4 ms·

It sounds like you're going through a real-life nightmare! This whole story sounds insane (assuming you're not leaving out essential details), with multiple ov

It sounds like you're going through a real-life nightmare! This whole story sounds insane (assuming you're not leaving out essential details), with multiple overlapping failures. I am not a medical professional, so take this all with a grain of salt (no pun intended). First off, idiopathic hyponatremia in non-elderly, non-pregnant, otherwise healthy people is unusual - why was your wife hyponatremic to begin with? This is worth investigating. It's amazing to me that it took weeks for you to be told about the risks involved in raising sodium too quickly. It's ludicrous that a doctor would prescribe daily Ativan for treatment of generalized anxiety in 2023 (Ativan and related benzodiazepine drugs are extremely habit forming, wreck your memory, and don't show evidence of improving anxiety endpoints in the long term. Great for infrequent occasional use, e.g. panic attacks though). It's even more ludicrous that they would want her to quit cold-turkey if she's been taking Ativan daily for longer than a few weeks. Benzodiazepine withdrawal is unpleasant and dangerous. That said, not being on daily Ativan for anxiety is a good thing. If you want to read up on withdrawing from benzos safely, the Ashton Manual is a popular (although older) source a lot of medical and recreational users have used to get clean[1]. As for the psychological aspects of this ordeal: The only way out is through - you just have to keep going and keep advocating for yourselves. If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting set up with regular therapy for both of yourselves. Falling down happens to us all- getting back up is an difficult but essential part of life, and having a third party there to remind you of your forward progress and push/encourage you when you need it is very valuable. [1] https://www.benzoinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Ashton-Manual.pdf https://www.benzoinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Ashton-...

spacedcowboy 3y ago
Thanks for the info :) Regarding leaving stuff out. I'm really not. My only concern here is getting my wife well, and she absolutely had none of these symptoms previously, or any hint of them, and whilst I haven't described every individual visit to ER in detail, they all follow the same pattern as recounted. We've just had the first round of specialists, and I don't have a very high opinion of her PCP, but now that we have the specialists, I'm more hopeful that something might get done. None of the doctors involved told us about the dangers of raising Sodium quickly. The neurologist agreed that it might be and put my wife on Prednisone/something-to-help-her-stomach after our first visit. It was actually my boss' wife (she's a doctor) that mentioned ODS to him and hence to us. FWIW, work has been outstandingly supportive over the last couple of months, the only real shining light. The MRI doesn't seem to support ODS though, but I personally think it's too much of a coincidence that she responded so poorly, and then symptoms very similar to it emerged later. It might not be ODS, but something happened. She had none of these symptoms before going in. As for why she had hyponatremia, she had diarrhoea the week previously, and the hospital put it down to that. We had no idea her sodium was low - as I said we went in for something unrelated (that turned out to be benign). The PCP put her on Ativan, right up until she said "I don't feel comfortable prescribing this any more, so I'm not going to". Cue the argument about withdrawal and the PCP saying she'd talk to the neurologist and see if the neurologist would take over. I get the feeling the PCP is very much a "fair weather" doctor - fine for when things are fine... The neurologist has changed away from Ativan to another benzo, but has also prescribed mirtazapine as a more long-term solution. We have another visit with her scheduled at the end of the month.

spacedcowboy 3y ago

Thanks for the info :) Regarding leaving stuff out. I'm really not. My only concern here is getting my wife well, and she absolutely had none of these symptoms previously, or any hint of them, and whilst I haven't described every individual visit to ER in detail, they all follow the same pattern as recounted. We've just had the first round of specialists, and I don't have a very high opinion of her PCP, but now that we have the specialists, I'm more hopeful that something might get done. None of the doctors involved told us about the dangers of raising Sodium quickly. The neurologist agreed that it might be and put my wife on Prednisone/something-to-help-her-stomach after our first visit. It was actually my boss' wife (she's a doctor) that mentioned ODS to him and hence to us. FWIW, work has been outstandingly supportive over the last couple of months, the only real shining light. The MRI doesn't seem to support ODS though, but I personally think it's too much of a coincidence that she responded so poorly, and then symptoms very similar to it emerged later. It might not be ODS, but something happened. She had none of these symptoms before going in. As for why she had hyponatremia, she had diarrhoea the week previously, and the hospital put it down to that. We had no idea her sodium was low - as I said we went in for something unrelated (that turned out to be benign). The PCP put her on Ativan, right up until she said "I don't feel comfortable prescribing this any more, so I'm not going to". Cue the argument about withdrawal and the PCP saying she'd talk to the neurologist and see if the neurologist would take over. I get the feeling the PCP is very much a "fair weather" doctor - fine for when things are fine... The neurologist has changed away from Ativan to another benzo, but has also prescribed mirtazapine as a more long-term solution. We have another visit with her scheduled at the end of the month.