posted on Nov, 11 2012 @ 08:53 AM
So my mother is 83 years old. About 20 years ago she slipped and broke her knee. The doctors gave her pain killer, no problem. After her knee healed
from surgery she continued to take pain pills, citing other pains, arthritis etc. I was living in Houston, had been for 25 years. She and my sisters
live in TN. She fell numerous times, breaking her shoulder,elbow. Then had a growth on her lung removed. All the while taking more and more powerful
pain killers. Finally i moved up here and moved in to take care of her. I am the only single member of the family so there was not much choice. She
flips out even thinking of a nursing home. When a doctor takes her off pain medication she just finds one who will give her what she wants. She talks
to her friends on the phone about which pill is the best and then gets the doctor to prescribe her that. I will be watching television in the living
room and she will stumble through and fall flat on her face. Obviously drugged up. There is a major drug problem with our elderly. I took her to the
doctor for a checkup after her lung surgery. I went into the room with her and the doctor sat down with us to discuss the x-rays. He said it all
looked great but did she need anything for pain? Her eyes got as big as saucers and she said: Well the ones you gave me don't help much. The doctor
says: Well no problem, i will put you on oxycottin. Just don't take more than 6 a day. They just laughed and laughed. Well we got the prescription
filled and my mother immediately started taking 6 pills a day! Needless to say she overdosed. Spent a week in the hospital to clean her out. She hides
her medication now so i have no idea what she is taking and it does no good to talk to her doctors about her abuse. She just finds another doctor.
After talking to other people about it i hear stories much the same as mine. A lot of our elderly are actually drug dealers. They will go to 6
different doctors and get 6 different prescriptions and sell what they don't need. They apparently make a few thousand dollars a month doing that. I
don't think my mother does that but apparently a lot do.
So i hurt my back and last week it got really bad. I laid down about 5pm to rest my back and dosed off. The next thing i know i am awoken by a
pill being pushed into my mouth by my mother ( locking the door from now on) I freaked out but swallowed the pill. I thought i was going to die. I am
not a big fan of pills other than vitamins or antibiotics. It was much too powerful for me. She came in later and gave me 2 bottles of pills. She said
she had more than she needed. She is deaf so there was no point telling her i did not like to take pills. Later i looked at the pill bottles. One said
Methadone! No way i am taking that. That is probably what she shoved into my mouth. It was a terrible feeling. Anyway. Sorry about the long rant but i
see an epidemic/crisis involving our elderly. Anyone else seeing grandma abusing drugs? What in the world do you do about it?