I am not sure what is going on. DW is needing to go pee about every 30 min. She does urinate but very little. She is so unstable walking that she needs help. The real issue is at night, it is about every hour. I am getting very little sleep and so is she. Is this what happens before they loose control? She did have a UTI last week but she is clear now. She is also using Monostat 7 which she says is now working. I can not image how you handle all this when they can not talk. She is loosing communications too but for now she is able to express her needs. My real question is dealing with bladder control, is what is going on now indicate she is getting ready to loose it?
It sounds like the bladder infection has not cleared up. I think she needs to see the doctor again and probably be put on a different antibiotic. He will ask for a urine specimen and culture for antibiotic sensitivity.
My wife has to void several times during the night, so I take care of it with Tranquility Overnight underwear with a booster pad. This will hold 44 ounces of urine. Some nights she exceeds this, but a pad on top of the sheet absorbs the excess. This way she sleeps all night, and I only have to get up every 2 hours for myself.
She may not want to wear the Depends, but maybe if you appealed to her to do so to help you out because you need some sleep; or don't feel well; or ... She might.
Good luck moorsb-those constant bathroom trips wear you out. We do that all day everyday- then at night he has NO control at all-thankfully we found the external cath! Hopefully hers will go back to normal soon.
Possibilities: the brain is getting the wrong signal. She is having bladder spasms. The female organs and/or stomach is putting pressure on the bladder. Maybe something she drinks/eats in the evening is irritating the bladder.
Try giving her some tylenol or ibuprofen at bedtime to see if that will calm the bladder or the brain message.
Is she on any meds for anxiety? Ativan or other taken at night? Sometimes sleeping pills just don't work as for me as I would still wake up. I through them away.
And get a commode and put it right by the bed, if you think she can use that.. And try to get her accustomed to those pretty ladylike depends disposable panties. Maybe with a baby doll top?!
The commode by the bed does make sense to me. 10 feet away is the bathroom I talked her into wearing depends at night, so we can sleep thru the night. She wakes me up at 5:00am telling me it hurts. What hurts I ask, it just hurts. I take her to the bathroom and pull off a dry depends, then she pees a bunch. I guess they worked.
Although she might be hurting, it's also possible that after not urinating all night "it hurts" is her way of describing the pressure she feels to urinate. Does she still complain of hurting after she goes?
She is fine, she just needed to urinate. She held it all night to prove she did not need the depends, I guess. for some reason she really does not want the depends.
I hear you loud and clear! Depends was second to driving as our most difficult battle. Since incontinence is almost always down the road, and we had already been experiencing it to some degree, I took the advice of folks on this board and got rid of all his boxer shorts and forced the issue. Just like the driving, it was very difficult but eventually became a way of life. Ah, the battles we must fight with the ones we love the most. I'm just glad DH doesn't have the memory of those awful times. Wish I didnt.
moorsb, I know there's a difference between men's and women's plumbing but my husband has the the urge to go frequently. After tests for UTI and prostate, we went to a urologist to see what was wrong. He found nothing- he has no UTI, no enlarged prostate, can fully empty his bladder. Urologist advised that he thought it was a combination of the brain deterioration due to dementia combined with the antipsychotics (seroquel) he's on. I recently bought the commode for the bedside because I know we will face that sometime in the near future. Insurance, I guess.
This is just another horrid thing I hate with ths disease! Luckly Paul wears the depends all the time with no fuss-most days he does not know how to pull them up and down so I guess it does not matter what he wears. I have started carrying a bag everywhere we go just like the good ole days of diaper bags for the kids.
I carried a backpack with supplies and clothing in the car for 2 years. Only needed it twice. All of my dh's urine "accidents" were in the bathroom at home, but also in restrooms. Sometimes I felt like I spent the whole day in the bathroom. But to get back to moorsb's question, I think your dw is losing her thought process about urine retention and feeling the need to eliminate. I know it took me awhile to figure out changes in behavior and what was really happening with any of the Alzheimer's symptoms. After a few months of repeated behavior and deteriorating skill, then I would understand the "new normal." I'm hoping you have many more months of a dry Depends in the morning. If the urinanalysis was clear and no UTI was present, could still be something urological, or not. Did the dr. do the ultra sound to determine if the bladder was empty after voiding? My dh would urinate at the doctor's office, and then they would test him to find that he still hadn't emptied his bladder.