Dealing with depression - suicidal thoughts - Join the conversation (including helpline details)

Friesianfan

Member
Location
Cornwall
I’m after some advice. My mum who is 75 has suffered anxiety and depression on an off all her life( a lot to do with losing her mum to tb as a child). The last two years it has been severe and debilitating. Over recent times she has gradually stopped eating and is now malnourished. She is taking ‘build up’ drinks. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas to get her eating before she fades away. Any advice greatly appreciated.
 

Friesianfan

Member
Location
Cornwall
Could her GP refer her to the local hospital nutritionist? They should be able to make some helpful suggestions. Small meals, little and often all day, whatever she feels like eating, the higher calorific content the better.
Thank you. We’ve tried. Even just a biscuit she can only manage a bite. The gp just says her appetite will come back as her depression gets better. But it’s not.:(
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
I’m after some advice. My mum who is 75 has suffered anxiety and depression on an off all her life( a lot to do with losing her mum to tb as a child). The last two years it has been severe and debilitating. Over recent times she has gradually stopped eating and is now malnourished. She is taking ‘build up’ drinks. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas to get her eating before she fades away. Any advice greatly appreciated.

My mother turned to the bottle and you don’t want that I can assure you. It’s really hard to give advice as families and complications of life are very difficult and lengthy to try and explain. Imo it needs a life changing occurrence and someone to introduce some verve into life. Sometimes even a homecare assistant for 1/2 hour every morning can be that injection of ‘new’. They’ll cook, clean, chat, bathe or the ones that helped my Dad just sat and made a fuss of the dog whilst talking politics etc. I didn’t care what they did (as long as he didn’t stink and had some dignity) as he was happy and got that interest in life back/something to talk about. Many of the staff even related to farming life, one lady was married to a guy that used to drive our milk tanker another guy was an early retired stock trader from the city that had overcooked himself at a young age, got some very good stock tips from him!!
 
Do you and your mum converse much and does she ever tell you of how her life was after losing her mum? How old was she when mum died and was she an only child?

As I try to contemplate your problem and remember how we coped with my mother in law's diet when she was very ill I remembered how we had to liquefy all her meals but unfortunately, regardless of what we prepared, all the meals tended to taste pretty much the same and bland. Us older folk tend to need food that has stronger flavours to it and dental state can often interfere with our enjoyment of our food.

Perhaps a good home made chicken soup, or a rabbit stew, may just tempt her when she can smell it cooking. Our smell memories can often motivate us to remember meals of yesteryear and perhaps invoke our appetites just a little.

Chris :)
 

Friesianfan

Member
Location
Cornwall
Do you and your mum converse much and does she ever tell you of how her life was after losing her mum? How old was she when mum died and was she an only child?

As I try to contemplate your problem and remember how we coped with my mother in law's diet when she was very ill I remembered how we had to liquefy all her meals but unfortunately, regardless of what we prepared, all the meals tended to taste pretty much the same and bland. Us older folk tend to need food that has stronger flavours to it and dental state can often interfere with our enjoyment of our food.

Perhaps a good home made chicken soup, or a rabbit stew, may just tempt her when she can smell it cooking. Our smell memories can often motivate us to remember meals of yesteryear and perhaps invoke our appetites just a little.

Chris :)
Thanks Chris. We talk every day. She was just a child under ten. Doesn’t talk about it but I know she was reared by her gran. She was one of 6 children. She just refuses to eat. When she does she often brings it back up. She’s just so weak.
 
Over my many years, I have met folk (both male & female) who said that they had now lived their three score and ten years and were now living on borrowed time and others who seemed to just give up and grow old.

Milkloss made some good points about having someone to chat with; a visitor, or two. Has mum always been a farm girl and farmer's wife? Or did she have other interests?
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Thanks Chris. We talk every day. She was just a child under ten. Doesn’t talk about it but I know she was reared by her gran. She was one of 6 children. She just refuses to eat. When she does she often brings it back up. She’s just so weak.

Is there another underlying issue other than depression? I’ve found more senior people tend not to discuss ‘minor’ issues such as urinary tract infections etc. Some even refuse to drink much water as going to the loo regularly for some reason is taken as a sign of weakness.
 

Jameshenry

Member
Location
Cornwall
I’m after some advice. My mum who is 75 has suffered anxiety and depression on an off all her life( a lot to do with losing her mum to tb as a child). The last two years it has been severe and debilitating. Over recent times she has gradually stopped eating and is now malnourished. She is taking ‘build up’ drinks. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas to get her eating before she fades away. Any advice greatly appreciated.
My mother of a similar age has been ill this last few months and has lost her appetite, i've been cooking up home made stews and cottage pie, and she's enjoyed it, i think sometimes they kind of give up on things and they need pushing and reminding to eat, but everyone is different, try to get some multi vitamins in her if possible, is she active at all ?
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Could there be an underlying age related problem such as hiatus hernia? This makes swallowing difficult and food tends to get stuck or regurgitate. My grandmother had this problem, which made her embarrassed and reluctant to eat. It was alleviated by avoiding chewy fibrous dry hard foods such as roast meat, dry bread etc and switching over to more finely chopped and liquid foods. Banana custard, rice pudding and such like helped a lot and at that age when she wasn't that active were sufficient to maintain body weight.

Gran lost her sister to TB at the age of 22. It had an impact on her outlook on life as well, not for the better.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
They say animals know if something's up, but I never would've thought that of chickens tbh. Family life got too much today :( so I took refuge in the garden and bawled my eyes out. My black rock came running over and is refusing to leave my side, keeps assuring me of her presence, clucking and scratching near me. How is everyone else doing? :)
Sorry to hear that Buffy. Your family issues are no nearer resolution then?
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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