Good evening everyone. My mom, who is 94 yrs old has end stage congestive heart failure and a pace maker with a battery that is over 10 yrs old. She has opted not to get a new pace maker nor battery. She has been on hospice for 10 months and she is declining. Lately her lower legs and feet have been red/purple in color and very swollen. Her legs are weeping around the shin area. She is back on 40 mgs of lasix and a metazolone daily. I say “back on” because they had to take her off the water pills slowly because her blood pressure was falling dangerously low while on the water pills. So she started swelling up again with edema. She’s been on the water pills again for over a week and the hope is to get the swelling to come down in her legs. But I’ve never seen her legs this color.
I am wondering if her pace maker battery may be slowly losing its power and this is resulting in the strange color in my mother’s legs. Hospice is not making house calls anymore now due to the corona virus, so I am the nurse and the caretaker again. I do send photos of her legs to the hospice nurse. If I need them, they will come by. The nurse seems to feel that the color in her legs is a sign of more declining.
Has anyone else had this experience with this situation? Can anyone explain this strange color? It’s more than halfway up her lower legs now.
Taking Coumadin or Warfarin can also cause purplish blotches, but they're more solid and generally larger.
My father developed larger, more solid purplish spots on his feet as he moved closer to death. One of the nurses told me that was a reflection that he was getting closer to the end.
So, I think it depends on the type and consistence of the purplish spots. The hospice nurse should be able to distinguish between different types and provide an indication of what the underlying issue is.
Has anyone given you insight on why her legs are weeping?
P.S. This is my first day on this website. Please forgive me if it was not meant for the general public to respond to questions. gg
I doubt she will ever let them give her morphine unless she was really out of it. She hates medication of any kind.
After a while on water pills, her blood pressure goes down and then they have to slowly take her off the water pills. It’s a game now. But I’ve never seen her legs like this.
We stopped teh med about 4 days before she died, Mom had stopped eating and drinking the week before.