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Your situation is similar to ours. Father doing fine in MC. One Friday has trouble following instructions on transferring himself off toliet, so they send him to hospital, suspecting UTI. He is amicably chatting with attendants as he goes. Admitting doctor calls me to tell me UTI is minor and he responded well to fluids/anti-biotics. Could go back to MC same day but MC doesn't have weekend nurse and wants him to stay in hospital over the weekend to "get stronger". He ends up getting too much fluid and that sends him into confusion. At least the doctor had the grace to admit this to me. End up keeping him in hospital 5 days during which time, he is not getting PT or anything to help him get stronger. They use a lift to put him in a chair or get him to the toilet. He is awake, cognizant and frustrated. Eats about 1/2 what they give him. Speech therapist gets involved and decides he has a swallowing problem (which he didn't have in MC). They discharge him to nursing home with pureed food/ nectared liquid orders. And in the hospital they took away his daily aspirin without telling me. (I found out on the discharge sheet. The only answer I ever got about that was they thought he was chewing it so it might not be effective.) Rehab nursing home continues hospital orders - pureed food and no aspirin. Now father too weak and scared to participate in PT, not eating enough, needs to be lifted to go to toliet or get in a chair. Confused and unhappy. Nursing home/rehab giving him basic care but spends most of his time in bed with TV on. Becomes less responsive and then one day, he is unable to feed himself. I think he had a stroke but no one seems to recognize that. If they can't get him to sit upright in the dining room, they won't feed him because they are concerned about aspiration. Nursing home wants him discharged because of Medicare. Original MC won't take him because they don't have a lift. I find him another - better place - but he passes away before I can get him moved. All from something that started as a "minor UTI".

I blame the MC for not having a lift and a weekend nurse, both which would have made the trip to the hospital unnecessary. I blame the hospital speech therapist who put him on pureed food because the swallow test turned up negative. (I pulled the hospital records.) I blame the doctor who took him off his aspirin regamine which had been working well for him since a previous stroke several years earlier. I blame the rehab nursing home which much too ready to give up on him. They were inconsistent tracking him and communicating with us. Mostly I blame myself for not forcing the doctors to pay attention. Once he was in the rehab nursing home, it was a musical chairs game of trying to find out if a doctor ever saw him. Not while I was there and I was there a lot.

Don't let your mother lay there and get weaker. Don't let them treat her like just another old person. Question anything you don't understand.
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AlvaDeer,
My mom has chronic UTI's, some very serious. I tried D-Mannose and the product did not help. I thought D-Mannose only helped E-coli infections. Do you know why it helps some and not others? Thank you.
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AlvaDeer Sep 2020
I sure don't early bird. I think that e-coli is the most common bacteria affecting bladder infections, and perhaps that is why I am only hearing good results? For me it is a miracle, and for a decade no good result. Has worked also for two women I told, one a facebook-friend, and one a woman in my dog park. So you are my first "failure" and actually I have been kind of having it down to a "miracle drug" few know about. If it didn't work for you, clearly it isn't. According to any research I can do it is a simple "sugar" but not as we think about sugar, and OK for diabetics, and it prevents adherance of bacteria to the bladder wall. Much the same way cranberry does but you would have to drink tons of it to work as well, and it is quite acidic. I am an old nurse, and actually I don't believe in almost ANY vitamins or supplements, so I shocked myself by this working so well for me.
Took me a while to find your question on forum, earlybird! But trust me, I am learning!!
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My mom had a stroke in 2019 - I suspected a UTI in Jan 2020 as she was having confusion etc - took her to ER to make sure not another stroke etc - they said positive uti as well as low potassium. She was alert just slower etc - every day on the antibiotics she became worse - severe delirium ended up with encephalopathy - I was suspecting the antibiotics - they switched her and she woke up and was starting to come out of it and then within 24 of new antibiotic Cipro she had the same severe confusion decline. I suspect my mother was slow due to her potassium being low and not due to a UTI and the delirium and unable to eat and loss of all function was her having severe reactions to the IV antibiotics - she lost all ability to eat and swallow again during antibiotics - every stroke recovery we had made went backwards. I started refusing the rest of the antibiotics and she finally started slowly recovering. I have since seen her have this same confusion or slower self when her potassium is low and I have to give her a few days to get her back up again. My new neuro also believes she had a reaction to the Class Cipro and the other one they had her on is in. They were the same class of antibiotics. Her previous brain injury from her stroke the year before made her not do well on antibiotics since. Have the potassium and sodium levels checked and find out if the antibiotics are completed.
My mother took a good month to regain her stronger swallow and recovery gains back and a few months to feel back to where we were. Again when she acts this way now I have her potassium levels checked. 🙏🏼
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