From 150 lbs she is down to 105.
She lives in a lovely apartment.
Her kitchen is well stocked, she eats a healthy breakfast at home .
She goes out to eat regularly and often orders a chocolate milkshake after a generous, well balanced meal.
Yet she continues to lose weight.
She is generally active, using a walker to shop and do errands with her companion.
The companion is taking on more housecleaning duties but she still does her own laundry and changes her sheets and straightens up her apartment.
She does have arthritis and a colostomy.
Her heart is strong and though she has fallen a few times she has never broken a bone!
She knows what she likes and what she wants and is demanding, usually getting it.
I hope that everything goes well with your Mom.
bringing your mother to concerts, weekly trips to the beach...! :)
I've read some responses already. It seems you have helpful ones.
I hope she continues to enjoy life and am happy she has you to watch for her best care.
Apparently she doesn’t have enough good bacteria in her gut to digest and convert the food into nutrients, it seems to be passing through undigested. The bile required for digestion in the upper vowel comes from the liver, which has over 500 functions in the body. Everything that we eat passes through our liver. Cirrhosis or scarring of the liver may be the cause. My wife had it. Also, my wife had a pinched; kinked tube exiting the liver, she dropped 60 lb over a five year period. Died @ 100 lb or less. Get her checked out immediately: (blood workup and scans)?
Carbohydrates (pasta, cookies, bread, grains) are digested in the mouth by saliva biome; proteins are digested by acid in the stomach, so if she’s taking any antacid tablets/ liquid to stop heartburn she should stop doing that immediately. What she should take for heartburn is the exact opposite. Any acid reflux can be stopped in a few seconds by sucking on a sour orange (Citric acid, or a slow sip of Kombucha, which is a fermented tea, very rich in probiotics and the perfect acidic strength to aid digestion, along with the good bacteria that your body needs for a heathy digestive system. 16 oz $3.00.
It’s 100% gut healthy, tiny, tiny amount % alcohol, not an alcoholic beverage, and you only need two mouthfuls over ten minutes to cure hiccups or acid reflux. Try to keep her upright during eating and for a while afterward. The food needs to stay down in the stomach to digest, obviously.
I sincerely hope this helps. Also watch her carefully for Dementia and Alzheimer’s, because the brain is directly affected by the gut, AND vice-versa. They are bi-directionally connected. Also look up Leaky Gut! This is where the bad bacteria (not killed by the good bacteria) take over the gut and some leak through the bowel wall into the blood stream; get carried to the brain, causing inflammation in the brain, and then there’s irreversible synapse damage and the brain starts to shrink.
If you are over 40 you need to study how you can stop this brain deterioration before it’s an issue threatening your life. Take my warning seriously. My wife did just two months ago. She had malfunctioning liver to a degree, but what killed her was a slow, insidious dying of her brain, eating fresh prepared veggies, meats, salmon; losing weight. Little by little, she lost it. All of it.
It’s extremely painful to Everyone involved. It’s a constant heartbreaking ache that never goes away, helpless 24/7. She was on Morphine Sulphate around the clock to help her with her pain. She had RigorMortise, in a fetal position, for a month before she died. Finally we couldn’t pry her mouth open enough to get a syringe between her lips.
Please get help: call your local doctor’s office, get her into free Hospice care at home. Medicare supplies an all electric twin
bed with railings, diapers, latex gloves, pillow, toilet over-ride chair; you have to provide the in home care and feeding, diaper changing, all of her care, basically. Nurses are available for free medications, advice, and supplies. Someone will be scheduled by Hospice to come once or twice a week to bathe her, change the sheet and pillow case.
Preventative care, Palliative Care in home should be on your minds.
An example was given to me: When a match is struck in the forest, you can use it safely and put it out, or you can wait until the forest is on fire, and then try to put it out.
Early on, you can be in control, wait too long and you lose everything.
I went into this day by day, naively, five years ago I could have done something to help my wife, but the doctors who did all of the testing didn’t advise me at all,
My wife and I were married 58 years ago. Losing her this way was preventable! I lost my life’s most valued treasure: my wife, still my sweetheart.
Please take care of yourselves!
My words of warning - something very similar happened to my mother (although her weight loss was more subtle and I failed to notice it), it lead to weakness and frailty, which lead to falls and ultimately started the downward spiral of her final years.
You cannot expect a 96 yo gut to do the work that a 40 yo gut did. Just one more lovely part of aging. I've become lactose intolerant as I have gotten older and much more sensitive to overeating--I have to really watch the dairy.
My mom has maintained a weight of about 140 lbs for years, eating whatever she wants, but pretty much just 2 meals a day. She is almost immobile, so she isn't burning many calories at all.
My MIL has GAINED a lot of weight in the last few years and told me she was over 180lbs after always weighing about 130 all her adult life. I think she eats a lot and is also pretty immobile, but IDK, I'm not in her life.
I think at 96, you should just let her have what she wants. Short of a physical problem, which should be ruled out by her Dr., just let her be.
Take care.Liz
What does her doctor suggest might be causing this dramatic weight loss?
[You're using the same, accurate scales? and she wasn't holding on to anything for balance the last time she was weighed, was she? - it might be worth checking again]
your mother (96) sounds like she has amazing health (apart from the worrying weight loss). going out! errands! manages to do her own laundry. incredible. hug!!
My mother, who is about to turn 90 in two weeks suffered a huge weight loss from the time she got sick last year to the present time. I live with mom, so I saw this first hand. Last year after turning 89. she got very sick, with a number of ailments. First, she had a bad reaction to a new drug, then she got a UTI, followed by diverticulitis, and some other stuff. She dropped from 120 lbs to 87 lbs. For a while she was in hospice, but thankfully, she was removed from hospice after it was apparent she was not dying. Now she wants to gain weight but says she has no appetite. She has upper and lower dentures. She tells me she trouble swallowing "solid" food, meat potatoes, salad, etc. She lives almost exclusively on soup, preferably creamy vegetable or seafood soups. I put all the soups through a blender to eliminate large pieces and get a smooth texture. She always eats her soup. Mental state is good with little cognitive loss. She walks with a walker fairly well, though she does get tired.
My goals for her are to try to get some more weight on her. She wants to gain weights but has little appetite. So far, I have started adding grated cheese to her soups to increase the caloric count. Also, she is eating Greek Yogurt in the mornings. Someone on this post mentioned thyroid problems, so I'm thinking of setting up a Drs visit to check her thyroids. She has started eating some solid food. Yesterday she ate some sheppards pie, with no problems. At the moment, she is eating enough to maintain her weight, but she needs to eat more. I would like to get her to 100 lbs or so. Any suggestions are welcome