Survival after wrong medication
Donation protected
Due to having 3 kids that all have struggled through school because of bullying this fantastic woman wants to stay anonymous to protect her 3 miracles. Let us call her «Angelica» because of her fantastic work in the community.
She was in her 40’s and a so called (in Norway) social teacher. She was the pupils’ spokesperson and her role was to have conversations with kids who needed to talk to someone. Whether it was problems at school (subject wise or social wise), at home or with friends, she was there all day, every day. Personally I had appointments with her every week from age 10 to 14. She wasn’t afraid to stand up and confront teachers if there was something that needed to be done differently with a particular student or a group of them. She always took the students’ side and she even helped kids who had difficulties with gangs. She was doing a great job, but out of nowhere she started to feel ill.
The main reason for seeking help was that she thought she had "frozen shoulder" when she was breastfeeding her youngest in 2005. Within 2 years she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
For those who don’t know what Parkinson’s disease is www.parkinson.org describes it pretty easily:
From she was diagnosed in 2007 it took the doctors two years to prescribe her medication. It was a type of medication widely known as "dopamine agonists". The specific one in our case is Requip.
Dopamine agonists are supposed to reduce the breakdown of dopamine (monoamine oxidase type B(MAO-B) inhibitors) to relieve motor symptoms which usually works very well, including «Angelicas» case. However, dopamine agonists tend to have pretty unpleasant side effects such as swelling caused by fluid accumulation in body tissues, drowsiness, constipation, dizziness, hallucinations, fever, stiff muscles, confusion, sweating, uneven heartbeats, tremors, randomly falling asleep, tight feeling in your chest/trouble breathing and nausea (www.medicinenet.com , www.rxlist.com).
According to www.rxlist.com you also may experience increased sexual urges, unusual urges to gamble or other intense urges which is described as Impulse Control Disorder (ICD). This was exactly what happened to «Angelica». You see, when using dopamine agonists there is a big chance that the medication not only works on the neurons in substantia nigra but also the “reward circuit” (nucleus accumbens) in the brain. The reward circuit is an important component of a major dopaminergic pathway in the brain. When this happens it can be compared with the brain of people who are addicted to drugs. Some of the similarities includes:
When you take all that into account it seems obvious that regular follow ups by your general physician is very important. Somehow «Angelica» went 18 months without any kind of contact with her doctor.
During the time «Angelica» was addicted to gambling she lost everything. Despite the fact that she didn’t own anything she never stopped helping other people. She’s always had room if someone needs a place to sleep or food. But now she’s the one in need of help, although she would never directly ask for it herself.
For a long time she’s been fighting to regain control of her life. She’s sadly had to move from different homes, only to have been in the dire need of moving again because of economic problems. Now this is sadly the case again, and more than anything I wish I could help a fantastic woman, an angel, who helped me and a lot of other kids in my hometown. Therefore I turn to you, people of other communities, to help in this dire situation since neither the organization responsible for patient injury compensation, media or politicians wants to listen.
Important links:
https://www.npe.no/nn/om-npe/Brosjyrer/Information-in-English/
(Norwegian patient injury compensation brochure in English)
www.parkinson.org
(Parkinson’s foundation)
https://www.medicinenet.com
(Health information publishing owned my WebMD)
https://www.rxlist.com
(The internet drug index for prescribed drugs)
She was in her 40’s and a so called (in Norway) social teacher. She was the pupils’ spokesperson and her role was to have conversations with kids who needed to talk to someone. Whether it was problems at school (subject wise or social wise), at home or with friends, she was there all day, every day. Personally I had appointments with her every week from age 10 to 14. She wasn’t afraid to stand up and confront teachers if there was something that needed to be done differently with a particular student or a group of them. She always took the students’ side and she even helped kids who had difficulties with gangs. She was doing a great job, but out of nowhere she started to feel ill.
The main reason for seeking help was that she thought she had "frozen shoulder" when she was breastfeeding her youngest in 2005. Within 2 years she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
For those who don’t know what Parkinson’s disease is www.parkinson.org describes it pretty easily:
From she was diagnosed in 2007 it took the doctors two years to prescribe her medication. It was a type of medication widely known as "dopamine agonists". The specific one in our case is Requip.
Dopamine agonists are supposed to reduce the breakdown of dopamine (monoamine oxidase type B(MAO-B) inhibitors) to relieve motor symptoms which usually works very well, including «Angelicas» case. However, dopamine agonists tend to have pretty unpleasant side effects such as swelling caused by fluid accumulation in body tissues, drowsiness, constipation, dizziness, hallucinations, fever, stiff muscles, confusion, sweating, uneven heartbeats, tremors, randomly falling asleep, tight feeling in your chest/trouble breathing and nausea (www.medicinenet.com , www.rxlist.com).
According to www.rxlist.com you also may experience increased sexual urges, unusual urges to gamble or other intense urges which is described as Impulse Control Disorder (ICD). This was exactly what happened to «Angelica». You see, when using dopamine agonists there is a big chance that the medication not only works on the neurons in substantia nigra but also the “reward circuit” (nucleus accumbens) in the brain. The reward circuit is an important component of a major dopaminergic pathway in the brain. When this happens it can be compared with the brain of people who are addicted to drugs. Some of the similarities includes:
When you take all that into account it seems obvious that regular follow ups by your general physician is very important. Somehow «Angelica» went 18 months without any kind of contact with her doctor.
During the time «Angelica» was addicted to gambling she lost everything. Despite the fact that she didn’t own anything she never stopped helping other people. She’s always had room if someone needs a place to sleep or food. But now she’s the one in need of help, although she would never directly ask for it herself.
For a long time she’s been fighting to regain control of her life. She’s sadly had to move from different homes, only to have been in the dire need of moving again because of economic problems. Now this is sadly the case again, and more than anything I wish I could help a fantastic woman, an angel, who helped me and a lot of other kids in my hometown. Therefore I turn to you, people of other communities, to help in this dire situation since neither the organization responsible for patient injury compensation, media or politicians wants to listen.
Important links:
https://www.npe.no/nn/om-npe/Brosjyrer/Information-in-English/
(Norwegian patient injury compensation brochure in English)
www.parkinson.org
(Parkinson’s foundation)
https://www.medicinenet.com
(Health information publishing owned my WebMD)
https://www.rxlist.com
(The internet drug index for prescribed drugs)
Organizer
Padmé Sophie Kristiansen
Organizer
Nøtterøy
