HELP! Need recommendations for FATTENING foods

darrensurrey

Yes, he uses products like that all the time. That's why he can drink tea.

He hasn't had a stroke - several years ago he had a breathing tube from a horrible serious pneumonia. It damaged his throat, leading to a stomach tube, which has since been removed.

He is old and has poor muscle tone in his throat, compounded by that damage. When he swallows, his trachea doesn't close properly and food drizzles into his lungs which leads to infection and - once more - pneumonia.

He does swallowing exercises to strengthen his muscles, but when he's not eating enough he gets weak and can't swallow. You see the cycle.

And when he doesn't eat enough he gets sleepy, weak, and it exacerbates cognitive problems. Food is important to us all.

I hope you can find a suitable solution.

sandradev1

My other half was very underweight at one time and a nutritionist came to our home. She said that he should bulk out the meals & drinks that he currently has as adding more would be difficult. The advice was to add 2 tbsps of 'marvel' (dried milk powder) to every pint of whole milk that he drank. Also to use full fat dairy products. Fry foods rather than bake. Add double cream to everything you can. (i.e. have piece of cake in bowl with cream on it).

If he can eat soups, then try cooking a good healthy meal and then zapping it in the blender so that he can swallow it ,

SanDiegoCasey

weight gain shakes, at every nutrition store.

nxd10

I am a nursing student and if your father has a problem with thin liquids that cause him to choke then purchase some thicken liquid. You can make ANY drink ( but carbonated ) a necter, honey, or even pudding consitancy. Your doctor should have gone over all of this wth him???? Instead of asking people online find out from a professional because he could asperate things into his lungs then he's in big trouble.

I know this is a long thread. I hadn't wanted to bother people with the details of my dad's medical history, as I was hoping for recipes and suggestions for ways of adding calories to foods he can eat. He has the support of doctors, visiting nurses, a speech therapist, and a physical and occupational therapist while he is living at home. Massachusetts has excellent health services for the elderly, he has fine insurance, and my mom is amazing taking care of him, including doing home dialysis.

When I say he can't drink, I mean it is rare he drinks more than half a cup of tea a day with thickeners. He drinks nothing else. He's been doing that for years. Because he is on dialysis and eats a lot of soup, his fluids are fine.

He does aspirate into his lungs. The resulting pneumonia will eventually kill him unless something else does. He has gotten pneumonia from it three times in the last nine months. That cannot be changed. What can be changed is keeping his strength up by making sure he gets adequate nutrition - or at least adequate calories. And what can also be changed is making sure he can get pleasure from what he eats. Eating the same thing every meal makes eating a chore rather than a pleasure. So we are working for adding variety in flavor and, to the extent we can, texture to his food.

The professionals working with him have given us good guidelines but they are general. They have also made a few concrete suggestions, which are great. What lists like this are good for is widening out ideas so we can make judgments of additional things that we haven't heard of before. Which they have and I'm grateful for.