Posted by Marie1 on November 30, 2001, at 7:01:04
Hi Cam.
Hope you don't mind giving me your opinion on this. :-)
My father-in-law, who has mild Altzheimer's visited us over Thanksgiving holiday. Earlier on the day he arrived, he had a doc app't for Altz. and was put on Aricept, 5mg to be taken at bedtime. That evening he became very nauseous and vomited. He blamed it on the Aricept, which he shouldn't even have taken yet, but said he had. He fully recovered the next day and continued to blame being sick on his new meds. Something he said made my husband suspicious as to how many pills he had taken, so he decided to count them, knowing they were a brand new prescription. When he poured them out we saw that there were both 5 and 10 mg. pills in the bottle (different size and color)! I forget what the exact count was, but it turns out that my f-i-l must have taken 2 pills the previous day, and they both must have been 10 mgs. My husband called the dispensing pharmacy and was told "not to worry, 20mgs/day is still a proper dosage for Aricept"!!! Can you imagine any scenario where this isn't the big deal we think it is? Is there any legitimate justification for mixing both mgs. together in the same bottle? The directions clearly stated 5mg. at bedtime. My other concern (besides his ability to self medicate) is - he is turned off to this med since he blames it for making him sick, but we really have no proof that's what did it. In your opinion, is 20 mg. of Aricept, taken by a smallish man (about 140 lbs.) for the first time, on top of 1 beer, apt to make him sick? I hate for him not to take this drug if it's probably not responsible for making him sick. My f-i-l isn't interested in taking any legal action against the pharmacy, but I was really wondering what your reaction is. Sorry for the length of this post!Marie
poster:Marie1
thread:85608
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011123/msgs/85608.html