She had rectal prolapse and was going to the bathroom a lot and was using 2 rolls a day. After the situation was corrected she is using one roll a day. It’s either going to cost plumbing problems or break her. Is there anything I can do? She does have dementia.
If she has her own bathroom, shut the water off on that toilet so she cannot flush (if there is a way to prevent usage altogether, by all means do that! If not, you'll just have to scoop out the paper yourself? EEEEuwww - not pleasant, but neither is a recurring plumbing bill!)
If there are only shared baths, perhaps replace the door handle with one that uses a key to lock it and encourage her to use the portable?
The key can be hung by the door, but up higher where she cannot reach it. If you have young children, they will have to be trained to get one of the adults to help, but it is easier to train kids than someone with dementia.
1. accept the usage if she can flush early and often.
2. Bidet, if she can handle it
3. With assistance, a sitz bath is a great way to get an elder clean. I found this worked well for my dad, who had never tried it before. He found it very comforting too. It takes time but less time than he spent unsuccessfully trying to get clean.
There are health risks that can occur when someone does not completely clean themselves after a bowel movement, so it isn't "MAYBE" it is that you HAVE to replace the toilet paper with something substantially more efficient.
Otherwise, you're just reducing the patient into a flunkie and taking away their privacy.
The suggestion of a bidet is a good one. Wet washcloths, are what they use in the nursing home but do not let them get flushed down the toilet or absently used to clean someone's butt and then on their face, as people have been known to do.
You can also just fill up an old plastic container with water and use it for cleaning and it's nearly free of charge and highly affective.
I put a trash can next to the toilet and have her deposit the used TP in there, so no throwing TP into the toilet. My mom has Alz. but was able to understand and do as I asked. I hope your mom can, too. It may take you a few weeks to train her, but it's time well spent.
You can make homemade hygiene wipes, 2 tablespoon each baby shampoo and baby oil per 2 cups of water, I use distilled water. You can make a gallon at a time and either soak the paper towels, Viva is great, or use a spray bottle and dampen the paper towel. It doesn't need to be washed off and you don't get any drag, know what I mean. You can also use this recipe with washcloths. I am super sensitive and I have never had any issues, we started making baby wipes for our granddaughter and she didn't have any problems either.
2nd, to ensure that the toilet paper you purchase breaks down, put 3 or 4 squares into a clear glass of water wait a couple of minutes and swish around, if it is still squares you will have problems. It should start dissolving almost immediately.
We did this when we were full time RVing and I was not willing to pay .75 per roll of toilet paper. Also, most will say septic safe. I still tested and found that septic safe means different things.
You haven’t shared whether she has diarrhea, so I’m going to go there, just in case. If she is seen by a gastro, it could be key, that she gets up at night to toilet. Do you know if she uses it all at one sitting, or five bathroom events? If it’s nighttime diarrhea, waking her up to go, it’s not IBSD. She may have more than one medical condition at play. I’m throwing this out because doctors can be lazy diagnosticians, labeling everybody with chronic diarrhea as having IBSD. I happen to have IBSD, as well as BAM. Plus, I have unrelenting bladder spasms. All those large muscles ‘down there’ more often than not, when a woman has IBSD, she will be highly likely to have bladder spasms, creating a sense of urinary urgency, constantly. As my own muscle that closes to keep urine from leaking out at the wrong time does not completely close, I have to constantly urinate, to keep my bladder empty. The emotional, mental component associated with IBSD, isn’t turning on the plumbing when we are sleeping. However, an excess of bile acid circulating will cause a person to wake with pain, and urgent diarrhea. So, it will need to be determined if she has stool she is cleaning, small amounts of urine with sense of urgency from bladder spasms, or if it’s a habit she has developed. Your feedback to a doctor could be key in getting to the root of the problem. When a person has both IBSD and Bladder Spasms, the use of dicyclomine (generic Bentley) will relax the long muscles, which helps with both conditions. If she has nocturnal wakenings with urgent diarrhea, assuming you are in the US, she cannot have the nuclear test to assess that, but a trial of the bile acid binder, Cholestyramine, can be attempted, to see if it’s the liver not taking the bile acid back up once digestion has been processed.
I’m sorry to be so graphic, but I sure hate the idea of her suffering silently, if there is a medical reason behind it. You are a good daughter to be so concerned.
By the way, our water bill has gone from $89/month to over $140/month since she moved in 8 mos ago!!!
You can keep a box of non- latex gloves in reach. This will protect her hands and she may use less of a wad of TP if her hands are kept clean.
