Expert: Glen Aukerman, M.D. - 6/26/2008

Question
Dear Dr. Aukerman, My mother is 73 y/o. She had an elevated TSH and was placed on synthroid one month ago, takes aricept for alzhiemers which I am not sure that she has, takes a statin drug to lower her cholesterol, and now is on an antihistamine for dizziness and detrol for bladder incontinence. She normally has a normal to low bp. She  has developed wt gain, memory loss, dizzy spells, pain in feet since being on the drugs.  She was taken to er yesterday for dizziness and lethargy because her dr could not see her. She is on medicare. They did labs, ct scan, ekg and said that she needs to see neurologist as she has vertigo. Her bp was elevated and glucose was high but came down a few hours later but still elevated. Has been told by her regular md that she has hypoglycemia. My sister and I would like to wean her off all the medications to see if any of her symptoms will go away and add back meds if necessary. I am wondering if she should be on natural thyroid. I am wondering if her memory loss is from the statins and the dizziness is from the low thyroid. I am wondering if her primary problem was hypothyroid from the beginning that caused her dizziness,then prescribed statins for elevated cholesterol which caused her memory loss, then put on aricept that causes who knows what? Is it safe for us to wean her off these meds and watch her symptoms. I dont know of a doctor that is willing to do that. If we can do it safely how would we wean everything? I am in Houston texas and dont know of any doctors that will do this.

Answer
She needs an ayurvedic MD evaluation like Dr Sharma of Columbus Ohio or at least an integrative medicine intake to correct all her toxicities and deficiencies before you randomly remove drugs. I do not know that MDs practicing traditional medicine would be comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do this.

see www.medicalcenter.osu.edu/go/integrative for the typical services to look for