My mother has always been a slow eater and a slow drinker, even when she was a kid. My mother's doctor wants my Mom to drink at least 3- 16.9 fluid oz bottles a day every day. She's doing good if she drinks 1 - 16.9 fluid oz bottle in 3 days. If I let her, she would much rather drink multiple cups of coffee all day long.
Although there is water in coffee, coffee is not good for her kidneys and bladder especially since she has frequent UTI's and is urine incontinent and has to wear diapers all day and all night.
Mom doesn't like tea, or kool-aid or lemonade or lemon water or flavored water.
Can anyone help me out please? Her urine is very, very strong and dark. Her urine smells like snot and it's filmy like too. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
Tonight I made fried zucchini for the two of us. Zucchini is chuck full of water, one of her favorite veggies to eat. To my surprise she managed to eat 4 pieces that were cut up and fried soft for her to chew since she only has upper false teeth. I try to cook/fry all veggies for us nice and soft, that way she can chew them easily and she doesn't have any choking issues.
As of the past three years, Mom's taste buds are really odd. She seems to LOVE burnt toast and burnt eggs and burnt bacon. Is this normal? Has anyone ever heard of this?
What does your mom like to eat? Or is her appetite pretty much gone? I'd start with foods she likes and try to figure out a way to make them more liquid dense if possible. And if she will drink coffee, that's where you start! The watered down decaf version sounds pretty good to me.
I hate seeing my Mom like this. I just wish I had the ability to turn back the hands of time to when she wasn't like this. I'm sure all of you do too. Thank you everyone for your great advice, support and wisdom.
Pam's right, of course test her urine.
She's 85 years old. If coffee is her beverage of choice, don't worry about it. Liquid is liquid. Use decaf.
As others have suggested, try other beverages...apple juice...cranberry juice...fizzy water...see if something else rings her lil' chimes.
I have the same problem with my Mom. I've tried alot of the above suggestions with varying degrees of success. I've finally reached the point where all I can do is provide the best I can for her and what will be will be. It's a tough one though to accept.
Also, what about milk, ice cream, shakes, smoothies, etc.
With fall coming soon, soups are a great option.
There are also the Boost, Ensure and similar type drinks. If she's on Coumadin, check a Vitamin K list to see which would interfere the least with her PT/INR levels. We were warned that one of them is a bit more threatening to those levels than another, but were also told that it wasn't that much of a concern. We erred on the safe side.
I don't have any insights on the urine issue. I think that's a matter for a urologist or one of her doctors.