My pharmacist John is the caregiver to his 72 year old mother. She is completely incontinent and has Parkinson’s disease.
You can imagine the emotional stress and financial burden of managing incontinence. But John is a good son, a caring son.
“I spend an average of 30 minutes a day handling my mother’s incontinence issues. The first thing I do when I come home from work is change the garbage bin in her room. The odor is terrible, even when the bin is in the garage. But what else can you do?” John shrugged when he talked to me.
On the financial side, incontinence related expenses could quickly add up to several thousand dollars a year. John said,“Last year, the cost for Mother’s adult diapers alone was $1300 (that’s $108.33 per month). Not to mention the things most people don’t even think about, such as cream for rashes, antibiotics for urinary tract infection, powders for odors, disposable gloves for nurses, extra trash bags, laundry expenses, clothes and underwear, pads and liners, waterproof sheet, and the replacement of ruined furniture.” His list just goes on and on.
“I don’t give Mother prescription medications for incontinence because these drugs are very strong and have severe side effects. I don’t want my mother’s Parkinson’s disease situation to get worse because of them. I just deal with the issues. But, it has been very difficult. If anything safe can help, even just a little bit, it would be a godsend,” he said.
When I told John about some of our customers with Parkinson’s disease who have seen dramatic improvement in their bladder control issues after taking Better WOMAN (Better MAN for men), his eyes lit up. “Any side effects? Any contraindications with medications?” he asked, being a cautious pharmacist. After learning that there are no known side effects, no known contraindications with medications after being on market since 2002, John decided to have his mother give BetterWOMAN a try.
Two weeks later, John told me he’d noticed a couple of things.
“The first thing I’ve noticed is the smell of the used diapers is not as strong as before. Is there something in BetterWOMAN that can change the smell of urine? ”
“The second thing is, usually Mother could not make it to the bathroom and all her urine is in her diapers, but 6-7 days after she started taking BetterWOMAN, I heard the toilet flushing sound in her room!!! I have not heard that sound for several years!!! ”
It looks like John’s mother has started to regain some level of her bladder control – the capacity to hold urine seems to be getting better so she is trying to use the toilet again.
John was thrilled, “I can’t wait to see more improvements over the next few months! ”
Me too!