bedside bags

[vjls]

i use vingear and soap to clean but the tube is still filled with sediment stuck to side and its stinks

but urine for most past is pale


ideas i used cloxox but the the bag leaked

[baldfatdad]

Try a mix of 50/50 betadine and dish soap.

[sjean423]

10% bleach mixture .... doesn't cause leaks for me.

[SCI-Nurse]

While vinegar will dissolve many encrustations (esp. if you let it soak), it is not good for disinfection.

I was involved in a research study in the 1980s comparing different cleaning solutions/techniques for urinary bags, and we found that pseudomonas bacteria just loved vinegar and thrived in bags cleaned this way.

10% bleach solution is what is recommended based on several research studies. Cheap bags may leak (are you using Medline or what brand)? The bags should not be used for longer than 30 days regardless of how they are cleaned though.

(KLD)

[gjnl]

I use Urocare vinyl bags and clean them with 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol. First, I empty the bag of any urine. Then, I rinse the bag with very hot water. Then, I use a small funnel to add about 2 Tablespoons of 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol. I slosh and swish it around, drain the alcohol and rinse the bag with hot water and reattach to my supra pubic catheter. I do this in the morning when I detach from my night drain system, and at night before I attach to the night drain system.

I have used every other cleaning procedure known to man, including the Urocare acid wash and nothing....absolutely nothing has kept my leg bag as clean and free from bacteria as my current regimen.

I use a Urocare night drain bottle that I clean with a bleach solution, but the bag just won't hold up to the beach.

All the best,
GJ

[darty]

I use Urocare vinyl bags and clean them with 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol. First, I empty the bag of any urine. Then, I rinse the bag with very hot water. Then, I use a small funnel to add about 2 Tablespoons of 70% solution of isopropyl alcohol. I slosh and swish it around, drain the alcohol and rinse the bag with hot water and reattach to my supra pubic catheter. I do this in the morning when I detach from my night drain system, and at night before I attach to the night drain system.

I have used every other cleaning procedure known to man, including the Urocare acid wash and nothing....absolutely nothing has kept my leg bag as clean and free from bacteria as my current regimen.

I use a Urocare night drain bottle that I clean with a bleach solution, but the bag just won't hold up to the beach.

All the best,
GJ

Just a quick tip I learned the hard way about night drainage bags. If you clean them with whatever you choose and are trying to stretch them for a month or more they may leak and that is a real mess. The thing I do and have learned the hard way is to not hang the bag on your bed but buy a large bucket and hang the bag inside the bucket next to your bed. If it does leak it leaks into the bucket and not all over your floor.

[gjnl]

Just a quick tip I learned the hard way about night drainage bags. If you clean them with whatever you choose and are trying to stretch them for a month or more they may leak and that is a real mess. The thing I do and have learned the hard way is to not hang the bag on your bed but buy a large bucket and hang the bag inside the bucket next to your bed. If it does leak it leaks into the bucket and not all over your floor.

Good point. I use a night drain bottle by Urocare and it sits on the floor at bedside inside a plastic shoe box lined with a hand towel to buffer the noise of urine draining into it. The bottle is rigid plastic. I clean it with a bleach solution and it lasts a very long time. I find the bottle a lot easier to use and more cost effective than the bags that, as you say, can leak and be a real mess.

All the best,
GJ

[thehipcrip]

I was involved in a research study in the 1980s comparing different cleaning solutions/techniques for urinary bags, and we found that pseudomonas bacteria just loved vinegar and thrived in bags cleaned this way.

I learned this the hard way. If you can believe it, it was a urologist who told me to clean my bags with vinegar. Thanks to him, I spent a year battling repeated pseudomonas UTIs that grew increasingly more resistant and alternated with UTIs caused by proteus. I'd kick one and the other would hit within a week.

KLD, do you have any tricks for keeping the bag's tubing completely filled with vinegar long enough to dissolve sediment deposits/bleach solution long enough to sterilize without having to fill the bag to capacity?

[smokey]

Windex. I get 2-4 weeks usage of a bedside overnight drainage bag by squirting Windex into the tubing and running COLD water into the tubing after that. Shake it up in the bag and dump it out. Hot or warm water seemed to always make the bags leak.

[SCI-Nurse]

KLD, do you have any tricks for keeping the bag's tubing completely filled with vinegar long enough to dissolve sediment deposits/bleach solution long enough to sterilize without having to fill the bag to capacity?

Fill the bag using a funnel attached to a short length of rubber tubing to the fill port of the bag. Make a dependent loop in the bag tubing so that the solution stays in the tubing (this works best if you can hang the bag and loop the tubing) for several minutes. There is no need to soak longer than a minute or two if you are using bleach solution.

(KLD)