ARICEPT Reviews (DONEPEZIL HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 1.7 (210 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare ARICEPT with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by Gender with females listed first (reviews with no gender reported listed before females). Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) |
More on ARICEPT: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR ARICEPT | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 1 | Alleged Memory Loss | Headache every day, nausea every day, listlessness every day, depression every day, confusion every day -- acting and speaking bizarrely according to my family. | Since I stopped taking Aricept one month ago, all the symptoms mention have gone away completely. My family says I am no long acting or speaking strangely. I wouldn't recommend this medication! | F | 70 | 4 months 30 mg 1X day | 5/19/2010 | 1 | some memory loss | depression, nausea, loss of appetite, fuzzy head | My mother was prescribed aricept because she was experiencing some memory loss. Her whole personality changed and she spoke of wanting to die. She had no appetite and lost her enjoyment of life. After several months on aricept she was struck with macular degeneration and has lost her eyesight except for peripherally. I haven't found any links between aricept and macular degeneration but I am wondering if anyone else has experienced that. My sisters and I finally demanded that she be taken off of aricept and she became her old self again except for her vision loss, which remains. | F | 90 | 4 months 5-10mg 1X day | 5/23/2010 | 1 | Alzheimer's | nausea, diarrhea, headache, agitation,confusion, loss of appetite, fatigue | My mother started on Aricept 5mg in March of 2010. She is 81 and just recently diagnosed with advance Alzheimer's. There didn't seem to be any side effects. It was increased to 10mg in April of 2010 and within a few days she started not feeling well. We thought it was the flu and called the neuro and he suggested to wait 2 more weeks to see if this was due to another issue. She has gotten progressively worse and now after reading a lot of these reponses, I know for sure she needs to get off of this drug or at least go back to 5mg. | F | 57 | 2 months 10 mg 1X day | 6/1/2010 | 1 | mild forgetfulness ? | Really MADE me feel crazy and my head felt big-- | Would want a situation where I did not know I was taking it to repeat this experience! Terrible feeling. | F | 69 | 12 days 10mg 1X day | 2/5/2010 | 1 | Possible Alzheimers | lethargy, confrontational, seeing things that were not there, hiding things, child-like behavior, skyrocketing blood pressure, unstable blood sugar, terrible anxiety | Took my 82 yr old Mom off Aricept. As half-life of drug is 70 hours, true enough, all her values improved steadily. Skyrocketing blood pressure of 162/104 was considerably better within 3 days! Tonight, just one day shy of a week, she walked into the kitchen and asked her husband how she could help with dinner! She had previously been zombie-like! | F | 82 | 2 days 5mg-10mg 1X day | 2/24/2010 | 1 | Alzheimers | Nausea, dizziness, exhaustion, weakness especially in legs. | My mom is pretty healthy for her age, really a vibrant person. I have never seen her look the way she did after she had been on Aricept for a week. She was sickly, pale, droopy, depressed, tired, and dispirited. She was nauseated and dizzy. Her incontinence worsened. Her legs got so weak after a week that she required assistance walking and we wondered if she'd had a mini-stroke. (Testing the same day showed that she had not.) Aricept is POISON and I feel extremely guilty that I did not research this medication before allowing her to go through this ordeal. Now I'm suspecting that Aricept may be one of the reasons that my dad got so much worse so quickly after he started taking it 10 years ago for Alzheimers. It makes the life just drain out of a person. | F | 85 | 8 days 5 mg 1X day | 4/1/2010 | 1 | Memory loss | I'm writing this for my 90 year old mother. She has suffered severe anxiety (sense of "doom"), loss of appetite, very weak, shortness of breath, dizziness, sleeping a lot, muscle ache, stomach soreness. | My mother was given Aricept while in a rehab center after a fall and leg fracture. Mom always has these episodes when in hospitals, etc., of not knowing where she is, getting upset, etc. but always recovers when back home. Don't know why dr. felt she needed this. Was "ok" on 5 mg in rehab ctr but when she got home 3 weeks ago dr. upped it to 10 mg. She started with MAJOR anxiety (woke up during middle of night with fear and shaking). I took it in my own hands and cut her down to 5 mg. 3 days ago. Anxiety stopped immediately! BUT...she is still very weak and short of breath and fills up after eating practically nothing! After reading here how others are also suffering same things, I think she needs to be OFF it NOW! Starting tomorrow we'll be stopping it and getting Mom back to herself! I hope it's not too late. This is a NASTY drug!!! | F | 90 | 45 days 10 mg 1X day | 4/7/2010 | 1 | memory loss/dementia | My 86 yr. old mom was given aricept for memory loss. Two days after starting the drug, she started having incredible fears, horendous nightmares, extreme paranoia, and total confusion. She had trouble sleeping at all and had no appetite. She didn't know me (her daughter) most of the time and lost most of her grasp of reality. We discontinued the drug after 2 weeks of hell and since then she has done so much better. She still has some of the same problems, but the fears, nightmare, paranoia have totally disappeared since 3 days after discontinuing the drug. After reading, seeing,hearing many "horror" stories, I would think the drug should be taken off the market!! | BE CAREFUL | F | 62 | 14 days 10 1X day | 9/13/2010 | 1 | dementia | Difficulty in breathing aggresive behaviour | trying to get nursing home to stop using | F | 94 | 3 years 5mg 1X day | 1/4/2011 | 1 | mild dementia | My 81 year old mother, who I really love, is always up at 8 a.m. to eat her cereal and watch TV, every morning, and she goes on walks up the street several times per day. She was prescribed Aricept 10 mg. and took her first dose at 7:45 p.m. on 1/1/2011. Since Sunday morning she has been having very severe side effects. Labored