Question:

Thanks for the replies.  Ignoramus11916:  yes, my grandfather has been suffering from unexplained headaches and nausea for the past 4 years. In that time, no one really took an active role in switching doctors for him or qestioning the doctor.  People of my grandparent’s age are from an entirely different generation where doctors are more or less considered close to "gods" and are not to be questioned. That being said, we(my father and I) are in the process of switching out his current doctor with a well recommended geriatric doctor in a nearby town.  Basically, his current doctor has been treating side effects of medications with more medications over the last 4 years. I did extensive research on all of the drugs that he is on and found that more or less (4 of 7), the headaches can be attributed to any of 4 drugs.  lisinopril, megestrol, actos or lipitor.  His nausea seems to be under control, but the endless headaches remain.  What’s worse is that he is taking tylenol everyday every 4 hours. It’s just a bad situation all around.  On top of this, he has a spot on one of his lungs that is most likely cancerous.  For right now, we just want him to be comfortable and not have to live with the constant headaches that sometimes wake him at night, and dominate his life. The post about alcohol possibly helping the headaches is interesting. I would not have thought of that since most of his medications warn about alcohol consumption.  For the record, up until about a month or 2 ago he would drink a can or two of beer about every day.  Considering his current conditon, he has been not consuming alcohol at all. I thought that a large part of his problems may be resolved by treating the stomach problem.  This was bearing in mind that the food he was eating was not efficiently entering his system.  I can remember when we were young that he always had to eat at a certain time or else he’d get terrible headaches(I know other people like this as well).  So of course, knowing that the pyloric valve wasn’t letting food into his intestines, the thought process was logical that when it was addressed, the headaches would possibly cease.  So far (about 5 days since starting the protonix), he is still suffering the headaches. In addition, I have been doing some research on headaches and have come across a type of headache known as "hypnic headaches" that affects a small percentage of people over age 60-65.  The description of headaches so painful that it wakens the person was a dead on indicator as well as the fact that every morning he wakes up with a headache. It’s very difficult when a lot of the symptoms are left up to a 90 year old’s interpretations…and memory.  Sometimes he will answer questions with answers that contradict earlier answers.  It only makes it worse when the doctor could care less and just keeps prescribing more pills rather than diagnose the problem correctly.  Hopefully the new doctor that we will be taking him to will take a more active role in actually trying to heal him rather than get kickbacks from prescribing endless prescriptions.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My grandfather is 90 years old and my grandmother is 87.  My grandfather has been suffering headaches & nausea for about the past 4 years.  Apparently *some* of his problems are based on the fact that he had ulcers in the past that went undetected and have consequently caused problems with his pyloric valve. He is currently taking 2 drugs to aid the problem; metoclopramide(reglan) 30 min before meals to help digestion(causes stomach contractions), and Protonix(reduces the amount of acid created in the stomach).  He is also on actos for type 2 diabetes, lipitor for cholesterol and lisinopril for hypertension. One of the main problems is that my grandmother more or less refuses to change the way she cooks, and more or less will not follow a strict diet plan when preparing meals.  She cooks with a lot of oil.  My grandfather relies on her about 80% of the time to prepare his meals so this is a problem especially considering his stomach condition. I would like to know if anyone can provide some loose "do-s" and "don’t-s" of a basic diet for someone in his conditon and of his age? Or at least point me to a website that may provide some information. His doctor has given him some generic diet plan sheets in the past, but we’ve found these to be of little or no use considering my grandmother’s stubborness and disregard for anything overly structured.  Please post if you can provide any input, Thanks!

Assuming malnutrition isn’t a problem, I wouldn’t change anything  in a 90 year old’s diet. Perhaps some alcohol if it is not contraindicated would help with nausea and/or headaches. You might want to begin thinking about a contingency plan in case your grandfather outlives his wife.

Response:

My grandfather is 90 years old and my grandmother is 87.  My grandfather has been suffering headaches & nausea for about the past 4 years.  Apparently *some* of his problems are based on the fact that he had ulcers in the past that went undetected and have consequently caused problems with his pyloric valve. He is currently taking 2 drugs to aid the problem; metoclopramide(reglan) 30 min before meals to help digestion(causes stomach contractions), and Protonix(reduces the amount of acid created in the stomach).  He is also on actos for type 2 diabetes, lipitor for cholesterol and lisinopril for hypertension. One of the main problems is that my grandmother more or less refuses to change the way she cooks, and more or less will not follow a strict diet plan when preparing meals.  She cooks with a lot of oil.  My grandfather relies on her about 80% of the time to prepare his meals so this is a problem especially considering his stomach condition. I would like to know if anyone can provide some loose "do-s" and "don’t-s" of a basic diet for someone in his conditon and of his age? Or at least point me to a website that may provide some information. His doctor has given him some generic diet plan sheets in the past, but we’ve found these to be of little or no use considering my grandmother’s stubborness and disregard for anything overly structured.  Please post if you can provide any input, Thanks!

Response:

Thanks for the support Mary.  Since my original post, we have brought him to the other doctor and he is being taken off of lipitor for a start.  He should be getting the biopsy done over the next couple days or so.  He is currently BACK in the hospital so they are going to do the biopsy when he is well enough.

Response:

lisinopril, megestrol, actos or lipitor.  His nausea seems to be under control, but the endless headaches remain.  What’s worse is that he is taking tylenol everyday every 4 hours. Scary stuff. I wonder why he needs megestrol.

The megestrol was being used to give him an appetite since he hadn’t been eating nearly enough.  He was originally on 10mg 3 times a a day, and is now on 5mg.  From my research, it seems that megestrol is mostly given to cancer patients but may also be prescribed for "other" uses. That’s from drugs.com. It’s just a bad situation all around.  On top of this, he has a spot on one of his lungs that is most likely cancerous.  For right now, we just want him to be comfortable and not have to live with the constant headaches that sometimes wake him at night, and dominate his life. I am confused, has he been diagnosed with actual lung cancer? That puts everything in a different light. If so, just what kind of sense does it make to take lipitor?

Not diagnosed yet.  It has been 2 years since he had a chest xray. Something showed up on the xray he had in July, so they then did a PETA scan which identified the mass as being about 3.5cm.  The Pulmonologist said that the PETA scan is USUALLY a positive test when identifying cancer, but a biopsy is going to be scheduled to make sure.

Response:

I would like to know if anyone can provide some loose "do-s" and "don’t-s" of a basic diet for someone in his conditon and of his age? Or at least point me to a website that may provide some information. His doctor has given him some generic diet plan sheets in the past, but we’ve found these to be of little or no use considering my grandmother’s stubborness and disregard for anything overly structured. Please post if you can provide any input, Thanks!

I don’t have any answers for you but wanted to wish you and your grandparents well. I’m glad your grandfather is getting a new doctor —   maybe that will give you some better answers than you’ve been getting from the current doctor. Mary

Response:

Related Posts