My Husband GW, was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia in 2000. He has been attending Adult day care 2 afternoons a week for 1 1/2 year. We started hiring a carehelper 3 mornings a week just 1 year ago.
I attend support meetings for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's plus. I credit his
early diagnosis for the slow progression of LBD. We are starting to deal
with separation anxiety, incontinence, becoming lost in our own home, and the need of special tools for everyday living.

I've recently become disenchanted with the blog I've been following for a
year, and so have been reading these messages. I find the questions and
answers to be very relevant to our situation and would like to participate.

This mornings problem is of bedding. We still use our supercomfortable king size bed. I spent over $30 for a full length twin size waterproof quilted pad from a medical supply retailer for his side. It has been washed only about 6 times. today it leaked through. GW wears "NIght Pants" double depends pullups, I make 20 punctures in the lining of the inside one to attempt to contain all, but there is always a huge lake on the quilted pad also. I had just washed all the bedding yesterday, so 2 days in a row the changing all the way to the mattress pad is a bit much.
I hope someone has good suggestions, as I really don't want to loose my wonderful bed.

I'm signing off as Di to avoid confusion with Dianne C, already messaging.
Thanks

Hi Di(anne), (I assume you are Dianne W!)

You are welcome to participate here!

Unfortunately I can relate to a man's urine leaking through every stop-gap available and onto the mattress. This was a terrible problem for us. We would discover the leak in the middle of the night, and have to get Dad out of bed so that the linens could be stripped and the bed remade. I was doing the laundry (with lots of bleach) every day. Exhausting.

I did my own experiments with incontinence briefs. I got a bunch of samples and poured cups of water on them to see what happened. The most absorbent I found were from Tena. (It's an expensive brand.) I think their most absorbent is called "Ultra Dry." Then I put two Tena "Super Pads" inside. Often times, this could not contain the urine. As a general rule, the side tape briefs hold much more liquid than the pull ups.

Finally we resorted to an indwelling (urethral) Foley catheter. That gave us many months of peace until bladder spams meant that urine leaked out anyway and he had to wear the incontinence briefs again.

Before the indwelling catheter, we also tried condom catheters. These did not work because Dad had a retracted penis. We also tried a retracted penis pouch. (I kid you not as to the name.) This didn't work either.

We considered a supra-pubic catheter but two CNAs at his assisted living facility said they had current experience with both and thought the indwelling catheter was better (because it didn't leak).

Would GW be willing to sleep on a twin bed next to your king-size bed?

Good luck,
Robin

Yes, Robin, I knew you would recognize me-
Thanks for the referrals, now I need to know where to look for them, as I don't think I've seen that brand.
Will probably need to switch to 2 twins if this problem progresses, as there is not enough space in the room to add another bed. After 47 Years of togetherness, I'm just trying to delay that as long as possible. Won't give up on finding a better waterproof pad yet either.
Di

Dianne W,

The Tena website is tena-usa.com. You can call them. I remember they sent me some coupons several years ago. Maybe they still do that.

You can certainly buy Tena briefs from an online distributor. One of the largest is HDIS. You can find them at hdis.com. They also had coupons. They were the company that sent me samples of a bunch of different briefs and pads.

Some medical equipment supply stores carry incontinence briefs as well. There's a store in Mtn View; it used to be called something like Palo Alto Orthopedic Supply. Or find a store closer to you.

I should mention that we had to have my Dad's mattress professionally cleaned four or five times. We bought a cotton mattress pad from the furniture store we bought the Serta mattress from. That pad was $90 -- pricey. And we had to get 3 to keep up with the laundry. But whenever the pad leaked such that urine got to the mattress, some warranty kicked in and the store had to send someone to clean the mattress. One problem was when the urine leaked down along the side edge of the mattress. That was not covered under warranty so we paid the cleaners extra to clean. We got smarter and put one of those vinyl waterproof sheets over the mattress, and another over the box spring. This saved the need for professional cleaning. We had several of those too because when there was a major leak I washed those vinyl sheets in the machine too.

If you try the condom catheter, the brand I preferred was Hollister. Their urine collection bags and cleaner system is super high quality too.

Good luck,
Robin

Di,
Welcome to the forums, glad you want to participate with the group, always something helpful to read about, of course Robin has passed along good advice and I would try the Condom caths, yes they don't always work for everyone but there are a few success stories out there, it certainly is worth the try!
Switching to twin beds is probably your best bet, have extra lines and for GW's bed and you can have matching top comforters but take GW's off at night and just use blankets that are much easier to wash and the plastic mattress covers are great. Good Luck!

Di, I use reusable washable hospital pads. I got mine through ebay and they have not leaked yet. I have had them probably about nine months. On this website it says make an offer and I went into history and found offers from 42.00 to 48.00 for six were accepted. I got large.
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... dback:3:us
Lorraine

I have those exact ones too! They hold a lot of fluid.
One tip, make sure you do NOT use fabric softener on your washable pads. It coats the fibers and makes them less absorbent.

You could do what I used to do for my kiddos.
I would make up their bed in two full layers; mattress pad, fitted sheet and bed pad on top, then another set on top of that. If I needed to, I could usually whip off the top setup and have a clean dry set under. Very handy in the middle of the night in the dark when you're half asleep.

What a plethora of great advice! Gee Robin, you have done a huge amount of research on the incontinence remedies. Saves the rest of us a lot of extra work thats for sure.
I did have a question. Do they no longer make the full plastic mattress cover that zips? Covers the complete mattress. Used to be one years ago. Then you put the cotton covered latex pad over it and the sheet over that.
We are in the Depends stage and "going" a lot in the male urinal but I am preparing for the near future.

Dianne,
They have in Walmart fitted plastic mattress pads for all sizes. so I assume if Walmart has them many places do too.

The zip-up plastic mattress covers can still be found. Problem is that mattresses are getting thicker and thicker so it's harder to find a cover that fits your mattress.

jnbyoung, I also do not dry my washable pads in the dryer in hopes that they last longer. For the most part in Texas I can hang them outside, but when I hang them inside I use the pants hangers and hang them over a doorway or on the shower rod.
Lorraine

Regarding twin beds, you can put the twin mattresses together on the king-size box springs. You will still have one bed, but less expense if you have to clean or replace one of the smaller mattresses. SS

Shower curtain liners are cheap and do pretty well protecting the mattress. Mother felt the full plastic made the bed too hot- so I cover the bottom about 60%.
Sharon

The way I solved the "leaking " I bougth a shower curtain, a clear one, and put it under the mattress pad, They are heavy, they may wrinkle some but can be straightened out when you make the bed. My husband also had prostate cancer return, blocking a ureter, a stint was put in and after that the leaking worsened, so that was my solution to saving the bed
Wilma

Thank you Robin and others for sharing your problems and solutions with bedwetting. I'm going to try the stronger diapers, and use a shower curtain under the mattress. I have the pads but as Di says they are not enough to hold the urine. I'd appreciate more information on the condoms and the catheter. Does a doctor have to prescribe them? Can someone other than a HHAide or nurse apply them, e.g. me? How do men respond to using them?
Where does the urine go?

My husband weighs about 170 pounds, so you can imagine the amounts he can produce.

This is certainly one of the most difficult parts of caring for someone at home. We marry for better or worse, but who would have imagined that we married for this?

I admire all of you so much. Thank you for sharing your information and your concern.

Doris