Overnight bladder nightmare. Any recommendations?

As per the permanent catheter---

Mother has always had bladder issues. Had Big babies, I guess caused some pelvic floor damage. She likely never did Kegels like we were taught (ah, I am doing them NOW :) which are a great help. She's had several surgeries to correct the pelvic floor and to help with bladder leakage and nothing helped. I think partially b/c the skills to do this just weren't as good as nowadays.

Finally, the installed a supra-pubic cath (which, BTW looks absolutely gruesome and actually hurt her as it tugged and the cath bag is strapped to her leg. She has constant UTI's--has as long as I can remember. with the supra pubic (the cath is surgically inserted in the bladder with a tube coming out--stitched into place and must be maintained very carefully!) This ceased to keep the leaking at bay so she opted for the permanent one. It's 100xs worse looking than the outer one. And she STILL leaks. And, b/c she doesn't feel the urge to urinate, she doesn't check the cath bag and it fills up pretty quickly, and will leak, a lot, really fast. The bag is supposed to be strapped to her leg, but a lot of the time she just drapes it over her walker. Or drags it behind her.

She also wears a 'light' depends, and a couple of poise pads, but she can soak those in a minute if the bag is full. Also, not changing often enough adds to the UTI's...it's a constant battle.

She could use the nighttime cath bag which is about double in capacity, but is shows under her clothes and she's embarrassed.

Recently she's had some bowel incontinence, which she doesn't know I am aware of. Ugh.

All this cleaning and re-arranging of clothing makes her so tired, she just..doesn't. So the cath bags are not cleaned properly, the tubes are supposed to be sterilized and hers are lying on the bathroom floor.

She never tried plain thicker Depends with a pad in it, she says she's fine with the cath bags, but the smell it abhorrent and I can't think it's in any way comfortable. Mostly, I think she's being cheap. Money spent on bladder leakage control is money she can't spend at BINGO.

I really, really don't want to get old.

I found that Sam's club brand is the best for my dad.

He could soak a full size bed edge to edge.

These have the latest greatest technology, I did the research and I think they are the best. Comfortable and absorbent. Best price as well.

I feel for you, I used to cry because I was so tired and then had 5 more loads of laundry for the day. Overwhelming!

Hugs, you will find a solution.

My wife Christy sleeps naked on washable 4 x 4 cotton face bedpad with cotton sheet cover.
Has for years. Disposal briefs, diapers, are for our convenience and cause UTIs.
Sleepwear adds to the inconvenience and can be restrictive.
Yes, it can be a lot of laundry, but I have a happy, healthy wife.
UTIs are more expensive, troublesome, not fair caused by our inconvenience.

I am old, painful arms and shoulders, but I am always willing to roll Christy out of bed, pull bedding and underpads, replace bedding, shower Christy, tuck her back into a clean bed and throw the soiled bedding in the washer. Sleepwear would add to the task. Tucking arms into sleeves is a chore.
It is easy to throw the fresh 4 x 4 pad and flat sheet onto the mattress. Fitted sheets are tedious.

I used the peepodmats. three feet by five feet. It was enough for us. Still I had to do the laundry up to three times a day. But I did not have to strip the bed, only the mats.

Just an idea, but don’t offer any fluids (4hrs or so) a few hours before she goes to sleep which may work to decrease the amount of urine she passes during the night.

Hi Helen. Oh, have been there. I found a tip a few months ago on this site. I too was using a pad and depends together for my mom and bed was soaken most mornings. It was a day of celebration when the bed was dry on a rare occasion. The tip was to score the back of the pad so that once filled with urine, additional urine would flow through the pad now that you scored through the plastic backing and into the depends. It works fantastic for my mom. Most days are dry and doing the celebratory dance more often, good luck to you. I hope this helps.

Generally people on the forum with problems like yours are using products that aren't easily available unless purchased on line or from specialty suppliers, if you google "free incontinence underwear" you will find a whole lot of companies that will send samples of their products to try. In the mean time you might find that the tab style brief are more absorbent that pull ups.

My mother finally had to have a permanent catheter installed (sounds like she was getting new brake pads--'installed') after her supra pubic cath leaked badly.

It was not to be "until she heals or gets stronger" it's PERMANENT. I've had one cath my whole life that I recall (had 5 C-sections, so they put them in and took them out before I was not numb) The one that was left in for 24 hours was one of the most awful feeling things I ever experienced and I had just gone through 48 hours of hard labor and an emergency C-section--yet it was that darn catheter I couldn't stand!

I don't know how mom lives with it!

On top of that, she wears a thin depends type thing in the day and also a couple of poise pads---she absolutely soaks everything. The nighttime cath bag holds about 3 cups, the nighttime depends holds almost 4 cups and each poise pad holds about a cup a piece. Yet she still manages to pee the bed many nights.

She makes her own bed, and I know that she has to have brother strip the sheets to the mattress frequently. He works as am EMT and I know he gets products to protect the bed that we can't get. Hospital grade, I guess.

Considering mother drinks less than 32 oz of fluid a day--I don't KNOW where all this liquid is coming from!

She has just recently become bowel incontinent. A whole new issue. She lives in an apt attached to brother's home, but the smell of old urine has permeated their entire house. SIL said she needs to get a new washer and dryer as mother has essentially ruined the ones she has, due to being skimpy with the soap and not doing extra rinses with vinegar or things that help remove the urine scent.

I found the Tranquility brand Night Time works best for my husband who is night time incontinent. However, some nights, at least once a week, he gets up and pulls them down and pees on the floor in his bedroom or down the hall (as he did this morning), leaving the diaper completely dry. Anybody got a solution for this? Making me crazy! Hate to open my bedroom door in the morning, afraid of what I'll find on the other side. Don't dare go barefoot anywhere in the house! :>(

Maybe talk to her urologist and find out if she needs medication to control urine flow. Sometimes they will prescribe vesicare for a few weeks to see if that works, although generally they don't like to do that for elderly. Also, if they do prescribe, they usually give free samples.