Husband diagnosed MCI: He is in denial and personality is changing

I worry constantly that my husband is not taking enough. He was on 5 mg Aricept after first neurology appointment for memory while further testing. After a year they upped dosage to 10 mg which brought a significant improvement and offered another drug which I read was for belligerent behavior and I chose not to use that as he had no symptoms of belligerence and my fear is that if I use all of the meds too soon, I will “run out” of options and meds that will help. But then worry that he is not getting right meds. I do trust his doctor, I am just so terrified of what is to come.

My husband was very belligerent and his doc prescribed him Seraquel, which has helped alot.
Seraquel is an anti psychotic drug and is used off label for some issues relating to severe irritability and hostile behavior

@civvy How are things going for you? Has your husband settled down at all? And what are you doing to take care of yourself?

I have faced major obstacles and personal al tragedy in my lifetime and I tell myself that I will get thru this . But this is gettting harder and harder to believe
Some days I will wake up at 3 am and go sleep in my study. Just to have my own space where I feel I can “breathe”. My spouse sleeps thru the whole thing.

I try to get away from my husband at least one or two times during the day to meet a friend for coffee or do some errands. He is suspicious of why I go out this is not the man I married . His behavior is unacceptable at times but we are stuck together; this is the first time in my lifetime where I do not see a light at the end of the tunnel

@civvy It sounds so difficult for you. And I worry about you. Are there any respite options in your community? Somewhere that he could go for a week or so? Then you could focus on you and try to get a new ‘handle’ on life. You might try aging services to see if anything is available.
Or maybe you could find some day services (like daycare for seniors).
Would you consider any of these options as viable?

My husband is very high functioning in many ways. He still consults for in international organization . He has, in the words of his doctors “a large cognitive reserve “. He does not believe that there is anything the matter and there is zero chance he would be willing to spend time in any type of day care.
He does best when I get him to go out and about with m; it is a double edged sword because he can become easily nasty and irritated around me
My coping mechanism is to live in 20 minute intervals: when things get really awful sometimes 20
minutes later things have improved

Goodness gracious. I’m so relieved to read all of the above. I was really beginning to believe that I was just an awful person. I seem to get it wrong most of the time.
Instead of helping and defusing a situation, which seems to develop from nowhere, I seem to escalate it. I feel it’s like living with a 6 year old one moment and then a defensive adult the next. Thank you all for sharing.

This is difficult, I went through the same thing with my wife. Our four children were helpful and supportive as she was thoroughly evaluated and eventually diagnosed, "Alzheimer's dementia with paranoid ideation". She was impossibly hostile with all that hostility directed at me, convinced that I had orchestrated a conspiracy against her. We even tried marriage counseling but after a few visits she refused to go, thinking the counselor was on my side. The gerontologist eventually achieved a reduction in this hostility through a combination of anti depressants and anti psychotics. The disease has advanced but with 24/7 caregiving on my part, we get through the days without much conflict. I read books and went to seminars on dementia to learn as much as possible and caregiver support groups at the Senior Center were helpful too. Many challenges and sometimes family drifts away being upset watching the personality changes. Prayers for you and your husband, you will have surprises, some good, some not so good. Keep in touch with this group, it's a great blessing.

Thank you for your comments Chris. I am sorry you and your family are
experiencing this. What a beast of a disease this is

It really is. "Turn of Mind" by Alice LaPlante gives a description of how the disease can evolve, through the eyes of the surgeon who charts her own progression. It's a novel, but is very informative, especially for those of us who hadn't seen this up close and personal before.