A few years ago my Dad suffered Brain Damage,which was caused by chemo, intrathecal methotrexate. The Drs messed up and kept giving him more when he wasn't clearing it over several weeks and caused Brain Damage (white matter changes, subdural hemotomas, and shrinkage). He had symptoms during this time and they kept blaming it on everything else except the methotrexate and gave him all sorts of drugs while this was going on (ativan, haldol) which made things worse and finally after the damage was done they admitted it was the methotrexate. My Dad went from being completely independent living alone to needing a caretaker (me). He can however still do many things in the home and these past few years we have been working (desperately) to improve him as he has cognitive issues ever since. My Dad also developed a powder sensation on his hands that he never had which he constantly thinks he has powder on his hands (it comes and goes) and also has PHN pain from Shingles on his nose (he had a few years ago but the pain never went away) So because of the powder sensation and the nerve pain the neurologist put him on Duloxetine to try and help the powder sensation and the nerve pain however it has not helped ( i was reluctant of having him on it) (20 mg then upped to 40mg). He is now down to 20mg. Going from 40 to 20 was not a problem.
I can't say for sure but it seems possibly the Duloxetine is interferring with his short term memory. I see studies that says duloxetine helps memory and studies that say it hurts. We are attempting to ween him off duloxetine and its been pretty bad. I followed a website where you weigh the pills and slowly reduce the amount. When we try and ween him off even a small amount he becomes extremley irritable, angry (walks around punching walls in the house), does not want to do anything or go outside, tells everyone to get out of the house he doesnt want anyone there, feels like he is walking into cobwebs which dont exist, and his long term memory gets bad almost like hallucinations and confusion (thinks I have 2 Mothers, etc), emotionally cold (my Dad is a caring person normally) up all night but his short term memory seems to get better and also oddly the powder sensation goes away. This is within a few days of the ween. So we had to put him back on the full dose 20mg due to his mood, angry etc and immediately when we do that his mood gets better (within an hour of the full 20 mg) and his long term memory comes back to baseline but a few days into it his short memory starts declining and also at times can't sleep.
Has anyone seen this or can decipher the mechanisms going on here? With duloxetine being a serotonin and norepinephrine inhibitor, increases bdnf possibly....any suggestions for supplements to help that can go along with duloxetine if he continues to take and/or help with the ween? The neurologist says can stop it but thats easier said then done and its tough to know if in some sense it is helping him and taking him off are the side effects of the ween or it is because the duloxetine is doing some good and he needs it. He takes Curcumin and cbd (we are cognitive of serotonin syndrome and space it our from duloxetine), reishi, cordyceps (for resp). algae dha oil. I have looked and tried supplements in the past-Lion's Mane had him taking it but not enough(500 mg) for nerve pain. For some reason when I give him Lions Mane it seems to make the nerve pain worse. Also bacopa (made him tired it seemed), berberine, citicoline, phosphatidylserine but some of them I probably did not give them enough time to work. I have also tried bosweilla with copaiba and that had greatly helped the nerve pain, amazingly helped it best thing in years, it also though knocked him out,slept all day but we gave him this when he was weeing off the duloxetine and having cognitive issues from the ween and didn't want to give him to many things so we only gave it to him twice so it was not long enough to see any cognitive improvements but it defintley helped the nerve pain.
Also due to what happened to my Dad (white matter changes, shrinkage) can anyone recommended supplements that they would start with? I looked at microdosing lithium as it increases brain matter but I got scared off as I saw a few studies that claimed that it could cause cancer but then I saw other studies contradicting that.
I know no one knows what can or can't help just wanted to get some different perspectives. Thanks for taking the time to read I'm sorry its so long.
Edited by tired, 12 May 2022 - 07:46 PM.
