My mom constantly says "there is nothing wrong with my mind" but she always believes she has some physical ailment. She tells people she's had pneumonia...she hasn't. She says she had carotid artery surgery...she didn't. She says she has a bad heart...she doesn't. Before dementia, she never took any medications and rarely saw a doctor. Now she wants a pill for everything and is constantly talking about needing to see a doctor so he can find out what's wrong with her. Have any of you experienced this? I try to divert the conversation, but she always returns to complaining about all of her imaginary physical problems. I can never have a conversation with her that she isn't complaining. The staff at the assisted living center are having difficulty because she gets angry when they won't give her medication (that she doesn't need.
Maybe it's attention-seeking behavior? I've seen that in my dad. But I understand how the obsessing can drive you nuts. My dad's obsessing drives me nuts. It's exhausting.
My Dad always wants to go to the doctor, but we stick just to his scheduled appointments. As soon as one appointment is over, he starts asking when his next appointment is. I think he'd go to the doctor every week if he could, yet when he's at his appointments, he won't say anything! My Mom has to do all the talking. He'll just shrug his shoulders if he's asked something. For a long time, probably three or four years, he would stand in front of the calendar every day and check to see when he had his appointments. It got to the point where my Mom stopped putting the appointments on the calendar; she just keeps the cards tacked on a bulletin board that he doesn't look at. She stopped putting them on the calendar because for the two weeks leading up to an appointment my Dad would get so agitated, anxious, obsessed and downright ornery that she could hardly put up with him. Now when he has an appointment he is told that same morning, is given a shower and I drive them to the doctor's office.
Dad doesn't want a pill for everything, but he obsesses about the pills he does take. My Mom lays them out for him at each meal and he has to have her confirm the number of pills before he takes them, sometimes several times. He places the pills on the tip of his tongue and then won't swallow them until he's almost forced to or they start dissolving in his mouth. Then he worries that he dropped one. Then after the meal he wonders if he took his pills! He'll look for them under the table, and if he sees a crumb on the floor, its a pill he didn't take. Its a never ending circle.
I certainly understand your problem, and I know that we're always told to try to divert the conversation to something else. Unfortunately, I've found that in most cases this doesn't work with my Dad. He always ends up back where he started. Sometimes its just easier to agree with what the AD person says. Let her know that you'll have everything checked out at her next doctor's visit. Maybe this will help. I feel for you!
If I mention going to a neurologist she becomes angry. There is nothing wrong with her ming... except that she has no memory and doesn't even know what day it is. She says that the doctors couldn't do anything about that, anyway. She is probably right, so I don't argue.
My mother starts the day complaining and ends it the same way. She also has obsessions about the house, the yard, and symptoms. Her obsession with her health is getting better now, but the obsessions with the house and yard are becoming worse. I do what I can to avoid financial catastrophe because of the obsessions.
I can't really talk to my mother, because if I don't go along with her view, she becomes very angry. So I do what I can do to keep her from doing things that would be bad. It can be very stressful, so I know how you feel.