I initially posted this as a response to an old thread. Someone suggested I repost it under a different title
I live in Australia and my partner and I share the house that my mother (92) and I own together, with my father (91). I have both power of medical attorney and guardianship of my mother, but my father gives her her morning pills from a Webster pack and gives her all her meals and accompanies her to about half of her appointments.
My father suddenly wants to take my mother off NDT because he has read the Wikipedia article at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desic.... Unfortunately I helped to put us in a situation of conflict because I thought that the pharmacist was going to tell the old doctor, but she thought I was going to do so. Now I cannot see this doctor until Sunday (tomorrow).
Initially my father agreed that the thyroxine wasn't working and that I would take her to a new doctor who prescribes NDT. I did that and she has been doing so well. Now he has got her doctor to put her back on thyroxine from Monday. I am going to see the first doctor and talk to him on Sunday, when he is working next, but I am really upset and worried that he is going to take my father's side, despite my power of medical attorney and guardianship, due to the non-establishment quality of NDT.
I had wanted to try mum on NDT for ages, but, knowing my father's hyperconventionalism, I waited for an opportunity which came when my father finally noticed how swollen my mother's legs were. At the time, he said that obviously the thyroxin was not working.
After half a grain of NDT - one dose - her legs were down to normal for first time in years. (I don't know why it took my father so long to notice how bad her legs were.) Furthermore, her hallucinations and agitation have greatly declined. For the first time in about four years, she takes in her surroundings. (She demented overnight in context of undiagnosed hypothyroidism, pernicious anaemia and very high temperatures due to clostridium difficils and then a tooth abscess.) Her personality and equanimity has returned. Although she has no short term memory, she is able to concentrate within those limits. My father, who is 91, can be quite a bully and irrational. He thinks that I suggested NDT because I am into alternative remedies, which is not at all the case. As well as really fearing for my mother's welfare, I am suffering from his very contemptuous attitude towards me, especially since I am a credentialed mental health nurse, but I am absolutely furious about this wikipedia article. It may ruin our lives, unless I can pull rank and get the first GP to agree that Mum has a right to be treated by the second GP, to whom I took her because she was not responding well to thyroxine, which she had been taking for about three years.
My father is probably also worried that having another doctor involved will affect his having organised a list of medications signed off by the first doctor, which has been required by a nearby facility which he hopes to be able to put my mother into for temporary respite. Of course this list can be done again, but, for a 91 year old, having to get a revised list probably seems really difficult.
Ultimately I may try to respond to that wikipedia article by showing that it is biased and illogical.
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Astridnova
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Your father is concerned about your Mum and you are as well.
I assume, as your father is taking care of your Mum he wants to do the best for her and not harm her.
In fact, it is the pharma companies as well as Endocrinologists that have put around false statements in favour of levo instead of NDT.
Tell your father that NDT was the original thyroid hormone replacement which was first given in 1892 and then people didn't die a horrible death and for hypo patients there lives were changed for the better.
This is a scientific paper which was sent to the British Thyroid Association and Royal College of Physicians but it was ignored as one would expect them to do as they have decided that levo alone is to be prescribed. As for me levo didn't do anything and I am now well on T3 only.
I understand in the USA that doctors were/are given monetary incentives to prescribe levothyroxine and considering that NDT is natural, i.e. from animals, it is more conducive to human bodies than levo in many people. Also it contains all of the hormones a healthy gland would produce.
Unless your father has joint guardianship and joint power of medical attorney I don't think he can change your mother's medication or doctors. You may have to advise the doctors of your guardianship and power of attorney.
Thank you everyone for those helpful and creative ideas. I like the sneaky one but the webster packs are sealed. I am really hoping that the idea that NDT is wierd won't lead the doctor to push against my power of guardianship. Thanks so much for your support.
Outcome of Family conflict over NDT could impact severely post:
I posted this under a new heading but am now reposting it in reply to those of you who responded to my earlier post, "Family conflict over NDT could impact severely".
