[Toryc]

Greetings, I am getting very concerned re my grandmother’s condition. She has a hypertension and last year she had a blood clot. She is a resident of the US but not a citizen and she is only covered by partially privately sponsored medical program within our state. She is not eligible for any government sponsored programs (medicade/medicare as she didn’t work certain amount of time here in States). Within the program covering her we are getting very limited (literally just a few) doctors to go to and she is an elder lady (89) and I don’t think they consider a true necessity to look at all angles of her condition once hear her age. My heart goes out to her as she does deserve a little more attention – we are from eastern Europe and she went through Nazis’ occupation and holocaust and lost her only child – my mother and than raised me…. All she knew in her life is pain and suffer. Now she lives with me in States but she has so many conditions that we can only prioritize and fight against immediate danger. Sorry for the preamble but my fear is that once people see her age they would not think adequately about possibility of help.
Currently our problem is that she is taking 3 blood pressure medication:
Fosinopril (10mg) + Spironolactone (25mg) + Metoprolol (xl 25mg) (she also takes Children’s aspirin (81mg) and Multivitamin 1 pill of Centrum Silver) and even though her blood pressure is containable she doesn’t feel well at all . These several days she is extremely dizzy and light headed. Sometimes she seems to be disoriented and sometimes have a terrible headache. Yesterday she has an elevated pulse of about 101- 105. I am having a hard time to convince her to see a doctor as she is very weak and don’t want to leave the house. I called a doc. today with the question and they promised that nurse will call back but I know this will take numerous attempts to get in touch. Also, they never seem to know what to do and always reluctant to consider change her medication or do testing.
She had a blood clot in her lungs last summer and with God’s help she made out of it. At the hospital they started her on blood thinners but she started bleed abdominally, we noticed it just by growing internally accumulation (as later we found out of a blood mass) on her belly… They ended up with an intravenous filter to prevent future blood clots and she is on 2L oxygen now.
I don’t have much hope for the doctor getting back to us but eventually I will find a way to communicate – any advice what direction should we go with her medication? It did take some time to find medication to contain her blood pressure but now something is definitely going on. They started her on fosinopril first than added metoprolol than her doc. Added spironolactone. Her potassium level was elevated once during spring but the latest blood test in June seem to be normal (we were told if we are not getting a call from the doc – this means everythin is normal – I didn’t see the test myself).
I would appreciate any thoughts on medication affects.. maybe I can 'offer' a doc to change something. He often doesn't seem to have many ideas. thanks.