Anxieties

[Roses1358]

I am writing this for my husband who is a diabetic, take Lantus daily, a kidney transplant for 11yrs,  immune suppressant drugs daily neoral-prednisone-cellcept, high blood pressure, lisinopril,metropolol, amlodipine.  Never had a problem sleeping at night, but in the last 6mos to a year developed insomnia and anxiety.  He is 85yr old male.  I was evaluated at Memory clinic with low onset alzheimers and short term memory loss.  My primary dr first gave me Rozerem which did not help, panic became more intense.  Memory clinic dr ordered Exelon patch and 50 mg Seroquel, still did not work.  After many sleepless nights and panic .25mg daily of Alprazolam together with 50mg Seroquel helped for a while.  Seems whenever there is a change in his daily routines his sleep pattern also changes. (Friend visiting overnite or family get togethers) Seroquel was increased to 100mg. with 1 Alprazolam.  His panic worse just before bedtime (10:30pm).  Since this all started he has become consumed with urinating.  Keeps saying he has to keep going, keeps jumping out of bed every few minutes, or blames his sugar is going down.  One night I did not hear him in my first sleep, got up and took his blood 13x in a matter of 1/2 hr. (it was not down).Makes all kinds of excuses to get out of bed.  Have taken him to all his doctors, including urologist (everything is OK) they tell me. Also purchased adult diapers so he would not have to get out of bed 10x in a night to urinate, wore them 1x (not happily),but since this and increase does not seem to have that anxiety.   So now we have increased Seroquel to 200mg at bedtime and 2 Alprazolam .25mg about 9pm together with all his other pills.  Neurologist is not in favor of Alprazolam but it is the only thing that makes him sleep.  I followed neurologist order for 3 days to give him  1/2 seroquel at 9pm instead of alprazolam with increased 200mg Seroquel one hour before bedtime and it was absolute disaster.  Needless to say we both were sleep deprived.  In desperation each of those 3 nights I gave him 1 alprazolam and in 15min he was asleep like a baby and slept the rest of the night.  My question is I hear so much about the addiction of alprazolam and wonder if this will work for a while again and will we have to increase it again.  How do I explain to my neurologist my concerns for his negative feelings about alprazolam?  My children say he is 85yrs old, been through much...forget the addiction if it makes him sleep.  Stopped neurolgist's order and told his nurse I was giving him 2 alpra at 9pm and we have both had 2 nights of blissful sleep. Has lost ability to take care of any financial household matters in 2yrs (did it all for 58yrs-owned his own business) Who else has any answers or do I sound like an over concerned wife of 60yrs.