help with some symptoms, please

[Nancy Siciliana]

Hi all,

I'm having some difficulty trying help my mom out with some of what she's going through.

She's 85 years old, but she's had a "heart condition" ever since she was prescribed medication for an underactive thyroid when she was 80 years old (this is something she never suffered from; I think it's clear even to her doctors now that that was a hasty decision based on one test with improperly interpreted results, and a complication of an iron deficiency she's had ever since childhood). The medication caused her to go into atrial fibrillation and she's been taking medication for her heart problems ever since. She's not taking too much of it, but it has still been causing problems for her.

At one point, she developed a dark rash on her arms, for which she was then prescribed a topical steroid cream. Shortly after this, she started to develop bruises all over her arms, and the skin there has a tendency to break easily. Both arms are now covered with deep wine-blue bruises, from her knuckles to her upper arms. They look like sleeves of bruises, more than just big splotchy bruises here and there. The bruises aren't painful, they don't seem to heal (or they clear up temporarily and then return) and they aren't (yet) spreading to any other place on the body. Her doctors shrug their shoulders and say, "that's what you have now, we really can't do anything about it". She claims they aren't itching or painful, but she keeps them very clean and moisturizes them often with oatmeal based soaps and creams (so I believe there is some itchiness there).

Has anyone seen this kind of thing before? Is this part of congenital heart disease? Is this what happens after considerable topical steroid use? Could this be a side effect of typical heart condition medications?

It's difficult for me (or anyone) to treat her because she's passive about what she wants to do (she'll let my father determine what will be done, something he's a bit too keen to do, and her doctors tell her repeatedly to stop taking vitamin supplements or any kind of nutritional advice or naturopathic and homeopathic treatments she's received from her ND. At her request, I gave a few low potency remedies for bruising but nothing can really work with all this interference. I'd really just like to know what is happening to produce the bruises, and whether this is a common thing with patients on specific kinds of medications, as well as any experience you might have had treating patients with homeopathy when they've presented with this kind of symptom. I'd appreciate any information or experience shared.

Thanks!

Nancy
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