How strange Anne - this is an issue I've had on and off with Mil for a while, and its currently really bad again. Sometimes just within moments of finishing a meal, Mil is asking for 'Jam butties', 'sugar butties', a bit of 'bread and butter', biscuits and cake, insisting that she is 'starving', that she hasn't been given food for 'hours'. She had also started to repeatedly come downstairs and wander at night demanding food (amongst other things). We started, after an horrendous night just over a week ago, to give her both paracetamol, her prn meds and a bowl of porridge, just before bed - which so far is working and she is better now at night - but throughout the day, the demands for food are sometimes non-stop. And it's noticable that the demands for food get worse the more agitated she is.
Her meds were completely changed about 3 months before Christmas, then tweaked again about 6 weeks before, and then tweaked yet again 4 weeks ago, as a response to initally a change in her dementia diagnosis, and then the 'tweaks' in an effort to ease the deterioration in her behaviour and worsening of her sleep that followed. The being 'starving' started around the time of the first 'tweak' and has worsened stadily since. I am more than half convinced that the meds must be at least partially responsible.
She has a sweet tooth and a big appetite anyway, so I struggle to keep her weight in check even without the extra demands for food. When she has piled on weight, its affected her arthritus and her breathing, as well as her being heavier makes caring for her physically harder for me. I substitue low sugar/low fat wherever I can, and swap carbs like spuds for extra veg and salad instead. No snacking between meals when she is at home, either (cos I'm well aware that DC are not very good at keeping her from snacks). I no longer leave a fruit bowl where she can help herself as she can (and has) ate so much that she has ended up with the runs before now. However, its horrible to deal with the pleading and begging and pitiful cries that she is 'starving', as well as the tantrums that refusals can provoke.
I know that she tells the staff at DC that I won't give her food - but as she also tells me that they starve her too - and they are aware of this - it doesn't worry me now as much as it used to. You only have to look at her to see that no matter what other problems she may have, being starved is definitely NOT one of them