Hungry!

CampCarol

For the past few weeks, DH has been hungry. All. The. Time. After he finishes a meal, he’s asking what else can he have. He’s wanting to snack incessantly, even in the middle of the night if he wakes up to use the bathroom. In 2024, he lost a lot of boatload of weight not wanting to eat. Now he’s gained 10 lbs since the beginning of the year! I’m trying to keep healthy foods in the house for him, but he doesn’t always want them and gets angry if I don’t have what he’s wanting at the time. Is this a phase? Has anybody else experienced this with your LO?

midge333

My wife had lost 15-20 pounds but when she was started on Seroquel for agitation, she gained it all back and then some.

Biggles

Not sure about food we’ve always had a very healthy diet, very food conscious but my DH is having trouble with spoons, knives and forks and I often have to help, but then he always wants desert (fresh fruit and Greek yogurt) but then sweet biscuits or chocolate and flavoured milk, if I don’t have them in the pantry he gets quite annoyed. Daughter says give him anything he wants at this stage he’s 77. Just another decision and confusion for me.

SDianeL

very common. They crave sweets. They forget they have just eaten. Their brains no longer send signals they are full. Keep healthy snacks and hide other things. Try redirection and distractions but they don’t always work. I wouldn’t worry too much. I decided to let my DH have what he wanted. I found he liked the SPLENDA chocolate protein shakes so I would offer those. That sometimes worked.

annie51

My DH has started craving sweets where in the past it was me who had the sweet tooth and he craved salty snacks. When we grocery shop, he is always drawn to the cookies and such and puts one in our basket. I, too, figure I’d just let him have what he wants - but I give it to him rather than letting him see the pile of cookies and picking them (he’ll grab 4 if I let him!). I do try to have nuts and fruit too to balance it out. I don’t know if this is a phase or not, though.

Marchbanks

My DH has gained 40lbs at least in the last year. He is constantly hungry and only wants sweets and carbs. Had no interest at all in sweets before last year. I do wonder if the cravings ever stop. I see so many posts where people try to get their loved one to eat due to weight loss. He was recently prescribed generic Seroquel and when the pharmacist came to talk to me about it she warned me that one of the side effects was increased appetite. Good grief.

When I asked the neurologist about possibly using Ozempic to help with cravings, behaviors and weight gain he totally shut me down and acted like I was trying to get it for myself. I’m no longer seeing him.

The geriatric psychiatrist NP suggested talking to his GP about putting him on Metformin. I’ll see how that goes.

ButterflyWings

My DH had the same progression at one point and our nurse identified it as leptin resistance. It is when the brain interferes with regular appetite signals and your LO cannot recognize they are full. May even feel literally hungry to the point my DH was giving himself a stomach ache eating too much. He got bounced from hospice once because they misread weight gain for thriving, as if…

Some of you may need to limit access to foods by not having a lot of extra on hand. Some have had to put locks on cabinets and even the fridge for their LOs well-being. If they start overeating like this or even eating raw foods like uncooked chicken or ground beef etc., can you imagine?

I had to stop leaving the full container of homemade cookies in reach, or the package of granola bars — he would eat all 6 before the groceries were even unloaded. The bunch of bananas? Gone in 15 minutes. I found 3 full banana peels in the toilet (causing a more urgent priority since banana peels don't flush and that was a plumbing de-clogging day). And on top of the over-eating there was the repetitive pouring and then forgetting, so I hid things like most of our glasses and the newly purchased juice back in the days when DH would fill 8-9 tall glasses and leave them in various rooms (wasting money and also just exhausting me, trying to keep up with him, those stage 4 shenanigans, the extra dishwashing, etc.)

This is part of their dementia progression and in our case, it passed (on to the next challenging behavior), but I managed it without extra meds, by doing portion control myself — not letting him just have open access to harm himself by overeating once his judgement left the building.