Did the 'food noise' come back for anyone after it went quiet?

Yes — and discovering the pattern helped more than anything. Mine comes back in three situations: the week before a dose change, bad sleep, and sustained work stress. Evenings specifically, like yours. On calm, well-slept weeks it stays quiet.

What helped: naming it. When the thought loop starts I literally say to myself "that's noise, not hunger," and about seventy percent of the time that's enough to let it pass. Planned evening snacks — something decided at lunchtime, not at 9 pm — removed the negotiation. Protein at breakfast genuinely changed my evenings; I don't fully understand why, but the difference is repeatable.

And I did raise it with my doctor, who took it seriously rather than brushing it off. It was worth the conversation — go have it. It's data about your treatment, not a personal failing.

Eleven months in as well. The thing I had to accept: the medication turned the volume down, but the radio station still exists. Decades of habits and emotional wiring don't disappear because the biology quietened.

What's helped me is treating the returning noise as a signal to check the basics — am I sleeping, am I stressed, am I eating enough protein, am I eating too little overall? (That last one surprised me: undereating made my food thoughts worse, not better.)

A counselor who works with eating behaviors has been the other half of my treatment, honestly. The medication bought me the quiet in which to actually do that work. If the noise is distressing you, that combination — doctor for the medical side, therapist for the patterns — is worth considering. Neither alone was enough for me.