Please help me. 25 y/o student with mum with PD - gambling, lonliness & bordem

About Parkinson's and health Impulsive and compulsive behaviour
1

My mum has PD and has recently been gambling an awful lot of money, money which she should be using to pay her bills. She has been frequently asking me to buy her shopping and food and also lend her money. I have given her hundreds over the last few months. I worry when she has no food as she cannot take her medication without eating and she also seems to be loosing weight. 

I am a 25 year old male student who lives 5 minutes away from  my mum and Uni starts up again in a week or two. Whilst I'll be staying at home I wont have the time to help my mum as much as I'd like as I'll also be having to find a job to support myself. I cannot claim carers allowance as a full time student unfortunatley but this does not change the fact that as an only child I'm the only one there to help.

We spoke to my mums nurse about the issue to which my mum became very upset and she also has massive anger outbursts and has also on several ocassions taken the keys from me for the motability car we use to get her around to her appointments and shopping etc. She uses the car as a tool of power almost, even calling the police once to have it taken from me which was unbelievable. She later regrets this and gives me access again. I paid £1000 for the car deposit also so this can be quite a daunting situation. 

 

Anyway I recently opened a new bank account for my mum to which she didn't have access and worked out exactly what she had spare per week to spend on food and whatever she liked. The agreement was that I would sort out all of her bills from the main account from which she is locked out of and send her weekly spare money to the new account which I do not have access too.

Upon attempting this the first week my mum managed to snatch the new card from me and gamble nearly £300 within an hour of having the card and also phoned the bank and used the details on the card and her convincing manner to lock me out.

My mums nurse says it may be a medication causing the issues and they are looking to lower the dose now. 

Is it actually possible though for such a severe gambling addiction to begin after my mum being on the same medication for 5 years now?

The new plan now is to restart the bank plan with a new card and bank log in details the next time she is paid. My mum has racked up a lot of debt due to this problem. Some of which she cannot afford to pay off.

Is there any software anyone knows of to block these gambling sites? I fear it may send my mum into one of her anger rampages in which she can be very nasty and do horrible things such as ring colleagues and my college for example making up horrible stories about me but it may need to be done. It's a horrible situation as I feel my mum is just very lonely and bored and no long feels able to leave the house alone so gambling became a hobby of sorts. 

I guess my three main concerns are, firstly, as previously mentioned..

1. Could medication of 5 years suddenly cause a gambling addiction?

2. Is there a well known way to block these online gambling websites?

3. Is there anywhere I could find a list of possible hobbies or something that my mum might enjoy doing?

Thank you in advice for any help and I wish everyone here the best of health and happiness. 

2

Hi Diane 1965,

I so sorry to hear about your mum and especially feel for in this position. You sound like you have so much responsibility so young.

The only point I can comment on is the medication. The obsessive behaviour can come with the medication. Your mother may have had it a while but it's reached an uncontrollable stage. She needs that looked at ASAP. Ropinerol is on email of the meds that can cause this problem.

The nurse should be able to point out some groups, activities in your area. Unfortunately some areas are better than others.

Have you contacted PD UK by phone. They may give you financial advice. You need support.

Hopefully others with more experience will post. I wish you all the best. 

3

Hi diane 1965,

I'm a million miles from being an IT expert, but I'm pretty certain that most versions of windows have "Parental control" settings which you can can select what types of website you want to block access to. I'm sure there'll be somebody on here can guide you through that. Watch out for impulsive behaviour on the television shopping channels too. I heard from a reliable source of one PWP who had racked up £70,000 worth of debt. Exactly as Divine1 said above a review of meds needs to be done ASAP. Can you try and contact her Neuro directly and impress upon them the massive risks that are hanging over you & Mum.

I hope you can get the progress you need before, what appears to be another negative statistic DA gets notched up. 

DA's can and do work very well for  a good many PWP, but I get the impression the PWP needs a cautious eye kept on them for the duration.

Regards,

Tractorman.

4

Hi diane1965,

I'm sorry to hear your mum is struggling at the moment.

You can call the helpline on 0808 800 0303 and someone will be able to advise you directly, and they can also help you find a local group that may be able to provide some more assistance and information around activities that your mum can get involved with.

For any issues with gambling specifically, you can contact the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 and there is also a livechat service and much more information at https://www.begambleaware.org/

You can also visit http://www.gamcare.org.uk/, which does include information about blocking software, though I think it would definitely be worth speaking to someone first before you take that action.

I hope this helps, please remember that the helpline is there for you as much as your mum if you ever need to speak to someone.

Best wishes,

Tom - Digital Team

 

 

5

 

Also try contacting the neurologist via their secretary. This is a  known side effect of Parkinsons meds in up to 17 per cent of patients  When  your mother sees the neuro,it is in the nature of these compulsions that they are secretive and naturally she  wont confess to any such urges to the neuro.  The family should therefore  be let in on these scenarios. Dont worryabout  contacting the  neuro or the PD nurse directly.  There are excellent free to download publications on subject of obsessive compulsive disorders caused by Parkinsons meds elsewhere  on this site.  I would give you the link but  not used to the new set-up.

 

AlthoughI find my PD nurse very good normalllly it wasonly when     I   c ontacted the neuro direct that I got help with a meds related problem of my own