Strange eating habits

Marie67

My husband has got to where if he starts snacking on something he will eat until it is all gone. For instance, I bought about 2 lbs of grapes this morning.  Husband ate all of them within 2 hours. And I noticed other day, we had a 3 lb bag tangerines. He ate half of them in one day. I finally hid them from him. Is this just part of the diease, or could it be a side effect of medication?

Joydean

Marie I don’t know if it’s the disease or not. But my dh dose the same thing. I had bought 2 lbs of cherries, I was so glad to find some, I washed them and set in a bowl. Turned around and saw dh had the bowl and seemed to be enjoying himself. I did get 2-3! I was just glad it was fruit and not candy.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

ladypeewee

My Peewee has the same kind of strange eating habits . He went from eating nothing at all but drinking Yahoo drinks for months now he wants Chicken and nothing but Chicken. If I buy any kind of snack food he will eat the whole box. for example I bought a box of 12 nutty buddy bars and he ate all of them one right after the other one. he eats all the cheese puffs and potato chips. other then that he only wants chicken.

Rescue mom

I think it’s the disease. My DH, and a couple others I know, ate very healthy and reasonably all their life. But once mid-stage Alzheimer’s hit, the things they ate, and the amounts—everything—went crazy.

Kevcoy

How interesting.  My DH has developed some very strange binge eating habits in the past year too.  He can polish off a bag of apples in a day or two along with over 10 string cheese sticks.  He has started munching down on a 3 lb bag of tortilla chips from Costco and have it finished in 3-4 days as well.

Elshack

I definitely think this is part of the disease. My DH has no memory of what he ate or how much and would compulsively continue to eat if his plate was not taken away from him. He is now in MC and they told me the other day he went into another resident's room and found a box of chocolate candy there. They found him there and he had polished off the entire box and was sitting there surrounded by all the empty paper wrappers!

Another Day

Well, my DH goes on and on about how he can't eat too much bread....then, in the next breath wants to know if I'll make his favorite wheat rolls again for dinner. A-N-D I learned to quit asking what he wants for dinner a long time ago. The answer is always the same - steak. Now, if he is set on steak and that's not the menu, I explain that I'm working the freezer down and we need to use ______ whatever. So far, so good. At least that's what's working at this time.

Kenzie56

My DH started binge eating in mid-stage. I had to hide snacks as, like others have said, he would eat an entire bag/box in one sitting - even at 3:00 am. One day, he couldn't find anything "good" in the pantry and I found him snacking on the dogs' Pupperoni sticks. I put child-proof locks on the pantry...but this stage has passed and it is hard to get him to eat anything now.  All meds are the same, so I do believe the disease impacts the "off" switch.  The lock on the pantry really helped me monitor the binging. Good luck.

ChHodge

Marie67 wrote:

My husband has got to where if he starts snacking on something he will eat until it is all gone. For instance, I bought about 2 lbs of grapes this morning.  Husband ate all of them within 2 hours. And I noticed other day, we had a 3 lb bag tangerines. He ate half of them in one day. I finally hid them from him. Is this just part of the diease, or could it be a side effect of medication?

I never met such side effects mentioned. I usually check https://www.canadapharmacy.com/ and their health blog for all the descriptions and contraindications. Haven't seen excessive appetite as a side effect mentioned. However, reading different related threads I noticed that such behavior is not rare.

Lills

Except for the years he had dementia, my DH was a constant 145 pounds during our marriage.  When the dementia began, he began eating (mostly) sweets non-stop; I'm guessing he gained 20 pounds during this stage!  I once called the doctor because his stool was black.  I didn't know he had eaten a quart of blueberries!  Lesson learned very quickly.  

My husband had FTD.  Over-eating is a classic symptom of this type of dementia.  (Please know I'm not implying that FTD is the only kind of dementia to overeat, etc.)

M5M

So, I’m wondering about this binge eating…….DH is not there yet, although he always eats a lot of sugar in general. Surely the PWD gains a lot of weight? Do you buy new clothes for them? Does the doctor comment on the uncontrolled eating?

Lills

Yes, M5M, I bought new jeans for him as his weight increased.  Then, I began to buy jogging pants and elastic waist pants from Buck & Buck (adaptive) clothing online.  I highly recommend them! And, no, his physician never commented on the weight gain.  DH had the same physician for 20+ years; he knew how meticulous DH used to be.  It was what it was....

barbara622

My DH does the same thing. I have to hide and ration what he eats because he will eat an entire bag of ships or container of cookies etc. he goes to the refrigerator every 10 minutes and pulls out all the drawers. But then at dinner he isn’t hungry so I have kind of given up on cooking regular meals. He eats a couple of bites and then says he can’t eat anymore. I always have food around the house in case he does want something - soup, frozen hamburgers, sandwich fixings - but he very seldom wants anything.

M1

Welcome to the forum Barbara; this is an old thread, you may get more responses if you start a new discussion. Yes, loss of appetite control can be a part of the disease as well as a medication side effect. I used to bring things like bags of cookies or M&M's for my partner to have in her MC room, but not any more—she will eat them all in one sitting. Best to bring a single snack and control portions. Easier to do in MC than in the house unless you start hiding things and locking them up, for sure.

ButterflyWings

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/218427#Comment_218427

Welcome, and as M1 suggested, please do hit the + sign or “New Discussion” button to start a new thread & introduce yourself.

DH lost his appetite with the dementia meds, and lost so much weight so fast we had to stop Donepezil after 2 weeks. Could your DH’s behavior be med related?

Also, know that things change with dementia, sometimes in the blink of an eye. My DH started overeating due to not recognizing when he was full. He gained weight and actually got kicked off hospice once as a result. But his nurse researched and found it is a sign of progression — the condition is called leptin resistance.

Now in early stage 7, he still will keep eating until I remove whatever it is (and sadly he will eat anything he sees now, even non-food 😢). But despite eating well, he is losing weight. I think his body just isn’t processing it — not absorbing the nutrition anymore. Sad times.