a pharmacy rep sometimes when I have to make sure mother has

not been given something that will make things even worse. Also you

said something about Peg's calcium intake. I never noticed it creating

more problems for mother thought wise but it sure makes her digestion

more of a problem. They put her on some high dose calcium to help with

her bones and I stopped that also as it was doing more harm than good.

She just takes normal chewable calcium with her meals now and does fine.

My nutrition teaching days are over but I will go back and search my

books to see if I can see something that might be creating problems for

Peg. I give my grandson who is allergic to milk Tums twice a day to

make sure he gets what he needs. I watch his diet closely to make sure

he gets calcium from other foods also.

Keep walking the tight rope, Jim

Sally in KS

June 2, 2002