Memory improved after taking medicine for three years. Eighty-year-old overseas Chinese died in his dream
Alzheimer’s, Tinnitus, Dizziness / Deafness , Medical Case
Even heroes get old and the glory in the past will slowly fade in memory. This overseas Chinese immigrant, who studied in a military academy, devoted his life to tertiary education and even served as the Dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering at a famous university, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, his brain starting to deteriorate. His family was very worried and his son brought him back to Hong Kong from the United States for medical treatment.
I had known the patient for a while in the United States. Back then, his son and some friends brought him to my house for a visit and attended my son’s outdoor wedding. I remember him particularly well because that day he came, his spine was slightly bent, his steps were weak, and he was unable to balance himself and needed to be supported.
The patient came to my clinic in 2009 when he was seventy-nine years old. When I first saw him, he was lethargic, his right eye was half-closed, and he seemed down. He suffered from arrhythmia, his heartbeat was uneven, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. He had to be supported by his son when he walked. His steps were unsteady and he was unable to control his feet, every step was difficult. The patient told me that he fell and hurt his head when he was taking care of his wife who had cancer in 2000. He was in a coma and was sent to the hospital for bloodletting. There was still a drilling scar at the top of his head. Later, his coronary artery was blocked and he was admitted to the hospital for Angioplasty surgery, placing stents into his two blood vessels. Since then, he had been taking blood thinner (Asprin) regularly. If he forgot to take the medicine, he would immediately experience shortness of breath and difficulty breathing. Since then, he became increasingly weak with deteriorating memory, repeated speech and failure to recognize his friends. MRI images showed his brain had atrophied. Due to arrhythmia and a weak heart, he suffered from long-term ischemia of his brain cells. His entire nervous system had entered a half-sleep state. When action commands were required, the neurons in his brain could only send out weak pulses, so his feet were weak while he walked. In addition, due to cerebral ischemia, he could not balance himself and staggered when he walked.
After the first visit, the patient stopped the Chinese medicine after taking only one dose of it and switched to taking Western medicine. Later, under the constant urge and supervision of his son, he completely switched to Chinese medicine. His son said after taking Chinese medicine, patient’s complexion turned red, his heartbeat had accelerated, his blood pressure had elevated, his walking had become more stable than before and his conversations had slightly improved. At the fifth follow-up visit, he was depressed and didn’t feel like talking, so I didn’t know the condition of his repeated speech problem. Soon after, he returned to the United States to celebrate his 80th birthday. During the period, he was very cooperative and drank Chinese medicine every day.
Walked steadily with conditions improved
His son told me that during his stay in the United States, he had completely stopped taking Aspirin, without any sign of shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Seeing that my Chinese medicine was very helpful for his father’s progress, he decided to bring him back to Hong Kong for further treatment. He also hired an Indonesian maid to take special care of him. Fortunately, the patient’s younger brother ran a restaurant in Hong Kong and could prepare medicine for him every day. At the eighth follow-up visit, the patient had made great progresses. His gait was completely normal and did not need any support. His steps were very steady, without any imbalance. I asked him if he remembered me, he responded quickly and said “yes”. He talked about my home in the United States and that my garden was beautiful. He couldn’t stop praising. His speech was very logical, his words were not repeated and his conversation was fluent, nothing like an Alzheimer’s patient at all. In just four months, his conditions had taken a U-turn with such a remarkable breakthrough, which was really gratifying. His son told me that many relatives and friends came to visit him at his home on weekends, including his younger siblings and his friends. They all said that he responded very well with fluent conversations, without any Alzheimer’s symptoms. After a period of treatment, his complexion, energy level and movements had all improved a lot compared with the condition he was in when he first came to me for treatment. Everyone was very happy for him, and his son, feeling relieved due to his stable progresses, had returned to the United States for work.
His memory gradually recovered. When he saw me, he called me Dr. Au. He also remembered his son in the United States. He walked without a stagger and needed no support, though sometimes he still felt a little unsteady. At the 10th follow-up visit, the patient had pain with some redness and swelling in his right heel. It was obvious that his kidneys were expelling uric acid (kidney stones dissolved by medicine would turn back to uric acid). When it passed through his heel and stayed at his joint, it caused pain. I believed it would become fine in two or three days. Surely, the pain, redness and swelling had disappeared at the following visit.
The patient did not normally smile when he talked but now, he began to smile more. Every time we talked about his stinky farts, he laughed especially loudly and was most cheerful. During the chat, he could answer fluently and respond quickly. At the 21st follow-up visit, I asked him which relatives and friends came to visit him. He answered right away without any hesitation. He also said that he was meeting his sister for lunch after the visit. Judging on the situation, his memory had been gradually improving. There was one time he asked me why he had to take the Chinese medicine for so long. I told him in detail that he had Alzheimer’s, which was incurable by Western medicine. Although his conditions had become much better than before, he still needed to continue taking the medicine to avoid further degeneration of his brain.
Harmful toxins gradually excreted
At the twenty-nineth follow-up visit, tartaric acid crystals were found in many bottles of urine samples he brought in. These were harmful substances to his cranial nerves, which could erode the myelin sheath, the outer layer of his nerve axis, and disturb the signals sent by his nerve axis. The discharge of large amounts of toxins this time could speed up his recovery from Alzheimer’s. Although his memory had been gradually recovering, there were confusions from time to time. For example, when I asked him who came to visit him, the answers were not be completely correct, especially those about timing.
