www.incontinentsupport.org

Hello, I am incontinent from multiple urethreal stricture surgeries while I was in the army. I just got my diapers from the VA and they are terrible. I have been using Abena x-plus up until now, is there anyway to get them through the VA? Thanks.

Avg Guy,
I am a disabled veteran who served in the Marines for 6 years. I was medically retired in 2009 for Bipolar Disorder. My psychiatric medications cause me to leak. I'm actually diagnosed with OAB and urge incontinence. My incontinence is service connected because I had it while in the Marine Corps.

In order to get quality diapers from the VA, you have to be service connected for your incontinence or I don't think they will provide them. If you are, great! I believe the VA sends either Kendall Wings brand or if your lucky, you can get Depend. I received the wings brand at first and they were awful. I worked with another user by the name of "Johnstone". He has a different way of doing this than me so you could talk to him as well. But my way of doing it will work provided you have a good relationship with your doctor. Also, find out who your Head of Pharmacy is at your local VA hospital.

The first thing you should do is complain to the VA Patient Advocate about the quality of your diapers. When I did it, I told the VA that the diapers were not enabling me to have a positive quality of life. I was miserable and could not leave the house because the diapers leaked upon just one wetting. I told them they leaked in my bed and on my clothes and caused a great deal of embarassment. Call the patient advocate often and stay on top of them. My patient advocate got tired of me calling all the time and put me right in touch with the Head of Pharmacy here in N.E. Florida. I wrote a letter to her in professional business style and explained my problem. I told her that I had compete incontinence and required a diaper that allowed me to go several hours between changes and did not leak or cause embarassment. I sent her XPmedical's name, address, POC (Gary Evans), & phone number. XPmedical is already loaded into the VA system and they just need the vendor number. You need to give the Pharmacist your size and tell them exactly what you want. I asked for Abena Extra and Xplus in size medium #4163 and 4164. The Head of Pharmacy then agreed to purchase the diapers. She personally got with my doctor who wrote a prescription for the diapers with 12 refills. I actually get 2 cases of each about every month and a half. If you get this far, thats great. But the first step is to let the VA know your unhappy. Complain to your VA doctor too. My VA doctor had no idea how to circumvent this process. I had to learn this on my own. But it is possible.

Also, talk with Johnstone. He can tell you how he did it. He gets the same as me we just did it a little differently because he is in a different VA program. Let me know if you need any more help.

Cheers,
Don

What Don said is correct with the exception of needing to have a service connected disability to receive diapers from the VA. Anyone receiving health benefits from the VA can receive diapers from the VA with a script from a VA doc. Getting high quality diapers such as the Abena X-Plus is a little more difficult but it can be done as a number of disable vets do receive these diapers from the VA.

I suggest you follow the recommendations that Don gave you and see what happens. You might want to contact Gary at XP Medical for some advise and see what he tells you.

Let Don, or I know what happens. Hope this helps

I just mentioned being service connected because that is the first question the Head of Pharmacy asked me before she made the purchase. "Are you service connected for incontinence?". Yes I am. Ok no problem. So being service connected would help. It may not be required. But it helps you win your case.

Thanks all, Yes I am 60% service disconected for incontinence. I will talk with my doctor on Monday and see what he says.

The other thing you can do us use boosters in your diaper. I use Huggies Overnight diapers inside and I seldom have wet pants or bed.

It is definitely possible. Sometimes it takes a little effort. I just got my rating of 80% a few months ago and had my first appointment with my VA clinic in late October. I put in my request for the briefs (Dry24/7) I have been using after trying different products over the last two years. I am service connected due to an injury in May 2010. At first my request was declined. The pharmacy board wrote back saying they didn't do "other" products and that I haven't tried their product (Kendal slips) yet. I expected that. What I didn't expect was the person to put in the note saying that "maybe the patient can just change his diaper more frequently throughout the day."
That actually struck a nerve with me and I wrote a pretty intense and personal letter to the pharmacy and sent it via secure messaging to my provider and asked her to forward to them. In it, I described my situation and that I didn't need to try the kendall slips to know they wouldn't work, that I have tried many products since i was injured and needed protection. I explained how insulting it was to tell me to just change more often because that meant I was taking a personal matter and making it more obvious. That it meant I had to check myself more frequently to make sure I didn't leak and that I would be dealing with trying to change my diapers in public (public restrooms, Office restrooms and so on) and this meant more times I had to stop working to deal with that and try to privately change my diaper among my coworkers. I made sure I tried to put them in my shoes so they could imagine what it was like having to deal with incontinence and using cheap products.

A few days later I got a call from the Denver Pharmacy and a very nice lady spoke with me at length about their errors, how they need to do better, how most pharmacy's don't deal with this sort of stuff and they aren't trained on back injuries and what we need. We talked about what I requested and she said she's work to get me what I wanted. Since then we have exchanged emails while she talks with Gary at XPmedical and other pharmacy's to see how they deal with it all. As far as I know, I should start getting my briefs here soon.

If you get denied, don't be an arse about it. Talk to your people and let them know that other VA pharmacy's do it and that XPMedical and other places already have contracts with the government to take care of vet's like us. Be honest and be polite. Don't anger them so they ignore you.

Avg_guy,
If your still out there, could you please let us other vets know how it went? I am curious how it turned out. Your example can help other people.

I get my diapers from the VA, as well. And yes, they suck. The brand has changed from Kendall to Covidien, but they're still the same lousy Wings diapers as before.

My solution is to use two at a time. I cut the wings off one, then cut some slits in the plastic backing. That goes on the inside as a soaker. You have to make sure that the inner, soaker, diaper is completely inside the outer, or else you'll get a massive leak.

This arrangement lasts me quite awhile, long enough to go out or go to work and not have to take spares, except on rare occasions. And it's not so thick and bulky as to be obvious through my trousers.

Ari,

You can get "quality" diapers from the VA, but you will need to have a Rx from your doc for the specific brand you want, and where they can be purchased. XP Medical is "Approved" to do business with the VA, and I KNOW for certain they sell many of the top quality products to VA Pharmacies all over the country. I recommend you contact Gary, at XP Medical and ask him for some advise. Getting "quality" products from the VA in NOT impossible, but you do need to do a few things before they will buy these items for you.

Hope this helps