I’ve been writing about what it’s like to have obesity to the Nth degree and pervasive in my writing is about Food Noise. This is a new phrase to me. Below, you will learn how I experienced food noise, food chatter… food SCREAMING. I’m pulling from one main post written in 2007 and have linked to my blog post about Food Noise and GLP-1s. I felt this topic deserved another space of its own.
2007, written in my Navelgazing Midwife blog (now gone):
I lived with the food voices speaking, whispering, and screaming inside my head my entire life except for three distinct times: when I was on Fen-Phen, during the first year after the gastric bypass and now, on Topamax. When the food voices are “on,” they are incessant and never-ending. They don’t take a breath, rest, relax, and stop even for a second to consider my feelings or sanity – they merely run and Run and RUN through my mind until I want to scream – or eat to make it shut up. And even if I eat and the voices recede to the background for a moment, it isn’t but a moment before they are loud and screaming yet again. Is it any wonder I wanted to make them shut up?
Fen-Phen Comes Along (from 2007 post)
Fen-Phen was a dream! Within 3 days, my mind shut up and the voices were gone. I couldn’t believe something could actually make the voices stop! I loved it. I was on Fen-Phen for 19 months and lost 111 pounds. I was still 230 pounds, so wasn’t any thin thing, but I loved where I was – in a silent world of normalcy.
When they took Fen-Phen off the market, the voices returned and came back in a furor I’d never heard before. It was as if they were so angry at being silenced for so long, they were going to tell me 19 months’ worth of what they wanted me to hear. I was forced to listen. And I ate. And ate. And ate. I gained 130 pounds in 9 months.
RNY Gastric Bypass’ Turn (same post)
By year three, I’d regained almost 100 pounds. I was still fairly healthy, but mobility was becoming an issue once again. The sleep apnea was returning as well. The voices had returned with a vengeance. It was the worst of all the returning difficulties.
Topamax Enters the Picture (still same post)
What I really was searching for, however, wasn’t the loss of weight; it was the silencing of the voices inside. The screaming inside my head was becoming so loud; I could hardly hear myself think. Some days, I thought I would go crazy from the cacophony. I begged my psychiatrist for help, over and over again. Please, please, don’t you have something for these voices? You have something for the auditory hallucinations of my Bipolar Disorder, where are the medications for this? For a year, she worked with me to get my BPD and my extremely precarious depression into a place of balance before she would even begin talking about food voices. Once I was stable enough on the meds, she whispered a possible solution.
Her name was Topamax.
Since starting Topamax, the voices have left completely.
GLP-1 Crushes Food Noise
The link in the subheading above is something I wrote October 29, 2023. Yes, it’s a common theme in my life. Voices everywhere! I really hope the Mounjaro (or subsequent medications) keeps the voices absent
I love having them quiet.
I can breathe and not be driven mad by inner chaos.
Thank you, Big Pharma.
I’ve always known Food Noise! I love your term food Cacophony! Before my GLP-1 journey, I always thought that the food noise inside my head was just how it was for me. I didn’t know that other people heard it too. I’ve done all kinds of things to stop those voices, but not until tirzepatide have they stopped! Thank you big Pharma, indeed!
Crazy, isn’t it?! I have so much more room to think now. I know I am more productive. That reason alone is worth taking these meds forever. (For me, anyway.)