The process was harrowing, as you will read, but outcome strangely good:
Today I went to see the doctor who prescribed thyroxin to my mother, which should have been ceased due to prescription by a newer doctor of NDT. The reason for the potential overlap was use of a webster pack and failure of communication between pharmacist, myself, and old doctor. So I take some blame.
My father (92 years old) had been spooked by a Wikipedia job on NDT and told the first doctor to reinstate the thyroxin. My father did not consult with me.
I have medical guardianship and power of attorney (in all things) over my mother. My father, although he lives in the house that my mother and I own, and gives my mother her pills each morning, does not have any legal status in this matter.
So I went to the doctor who prescribes the thyroxin and tried to explain the confusion. I took my guardianship order, a statement from the manufacturers of NDT (supplied by the compounding pharmacist), and a couple of scientific articles criticising claims against NDT by 'endocrinology' clubs.
The doctor, when I saw him, looked quite out of sorts. I suspect that the pharmacist, to whom I had shown my guardianship paper, had phoned him and told him that I was on my way. Normally he looks far more relaxed. But now he looked as unrelaxed as I felt.
He accused me of using alternative remedies prescribed by a doctor who wanted to make himself interesting (not the exact wording). He said he could not prescribe this medication because it was outside the guidelines.
This doctor comes from FYROM. In Australia there are a lot of foreign doctors who do not have full practitioner status and must work under the supervision of Australian doctors who do and for whom there are often strict clinic guidelines that prevent them taking initiative. I think that he felt very vulnerable.
But he also refused to look at articles I had brought in, telling me he would do his own research, were he to research it, from the prescribed sources (not exact words). He also said several times that he knew nothing of this medication. I said it was not an 'alternative medication' (meaning flakey) but the medication that had been used for many years prior to synthyroid. I got in that it is much more stable than synthyroid. He also took a glimpse of the manufacturer's statement of testing, hormone contents and quality, but he was clearly very scared and upset. It made me feel really sorry for him because he is one of the nicest doctors at that clinic.
I said that thyroxin had not been working. "It was working," he said (presumably going by the TSH tests, although they were not mentioned. "It was not," I said: "Her legs were swollen, but they have gone down now. She is much better now. I could have told him the many ways she has improved, but he was telling me that he wanted nothing more to do with medicating my mother, that the webster packs could be turned over to the care of the new doctor.
He said that the thyroxin pills that have been provided in the new webster pack are between my father and I.
I was not looking forward to the fallout at home but I am glad that I can turn mum's care over to the new doctor who prescribed the NDT.
My father was busy getting dressed, but I told him I needed to speak to him when he was available. About half an hour later he came to my part of the house to ask me to help my mother (who has brain injury due to late diagnosis of hypothyroidism and pernicious anaemia) bathe. I took the opportunity to say, "I'm afraid there is bad news on the doctor front for mum. I just came back from Dr Z.. and he has told me to take mum's business to Dr M., the new doctor."
Instead of blowing up again, my father was totally calm and said, "Right. Okay, well we will do that."
Gobsmacked, I said, "You're not upset?"
My father said, "No."
"We will have to withhold the thyroxin and give her NDT now."
"That's fine. I've already given her this morning's."
Then he said, "It's a pity about Dr Z. because my back has gone and I was going to see him tomorrow, however, I can still see Dr S."
I said, "I thought you would blow up like Vesuvius."
"No," he said, calmly.
It was like Pompei was cancelled! I have two explanations: either my father's rattiness was due to his having a secret drinking binge, which happens occasionally, but that now it is over OR he is going to try to pursue things legally (seems most unlikely) OR he was rung by Dr Z or the pharmacist and told that I have legal authority. He has this tendency to question me, but not others, so if they said I have the authority, he would have accepted it.
Anyway, everything seems strangely quiet and well on the horizon.
Many thanks for everyone's support. It has been of great help. I read literature I was referred to by you guys during the night when I woke at 4am. It all helped.
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