Recently, I found that his behavior had changed. He spoke politely and modestly, returning to the way he was before having the disease. It showed that his nervous system had been improving gradually, his memory had been recovering and his movements and behavior had been becoming normal. At the thirty-sixth follow-up visit, his son had returned to Hong Kong and called to say that his father’s conditions had regressed. His memory deteriorated again that he repeated his speech many times. I tried to comfort him and said that it was normal to see ups and downs in his conditions, and there was no need to worry too much. I asked the patient to take iron pills, which would help the transmission of nerve signals and memory restoration. In addition, I once asked patient about his younger brother and sister. He said his younger brother was very busy recently for opening a restaurant in Shanghai and his younger sister had returned to the United States. It seemed that his memory had improved again.
After taking iron pills, his maid felt that his memory had indeed improved a bit. He could remember new things, though after a few days, he would completely forget them. I asked him who came to visit him recently, and he immediately replied that it was his wife’s brother, but he couldn’t remember when. His son returned to Hong Kong from the United States again and felt that his father was much better than the previous time. In particular, he felt relieved that the pain in his father’s heel had not recurred. In addition, during chats, I noticed that his father could remember a lot of things from the past, and it seemed that his memory had been slowly recovering.
At the forty-seventh follow-up visit, the patient’s son returned to Hong Kong from Beijing. He said that during the previous few days, his father repeated his words again. He kept asking the same questions and he could not even recognize his 16th younger sister who was the closest to him. I was so surprised. After inquiring carefully, I learned that he rarely took naps recently, coughed at night and slept poorly, which led to insufficient blood supply to his brain, directly affecting his memory. I told him to pay attention to his sleep to maintain a good mental state. Then his memory improved again.
Uric acid excreted and gout cured
At the forty-ninth follow-up visit, the patient had pain in his right knee, which should be caused by uric acid. Fortunately, three days later, after the uric acid was discharged, the knee pain completely disappeared. Until his death, there was no more pain in his right knee or heel. Later, his maid told me that when relatives and friends came to visit him, he could always respond well and the condition was not bad. Observing his father, his son said that patient’s head was clearer and he spoke more fluently. After the fifty-ninth follow-up visit, patient’s maid called in a panic, saying that he coughed so much that he hurt his throat and coughed up blood, asking me what to do. I told her not to be afraid, give him a glass of ice water immediately to constrict his blood vessels and stop the bleeding. The main reason for his cough was a lack of oxygen in his brain due to a weak heart, which automatically sent out a signal of itchy throat to trigger a cough, so his lungs would expand and inhale more oxygen for supplying to his brain cells.
The patient had a blood test, showing his cholesterol was slightly high and his globulin, which reflected his liver function, was 0.1 higher than normal. Other results were normal. At the sixty-seventh follow-up visit, the patient was very excited about returning to the United States. He said one of his god daughters had recently got married and stayed in his house. He told me about his past stories. Based on my observation, the patient had absolutely no problem with his conversations, but his memory was sometimes good and sometimes bad.
His son thought that massage would help his father’s memory, but after a period of time, he found that there was no improvement. I wrote a health report for him and asked him to join the Jockey Club Centre for Positive Aging to have more interaction with people. In the later stage of treatment, the patient experienced confusions and fecal incontinence in the middle of the night and was even reluctant to eat anything or drink medicine. However, his latest medical report showed that except for slightly low hemoglobin and red blood cell levels as well as a degeneration of his spine, everything was normal, and his family was very happy. Later, he was very resistant to taking medicine and finally stopped the treatment. His condition deteriorated rapidly then. His family saw this and persuaded him to take medicine again. Nevertheless, he often closed his eyes and fell asleep, indicating that his heart and spirit were weak. It looked like his life had almost come to the end.
One day, the patient’s maid called and said that he had a fever and asked me what to do. I didn’t think it was a big problem and just asked him to continue drinking medicine. On the following day, the maid called again to say that his body temperature had returned to normal and there was no news afterwards. It was not until half a month later that I received a call from his son, saying that after his father stopped taking medicine, he had a fever again and was sent to the hospital. Shortly after the physical examinations, he died in his sleep.
Previously, the patient had been in good health although there was no major breakthrough in his memory. A while after stopping the medicine, his health began to degenerate and he became often lethargic, reflecting heart deterioration until its failure due to discontinued treatment. The patient was considered a blessed person as he passed away peacefully after living a long life. He was first diagnosed on 25 September 2009 and the treatment ended on 15 February 2013, spanning three years and five months with 162 visits. During this period, he returned to the United States twice. Shortly after the patient’s death, his son sent me an SMS, thanking me for having slowed down the degeneration of his brain over the past three years with my medical skills, enabling him to live a normal and quality life during the period. In the later stage of the treatment, her daughter returned to Hong Kong from the United States to visit her father. During the follow-up visit, she said to me that her father’s speech and response were totally different from the situation in the United States. The progress was simply unbelievable if not seen with her own eyes.
This article was written by Dr. Sik-Kee Au
August 1, 2017
For enquiries, please email to sikkeeau@gmail.com
Medical case number: 090925