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My husband has had urinary incontinence for at least 4 years. He is also on diuretics, which makes it worse. We can't find any diapers that are truly leakproof. He refuses to wear a diaper at night and consequently there is a crater in his mattress from urine. He sits on the edge of the bed in the morning and just "lets go". The area rug is soaked and I don't even want to know what our fairly new laminate floor looks like underneathe. We paid over $1,000 for a lift chair for him a year ago, and it also has a urine crater in it. The flooring planks under it are buckling and warped. The chair has stopped working. If I buy another one, he will ruin that one too. He refuses to be catheterized, and with his penchant for infections, life-threatening ones, that terrifies me. He needs the lift chair to get up or I wind up calling 911 for help. He is stubborn and resistant. I think he truly believes that his chair, at least, will be "self-healing" and he turns a blind eye on all the other damage (too extensive to list) that he's caused, leaving me to deal with it. Does anyone know of a truly waterproof lift chair like they have in hospitals? It obviously can't cost thousands. I am at a loss to know what to do or say to him.

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Depending on what ability your husband has to help around the house, this is what my 97 year old Mom did when my Dad refused to wear any type of a Depend product. After numerous "accidents", with Mom down on her hands and knees scrubbing the carpet, the next time Dad had an "accident" she handed him the cleaning supplies and stood there watching him clean and giving him directions.

Well, after a few times of Dad cleaning up his own messes, I started to see Depends for Men on Mom's grocery list :)

There are leather lift-chairs but they would cost much more then the cloth ones. You could purchase blue sheets to try out, these are squares or rectangle pieces of cloth that can absorb liquid, then you throw them out. To try one, you can find them in the pet store in the dog aisle as puppy wee wee pads. If they work, then go on-line to get the blue sheets for humans. Some companies sell "seconds" which work just as well but couldn't be sold as "first quality" due to mistakes in production. Those are very inexpensive.
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Thank you, freqflyer. Your advice is great. Unfortunately, my husband is disabled to the point he could never scrub a floor. I actually found large pads at our local CVS and use them, sometimes PLUS the wee wee pads. Our chair was leather, but since he spends 16 hours a day in it, it soon disintegrated and then the motor got burned out from the moisture. The chairs in the hospital are plastic cushioned and I don't believe they are motorized. My husband is in total denial over his issues. He needs to be in a nursing home for physical care, but it would take a terrible mental toll on him. I am just simply at a loss as to what to do.
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" He needs to be in a nursing home for physical care, but it would take a terrible mental toll on him." But isn't the current situation taking a terrible toll on you? Does he matter more than you do?
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Hugemom, you are right, the recliner chairs at the hospital do not have a lift.

My Mom wore what looked like baby diapers at night when she was in long-term-care. My Dad had refused to wear them, too, when he lived in Independent Living. So I looked around for a better fit Depend type product. He likes the Depends "real fit" style, but they are more expensive. My Dad also wears Depends "Guards" for men which are like a Poise pad for women, Dad wears the Guards inside his Depends. That has helped with accidents.
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CTTN sums up exactly what I was going to write. If his welfare is more of a consideration than yours, he's going to continue to refuse responsibility for his toileting needs.

This isn't intended to be rude, but the chair isn't the issue. It's your husband's attitude.
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Hugemom, your message hit home for me and I'm sure for a lot of people. How did we ever become so unimportant to ourselves to allow this to happen. Caregivers are people who have great caring for other people. We also need to include ourself in that circle of caring. You are in an intolerable circumstance, but are afraid to offend your husband or make him mad. Sorry if that is blunt. I am really saying to you things I have been saying to myself lately.

One question -- If you were urinating all over the house and bed, what do you think your husband should do to make things better?
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BTW, have you tried a beside commode. Maybe a chairside one would be good, too. They're unsightly, but better than ruined floors and cleaning every few minutes.
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Well said, Jessie. Turning the situation around is an excellent idea and should help HugeMom put the situation in perspective, which I suspect is somewhat difficult to do as she seems inundated by her husband's lack of cooperation.
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Another thought occurred to me and that's if any care agency ever is hired to provide in home care. The situation might be sufficient for the agency staff to report to their supervisors, who might consider calling APS.