Miralax might help. I like that, as do doctors because you can adjust dosage day to day. Maybe a half cap or less some days.
What is most important is that she does not wipe fecal material to the front... urethra area. It's very expensive but find the best affordable brands and buy in bulk. It is cheaper than co-pay & deductable for 1 hospitalization or ER visit for a UTI..for which she is at higher risk. That can cause ammonia build up in the body and brain, or back up and infect kidneys. These are very real risks.
TP is a huge expense for me too but using a lot prevented urinary complications from a related issue. Definitely have her flush several times while wiping!
Using all that TP could save her life!
Thank you for your suggestion.
I call my mother the 'Tissue Monster' - she never had any real medical issue, but old habit of carrying tissues has become a big deal - I find her carrying around tissues, napkins, TP, stashing it under her pillows, etc. She has dementia, so there's no real way to resolve the issue. She likely is using too much TP as well, but she lives in MC, so I can't really monitor that. Often when I go to visit, her TP roll is empty, so I have to ask for more from staff (originally when she moved in, they required us to provide TP - THAT was a royal PITA.)
(PITA = Pain In The *ss)
I do this once a month for prevention.(toilets and drains)
Is going to the bathroom excessively a learned behavior in response to the prolapse that has been repaired? If so, then she may need assistance learning to trust that she is ok now and may need to learn a new schedule with new cues.
Like has been pointed out, she may be having other issues that have exacerbated the memory of or the reality of the prolapse. Irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's Disease, diverticulitis and more. It may be time for a medical consult and additional testing.
Good luck.
Could there be additional issues? Perhaps. Having it checked could be advised, but it sounds more like this became a habit, and with dementia it will likely continue.
Be very thankful she can still go to the bathroom instead of wearing Depends.
If you're really that concerned, offer to clean her when she's done. I had to clean my DH and it's really not that awful. I used Baby Wipes because the sizing was better for us than adult wipes.
When I was a young teen I plugged up the family throne by trying to flush some Kleenex. And - not a huge amount of Kleenex, either.
My father, in his college years had worked at a paper mill and used the occasion of my Kleenex clog to educate me on paper fiber.
It seems, that paper products such as Kleenex are made with a tighter weave than regular toilet paper and therefore are harder to break down with water when flushed. This applies to the higher quality brands of toilet paper as well. So, when the cartoon mama bear tells her baby bear on the TV commercial that he can use less - it’s more than just the implication that quality is the reason why.
Of course, this same weave applies to “flushable” wipes. I actually read the fine print on a travel pack of “flushable” wipes recently. It said to only flush one wipe at a time. Seriously? It’s got to be a pretty immaculate pooper who can get clean with ONE wipe.
Back when Rainman was born, The Donor insisted we use cloth diapers. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea and searched for a way to make using cloth diapers less icky. The salvation came by way of “flushable” diaper liners. Ummm - our toilet plugged in less than 24 hours of bringing my baby boy home. You’d of thought I would have known better having received my Toilet Paper Tutorial in my teens. It was an expensive lesson learned with the clog way down the line and the plumber having to call in the big gun from a special truck that housed the worlds longest “snake”.
So... back to the point. Basically, there is no such thing as a “flushable “ wipe.
In the wise, wise words of my father so many - many - years ago: “Only three things go into the toilet - S.T.P. (visualize a fatherly looking man holding up fingers as he counts ‘em down) Sh!t, toilet paper and p!ss”.
... and not too much toilet paper at that. Not if you’re using a nice, quality brand. And, not without multiple courtesy flushes in between every couple of wipes.
“Here endeth the lesson”.
~ Sean Connery as Jim Malone;
The Untouchables.
I will back you up on that! My mother had a running battle with dad clogging things up - between his larger poo and wrapping the TP around his hand, resulting in too much paper AND wadding it, he would clog the toilet up and then make it worse by trying to clean up rather than getting mom to help!
I dislike the "premium" brand of TP (although I don't like Klingons, I don't like the foofy TP either) and avoid putting anything besides your dad's S.T.P. in the toilet. The cat litter I use is corn based and proudly proclaims "septic safe" - but I will NOT flush that! If I had one cat and was on a sewer system, perhaps, but even then, there is a lot of plumbing before your "flush" gets to the tank or sewer system! Clogging could get VERY expensive. I do flush some of their solid waste (for the boxes positioned near a toilet), which will include a little bit of the litter, but absolutely will NOT take the chance of flushing the clumps outright!
Sorry this is graphic, but she could be silently suffering, maybe out of embarrassment. Or dismissive doctors, a huge issue with gut diseases and conditions.