Print

---

Responding to Mr. Houston's horror-story in the PD Digest (Nov. 1 or 2, I
think) about the doctor prescribing a contra-indicated medication:

My mother, who's had PD for many years (which was controlled decently by
her PD meds), went to her neurologist for his advice about the fact that
she'd recently been experiencing some night-time leg-tremors. He
prescribed, for this, that she take 2 additional doses, at bed-times, of
bromocriptine (=Parlodel). When I asked him, during that office visit, if
there might be any side-effects or adverse reactions to watch out for, he
emphatically said that there would not be any and that this is completely
safe and that we needn't worry about it.

That was nearly eight months ago: Mom has now been in hospitals, starting
a few days after she began taking those extra doses as he prescribed, and
in this time she has nearly died several times over, from serious
complications -- all apparently the result of a chain of events that began
with her neurologist's WRONG advice that there would be no possible
side/adverse effects from the extra bromocriptine.

That extra bromocriptine, it appears, promptly started slowing/paralyzing
Mom's intestinal tract, so much so that her internist had me take her
(back then) to the E.R. of our local hospital, where they found that she was
hugely impacted (and in significant abdominal pain) -- and where we were
told that bromocriptine is "notorius" for paralyzing the intestinal tract.
In fact, various of the medical staff were amazed that Mom's neurologist
-- whom we'd been going to for many years for her PD care -- would not have
known this.

Her condition was so serious that she was admitted immediately as an
in-patient.

Within a few days, as they tried (without success) to treat this problem
-- they even considered doing abdominal surgery -- the stress on her body
lead to what they said was a heart-attack -- and that lead to intubation
-- and thus her problems began to snowball.

After almost 2 days, she was extubated, regained a bit of strength, and
the E.R. worked on getting the impaction out. The next day, while they had
modest success doing that, late in the day something else happened and
that involved her actually going into cardiac-arrest then & there; it was
fortunate that this happened in the E.R., where swarms of medical people
immediately revived her -- but from that moment to the next day, it was
touch-and-go as to whether she'd survive the next few seconds. It was horrible.

That revival-process involved, among other things, re-intubating her. And
thus, while the re-intubation apparently helped save her, the intubation
and/or the overall situation also gave her highly-resistant pneumonia,
which continued to threaten her survival for nearly the next 2 months, for
which she remained in that hospital, most of that time in the Intensive
Care or Progressive Care units.

She improved well enough to then go to a rehab center, but soon had
a renewed problem relating to all this (and perhaps to her Parkinson's),
and promptly ended up in another hospital, again with intubations and
potentially deadly pneumonia, and only recently became well enough to go
back to the rehab center.

While I'm extremely pleased to be able to say that she is now recovering
well (albeit gradually & slowly), physically she has been through a battle
that should be wished on nobody; and her physical capabilities have been
tremendously diminished -- she now gets fed mainly via a G-tube, has a
trach-tube, and has lost a huge amount of weight & muscle, and needs much
care.

All, I believe, basically because her then-neurologist had given us, those
many months ago, specifically WRONG information about the bromocriptine!

During her stay in the hospitals all these months, there were also several
occasions when I had to again exert hawk-like diligence to insure that Mom
would not be given PD-contraindicated medications or would not undergo
treatment that I also felt was improper.

Through all of this, while I certainly did encounter many medical
professionals for whom I have very high regard and who were instrumental
in helping my mother get back to relatively good health, I also
encountered instances of ignorance, huge egos, and other such obstacles
that I had to deal with in order to assure that my mother would not again
be given a contraindicated medication or receive improper treatment.

"Thanks" to the savagery wreaked upon my mother because of that
neurologist who, perhaps through his own (inexcusable) ignorance, gave us
bad information about taking that additional bromocriptine, I learned
-- the hard way -- about the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of thoroughly questioning
and thoroughly researching and double-checking medical advice and medical
prescriptions.

My advice, therefore: ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK, via OFFICIAL PRINT-BASED
RESOURCES, the pros & cons of whatever medications are being prescribed.
And SPEAK UP ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED. If the doctor/hospital/nurse
(etc.) chooses to take offense that you would DARE do this, DO IT ANYWAY
and (politely if possible)  STAND YOUR GROUND! It's YOUR LIFE (or the life
of your loved one) -- and that's more important than ANYONE'S ego (or
ignorance)!

-- SS