breathing, loose bowels--not stool, profuse sweating, and she has been so tired she cannot open her eyes for more than a couple of seconds. She had the pill at 7:45 pm on Saturday January 1 before bed and now she is still sleeping and sweating profusely and cannot walk. I can tell she is dreaming as she is talking in her sleep and reaching for something. Other side effects slurred speech, disoriented as to where she is, and what she should do next. | This drug is VERY VERY strong and I would recommend to never give an 81 year old 10 mg dose initially. Wish my mom luck to wake up soon please. | F | 81 | 1 days 10 mg 1X day | 1/4/2011 | 1 | alzheimers/dementia | unable to sleep at night,anxious,violent outbursts,confusion,unable to reason with, | Despite the perscription from the Dr,I will be weening her off this medication.Side affects are worse than her condition.... | F | 87 | 3 weeks 10 mg 2X day | 1/12/2011 | 1 | mild dementia | This is an update to the 81-year old female entry on 1/3, added on 1/4. My Mom has died from side effects it seems experienced by this drug aricept. She went into hospital on 1/4 and died on 1/11/2011. Before taking this drug she was normal and okay as found by physical exam and complete blood test taken on 12/29/2010. | F | 81 | 1 days 10 mg 1X day | 1/16/2011 | 1 | my mom alzheimer | agresiveness, sleepleness, suicidal, loss of apetite and bleeding through her nose. | my mom walks like a zombie, agressive for 5 months she hits me I am who takes care of her. tries to open the door to leave . | F | 50 | 5 months 10mg 1X day | 2/13/2011 | 1 | memory loss | Aricept was prescribed for my Mum (84) we were warned about gastric upset which didnt occur. My MUm became agitated,frightened, confused, very anxious and often unable to function she couldnt even get out of bed. She slept so deeply it was difficult to wake her. These awful episodes were interspersed with short periods of calm which lasted a few hours. | no one warned us about these side effects. So far the drug has produced no improvment in Mums memory | F | 63 | 4 weeks 1X day | 2/23/2011 | 1 | dementia | started my mother on aricept at six oclock this morning, my daughter just went to the house to take her to lunch and feed the ducks, mom did not want her to touch her, said she did not know who she was, crying and very upset, said she did not know anyone, did not even recognize her caregiver, did not want to bathe, told my daughter to get as much food in her as possible to lessen the effects of the drug, will not be giving it to her again. Her usual is to lay in bed almost all day, seems depressed, give her xanax for that she also take parkinsons meds, namenda, reflux meds, celexa, crestor and trazadone for sleep. will probably bunk with her tonight to keep an eye on her, she is really frightened and combative. | This is really scary that a medicine could have this bad of side effects in just a few hours, feel very sorry for people who are taking this and are alone, very frightening. I really feel badly about giving it to my mom, was hoping for some help with memory, would rather she be forgetful than frightened and combative | F | 83 | 1 days 5mg 1X day | 3/22/2011 | 1 | Frontal Temporal Lobe Dementia | Still trying to figure out what exactly this medication is helping with. My mom is 60 started taking this poison about 3 years ago, immediately noticed an increase in hallucinations and agressive behaviors, anorexia, tremors, etc. Mom has been in a nursing home the last 6 months and her disease has made her decline rapidly. These medications are A HUGE EXPENSE, my family would like her off of them but each time it is brought up we are guilted into continuing them, "you don't know what they are preventing" It has not been my experience that this medication has helped with anything. | F | 60 | 3 years 30 2X day | 4/18/2011 | 1 | altzheimers | For my wife 64y old: waking up not knowing where she was and terrifying dreams , bizarre in nature. Withdrawn and inattentive. Stomach problems. Coming off it | F | 64 | 5 days 5 1X day | 2/12/2012 | 1 | poor short term memory, | This drug was prescribed to my 83 year old mother. We did not know that she was suffering from dimentia caused by slight strokes. The medicine caused her to loose control of her bowel and her apathy and ability to comunicate declined. She died of a heart attack 6 months after starting this drug. Very sudden death and we did know she had heart problems. She had begun seeing a geriatric speacilist who prescribed this medicine. | This is a very dangerous drug. I would rather know mama died of natural causes but I know this drug causes heart attacks in people with vascular dimentia. I would rather be safe than sorry. People want to beleive it works but it doesn't from my experience and many other people as well. I think this drug hurt my mother and hastened her death. | F | 83 | 6 months 10 1X day | 3/3/2012 | 1 | Dementia/Alzheimer's | My mother-in-law was prescribed this medicine for dementia/alzheimer's disease. She ended up with out-of-control, chronic diarrhea. This resulted in dehydration and severe, rapid weightloss. Because she was also unable to deal with her bathroom issues herself, the diarrhea caused numerous serious infections and also resulted in the breakdown of skin tissue on her bottom which caused an ongoing burning sensation. All of this resulted in multiple hospital trips. | This medicine in no way improved her memory. In fact, when we knew that the end was growing nearer, we stopped giving her the medicine and she was then able to recall everyone's name, most of her personal information, etc. She was not able to do this while taking this medicine. | F | 75 | 4 months 1X day | 10/3/2011 | 1 | Parkinson's dementia | My 92-year-old mom had Parkinson's dementia and we started her on 5 mg of Aricept, which helped a bit (she talked a lot more, anyway). After a month we increased her to 10 mg and she immediately began having GRAND MAL SEIZURES (8 in 12 hours) and had to go to the hospital to get them under control (because IV anti-seizure drugs would work much more quickly than oral drugs). Long story short, she died 2 weeks later. | DO NOT overlook the less common side-effects of this drug. MY MOM DIED because it caused seizures. She had never had a seizure in her life. | F | 92 | 6 weeks 5 and 10 m 1X day | 10/24/2011 |