Mother refusing to go to her GP when not well.

[HairGodsHelpMe]

My mother was off form about the 13th of April. She knew herself she wasn't feeling 100%. She's in her early 70s and she was so stubborn. She refused to go to the doctor. This is very different to what she used to do before. She always looked after her health. It took me about a week of encouraging her to go to the doctor and every day she refused. Eventually she did go.

It was a UTI and shingles. She was prescribed medicines. She's still not 100% or so she says. She is refusing to go back to the doctor. I don't know why. We have lovely GPs in our local practice. She's is just refusing to go back to the GP. I am wondering if she needs to go back. I know there are patches available for shingles and pain. Why won't she help herself?

UTI can affect mood and behaviour in the elderly and while she isn't that old, she probably is old enough, especially when affected by shingles too

UTI can be quite persistent too so it could easily be that it didn't clear properly with the first abx.

There's two approaches - trying to reason with her, or contacting the GP, saying that you understand that they can't discuss your mum with them but you want to give them some information that you feel is relevant including UTI possibly not clearing, altered mood, her simply being 'not right' and behaving differently to normal. They can then contact her without mentioning you and call her in for a check up

Does she answer the phone herself? Could you present it as a done deal? As in 'mum the doctors rang, they have made an appointment for you to come back for a review.' UTI's can be difficult to shift. That's worked for me in the past with MIL.

Could you drop a urine sample in for her? You can collect urine sample tubes from the chemist or GP easily.

You could tell her the following as you hand her the bottle:

"for checking that's it's all clear, the doctor said we were to do this by mid May remember, I can drop it off at the surgery for you if you want".

You can help her phone for the results. When you hand it in just tell them she's not right and asked for her sample to be tested.

Job done.