My spouse can’t stop eating.

bonlou

He goes out several times a day to buy food. He has hypertension and heart disease. He eats highly salted food. I am afraid he will have a stroke. Any one relate?

JDancer

Does your spouse have dementia?

M1

welcome to the forum. A lot of people with dementia (assuming he had it) lose their food cues- they forget when they’ve eaten, and can’t sense satiety or hunger either. There’s probably not a lot you can do to control it, especially if he still goes out. Raises the question of whether he should be driving-but that’s another story. The only way you will get control is when you are the sole food provider.

jsps139_

Glad you brought this topic up. I was wondering about the hunger thing. We will finish a big dinner including desert and 5 minutes later my husband is making a PB&J sandwich. It shocks me! He can’t possibly be hungry!

bonlou

Right now my husband’s diagnoses is short term memory loss. However the eating and ordering things online is getting pretty bad. He actually still drives very well. I keep healthy food in the house, but he seems to crave junk food. He can’t possibly be that hungrey.

Quilting brings calm

He’s not exercising good judgement about the eating or the ordering online. That’s not just short term memory loss. That’s loss of executive function. Which will eventually make driving dangerous for him and others. It’s probably already creating havoc for your budget.

concerned_sister

That ordering online is a scary thing in terms of what it can do to your budget.

I'll repeat advice i was given with my DB. Make sure a durable power of attorney is in place and a health care directive. You can do this through a CELA (a certified elder law attorney). Your specific situation will dictate whether, you an offspring, sibling or other person should fill this role. From what you describe as lack of impulse control and likely loss of executive function suggests it's time for someone else to manage the budget. This would include the CC attached to his online shopping.

Do you manage the family finances? Do you have visibility into all of your bank accounts, cc accounts and investment accounts? My brother recently gave me 'the keys to kingdom" (his password vault). I've helped them dig out of a hole they got into before they realized he needed to seek help for the brain fog he had been experiencing for years.

It seems this won't be easy, but it will be necessary.

ButterflyWings

My DH also has this condition, as a result of his brain disease. It is called leptin resistance - after my description of his inability to note when he is full, his first hospice nurse did some research and found this:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22446-leptin

And here is a more clinical article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4846558/

You received excellent feedback above, from the members. It is time for you to intervene in some things, even if you do it without your DH's knowledge. Finances, unrestricted computer access, driving…these are some of the biggest problem areas with early mid stages dementia and can wreak havoc.

harshedbuzz

@bonlou

A couple of random thoughts—

It could be your husband has progressed into dementia which involves significant losses beyond memory. Early on, many neurologists and most PCPs will give a new patient a diagnosis of MCI or a vague "memory loss" taking a wait and see approach before changing it to dementia in a year or so.

Those losses with dementia include things like reasoning/executive function (cause and effect), decision making, impulse control, apathy, and loss of empathy. This may be playing into this behavior.

As PWD lose their ability to initiate and/or enjoy activities they used to, some will turn to "treats" as entertainment. The shopping and ordering may also be entertainment for him.

Poor impulse control and reasoning would lead to a choice of chips over carrot sticks despite the health consequences. And inertia would pick whatever is easiest— if by "healthy food in the house" means preparing himself something rather than grabbing a sleeve of crackers, he's going to pick the crackers every time. You might be able to work around this by creating pre-made snacks ready to go left where he can see them. Or not.

If this behavior has become a topic of disagreement between you, his continued choice to prioritize junk food over healthy options may be rather like a 4-year-old exclaiming "you're not the boss of me!". My dad did this with the wine he wasn't supposed to have.

You could shut it down by stopping the excursions to shop and limiting his access to the internet/money/cards but you probably aren't there yet. I would warn that both cars and the internet are not safe place for PWD to be. In both scenarios, your financial future is on the line.

HB

JDancer

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/207450#Comment_207450

Thank you for clarifying his diagnosis. Please be away that dementia's progression can be insidious.

I strongly agree with the replies you've received, especially, "cars and the internet are not safe places for people with dementia."

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this, dementia sucks.

Whyzit2

Same problem here and so appreciate all the info given. My DH is diabetic and I had to quit buying sugar free cookies and ice cream because I couldn’t control the frequency and amount he was eating. He gets up at night and eats then too. The greatest problem is hiding refrigerated food. Even though we buy healthy things like yogurt, he will devour anything in sight to excess. I block entrance to our kitchen at night by placing chairs and a small table with large bells on it and signs saying no eating. If he moves the barricade I can hear him and intervene. None of this is easy because we are both 83 and use walkers. I slide 3 chairs to block the entrance but the photo below shows only one. So far it is working. It is a bother to set up every night and take apart in the morning but we caregivers jump through hoops all the time don’t we?

JDancer

Perhaps a tall baby/dog gate with a swinging door would be easier.

Wanderra

I’ve tried swapping random trips to the store for a set of ready‑made meals, and it cut down the constant snacking big time. Using https://www.reddit.com/r/mealprep/comments/1p5evjd/today_i_found_out_frive_has_a_hygiene_rating_of_1/ gave us low‑salt, portion‑controlled dishes that were easy to heat, so we didn’t have to chase groceries all day. Pair that with a simple meal schedule, keep salty snacks out of reach, and check with the doctor about any underlying drive.

Michele P

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/207450#Comment_207450

As others have noted , this is more that short term memory loss. If your husband had an MRI and PET scan of the brain along with an evaluation by a neuropsychologist, you should have been told if there was evidence of a neurodegenerative disease or if the MCI was being caused by a non neurodegenerative condition. If this is a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s, he should not be driving. Most insurance companies will not cover an accident if you have Alzheimer’s or another neurodegenerative disease. You can get sued for everything you own because the driver should not be driving. These diseases impact driving function. I would talk to your neurologist about these behaviors and ask for updated testing. There are facilities that offer three hour driving tests to access if someone is capable of driving. It sounds like this has progressed beyond MCI.