It isn't appropriate for HugeMom to be the target of an APS investigation. But there's another issue and that's homeowner's insurance. Some underwriters do property inspections on initial writing of the policy and sometimes subsequently during following periods. They can mandate that changes be made or they'll cancel the policy.
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I purchase those blue disposable Chux pads from the charity shop, run by our local Senior Center. I use them for wee wee pads for my pup, $1, for 10 pads, and they always seem to have them stockpiled in their backroom, probably from supplies that Caregivers no longer need. A lot bigger, thicker, and cheaper than the ones that I find in pet stores. I also see them in other charity shops too, I would check around and stock up, and place them on every surface he sits on until you find a better solution! Plus Insist that he wears protective undergarments 24/7. There is no reason why you should have to be constantly cleaning up after him, that's terrible! I find the undergarments at the SC charity shop too!
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This truly saddens me. All have good suggestions, but whew. How sad that life has come to this. A HUGE issue/problem for Hugemom--something that she shouldn't have to worry about--but it is. My husband's catheter bag leaked all over our living room before we noticed. Doesn't anyone have a remedy for the awful smell? In addition to constant clean up, how does Hugemom or anyone else get rid of the SMELL? This just happened yesterday and I'm trying vinegar, peroxide, Fabreez--still smells AWFUL. Of course, I don't know exactly where all of the leakage was, so I'm missing spots. Without pouring vinegar all over (which I might do anyway), what am I going to do? Looking at buying a commercial product, but (sigh) there are so many out there. Anyone have any ideas? I've read warnings NOT to shampoo before treating it properly. I have six grandchildren. DON'T WANT THEM ROLLING AROUND ON URINE. Help?
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Pet stores sell black light indicators that show where urine has been spilled/sprayed. I've had friends use that to see what areas were affected. They also sell multiple products for breaking down urine and smell. I've used Nature's Miracle for cat spray, and flu accidents.
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Does human urine glow under black light? I know cat urine does, but I'm not sure if the same is true for all species. Does anyone know?
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Hi Jessie! Yes, it does. and here is why from chemistry website
You can use a black light to detect body fluids. It's actually a good way to look for pet urine or make sure a bathroom or hotel room is really clean. Cat urine, in particular, glows very brightly under ultraviolet light. Urine glows under a black light primarily because it contains the element phosphorus. Phosphorus glows yellowish green in the presence of oxygen, with or without black light, but the light imparts additional energy that make the chemiluminescence easier to see. Urine also contains broken down blood proteins that glow under a black light.
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Hello Hugemom. Your situation is so hard and expensive. You've had several suggestions. I'll try to mention a fee more. How about a urinal located close to his chair? Do you get him up for routine trips to the bathroom? I wonder if a male occupational therapist could help? Perhaps a therapist for the both of you?
Perhaps an upholstery shop could cover a chair ( or at least the cushion) in a waterproof material? OR an auto body shop might have someone who could upholster the chair or fashion some covers that would hold up?

Has he seen a urologist or had testing to make sure his bladder completely empties when he pees? There are meds to help with that. The idea here is that when he goes to the bathroom and empties his bladder he won't be dropping in just a few minutes. I've read therapist can help with bowel control so perhaps they have suggestions.
Whatever you do, take action. As you've already seen allowing the current situation to continue will only make matters worse. It must be so discouraging for the both of you.
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Thank you, everyone for your concern and good advice. I have purchased a "Geri-chair", which is just like the ones I've seen in the nursing homes. It's vinyl and should be a little more resistant to the urine leakage. I don't know how it will hold up to being sat in for 18 hours a day though. Right now, I am taking it one day at a time. He is getting worse, and soon we will be having a family meeting. Then I will be facing everything from financial issues, selling the house and what to do with the dogs and cats. For right now, one foot in front of the other...
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Thanks for writing back. I'm glad you have family to help you make decisions and that you found a chair. This is probably too late to bring up but here goes. Don't wait until that's all you can do. Put one foot in front of the other. By then you have nothing left to enable you to make the important decisions you will need to make and your family will have two of you to care for. It cheats you of being able to spend quality time during the last days you have with your husband and depletes your ability to plan for your own future. Move forward with that meeting sooner rather than later. You have so much hard work ahead of you. Take extreme care of yourself.
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I suggest you have your family meeting with an elder care attorney. It will save you untold stress and money in the long run.
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It sounds like your husband's dementia has caused such resistance to care that it makes it impossible for you to care for him in the home. All of the suggestions are not feasible if your husband is not inclined to try them. Since the nature of his resistance is so prevalent, I'm not sure how aids coming in for a few hours or part of the day would help. I might explore placement, so that he can be somewhere that they have shifts of people who have the training and equipment to handle these issues. I wouldn't think that continuing with his current behavior would be very sanitary and could eventually cause some health problems.
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Exactly, Sunnygirl1, he can pee on the floor, in the chair at the NH, and they would clean it up.
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