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parkze

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Apr 8, 2008
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Loved one DX
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US
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PA
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Parker
First off I'm new to the site. My name is Kristopher and my mom was diagnosed with ALS in January of 2006. The doctors told us she had it for about a year when she was diagnosed.

My mother seems to be at her end and recently we moved on from having visiting nurses too hospice. When the hospice nurse came she put her on morphine and ativan...along with her normal meds such as vicodin, baclifn, and some sort of stole softener. I am sorry if I spelled any of those medications wrong. She was ok withonly taking her normal meds for a while but about three weeks ago she started taking the morphine at bed time to help her with pain in her arms. Everything was still going well as far as swallowing and her muscle function didn't seem effected by it. She has a hard time moving her arms and hasn't been able to walk for some time now. She was writing down what she wanted to say on papre since her speech was too hard to understand. About a week ago she started getting a tight feeling in her chest or lung area. The hospice nurse said to take the Ativan with the morphine and it will help her with the tight chest feeling. It did seem to work and my mother was able to sleep for longer than 30 min for the first time in a while. After about 2 days of taking the ativan she couldn't swallow anything, even liquids. Also her arms started to lose muscle function at a much faster rate, and her legs started to get pain in them.

My question is this: Could the ativan be causing her muscles to relax to where her throat muscles can't swallow and her legs and arms are decreasing in movement?

Thank you in advance
Kris
 
Hi Kris- I am glad you decided to join us but sorry for what is happening to your Mom. I looked up side effects for the drug ativan and it seems that one of them is weakness. I am not sure what, if I were in your Mom's shoes, I'd do with this information but your quess is correct, it seems. Regards, Cindy
 
Thanks a lot Cindy... I think she decided to lay off it a bit to see what happens as long as her chest doesn't get real tight.
 
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