Uncontrollable accidents

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Bestfriends14

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Lost a loved one
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Hello fellow CALS,

Has anyone had to deal with weakening bowels along with weakening legs? The more weak my hubby's legs get, the more weak his bowels seem to get. He has had a couple of accidents already and the poor guy has been mortified as a result. I am worried what to do if this ever happens when we are out of the house. We have to rush to get him to the bathroom upon him waking up or he'll have accident.

He takes immodium as per doc's orders, he has cut down on coffee,and tries not to have too many fruits and veg during the day. However, I feel his efforts are starting to be for naught.

Thoughts or advice? Thank you.
 
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Yes, both bladder and bowel incontinence were problems for my husband. If your husband is still walking, he may need depends or some version thereof. Mine was in the chair when this started, so we kept pads under him all the time and planned travel around his bowels. I did cleanups in the van when he could no longer stand and we had timed things poorly. I think my being prepared by having read this forum allowed me to act like it was nothing--I told him it was normal and I was expecting it, and I was just matter of fact about it. I believed that helped him. The highpoint was the day I was moving him to the bathroom from bed using the ceiling lift and track. I made the mistake of bending over to pick something up as he was passing over me. Yep, you guessed it. Thankfully it was a solid poop and bounced right off my head. By that time we were both so used to things like that that we had a GREAT laugh over it.
 
We're still getting to that "laughing about it" phase. I'm sure we'll get there, though, after a few more times 😳. Was there any medication that he could take? I don't think the immodium is a long term solution. He is in a wheelchair, so handling accidents while seated seems to be a challenge. Perhaps there are prescriptions?

Yes, I agree, the forum has done a lot to prep me for all the messy stuff that comes with ALS. I honestly thought I'd be more grossed out, but I wasn't at all. I just wanted to get him cleaned up and feeling better. Poor dude
 
I highly recommend going with a depends type underwear. My wife wore them for about four years. We got her on the commode four times per day on average and the depends were typically wet, but not uncomfortably so. She wore a somewhat more absorbent overnight variety and those were pretty well soaked in the morning. She had a cloth chuck under her at night, which got varying degrees of wet, but if we stuck with newer chucks it almost never went through to the sheets. I would say she found the underwear quite comfortable. We tried a few different kinds before settling on Tena for daytime and Tranquility Premium Over-night for nighttime. Hope this helps some...Jon
 
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