What do you do about strong smelling urine?

I vote for having your mother drink more water for awhile and see if that helps.

The new safety frame arrived tonight. You go, UPS! I put it together and got it onto the commode. What a difference. The Evil smelly old frame is in the back yard now. It was so frozen with salts I couldn't get it apart. I'm going to have to take a hammer to it to get it apart, box it up, and put it in the trash. I couldn't make myself do it tonight. I would have had to take another shower.

Bathroom smells so much better, even after my mother used it a couple of times. I've also been setting water beside her and telling her she needs to drink more.

Feeling accomplished tonight.

Thank you for all the good suggestions. I've tried cranberries in the past when she had a UTI. She didn't want to eat cranberries or drink the juice because they have sugar -- she's diabetic. So I bought a cranberry supplement tablet. She came down with itching that she attributed to the tablets, so wouldn't take them anymore. I know if a doctor prescribes something, she'll do it. But if I suggest it, it is always met with psychological sabotage and resistance.

The bathroom smells much better now. Last night I asked her how she liked it. She said it smelled better, then left a gap. I expected to hear that it didn't feel right and she wanted her other back. I cut out before she could say it. This morning I took a hammer to unfreezing the old Evil safety frame -- man it even stunk inside the tubes -- broke it apart, boxed it, and tossed it. Now it is no longer available if she should start wanting it back.

There's really no reason that everything has to be so hard. I can never quite figure out why it is.

Drink more water. My Dad's is strong too, and i leave glasses of water around everywhere he goes. It seems to help.

Well done, Jessie -sounds like you have it nailed.

Re - more on cranberry juice (and the same applies to cranberry supplements, so not just juice)...

The US warns against drinking LARGE amounts of cranberry juice when taking warfarin (Coumadin) whereas the UK doesn't recommend using them concurrently. Confusing...

The old school of thought about cranberry juice was that the acidification is what helped prevent a UTI. Current thought is that it is the proanthocyanidins and other ingredients that help prevent the two most common bacterias (which cause over 85 percent of UTI's) from a hearing to the tissue lining the urinary tract. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to have the ability to dislodge bacteria already adhered, the reason why it is highly effective at preventing UTI but relatively ineffective how to curing them.

The recommended daily dose of juice (and they are referring to cranberry juice cocktail) is about 10 ounces for an adult to prevent UTIs and 3 to 6 ounces day to counteract urine smell. The US considers that TOO MUCH jus can destabilize the action of warfarin, sometimes making it MORE effective and that the cranberry juice has an additive effect because the proanthocyanidins are also a mild blood thinner. The US is more liberal than the UK in that they suggest if you are onkt using a food based dietary intake and you remain consistent with the amount you use, the warfarin amount given as a result of the PT test would not need to be modified but that you should inform your doctor if you change the quantity you drink though in no case should you drink more than 10 ounces per day if you are on warfarin.

Also, and I don't know who would do this although I'm sure we can find someone out there who knows, a liter or more per day of cranberry juice can lead to the formation of stones because of the oxalate and the product. Over use of raw spinach can do the same thing.

While we're on the subject, not that people in the US eat much of these unless they are macrobiotic or Deep South food enthusiasts, but green leafy vegetables (turnip greens, beet greens, collards, Swiss chard, mustard greens, dandelion greens, bok choy, spinach, etc) are all high in vitamin K which is a coagulant Anne is a direct antagonist to blood thinners such as warfarin. Heads up! There's a big world out there when it comes to blending nature with medicine!

From webmd: "Urine normally doesn't have a very strong smell. If you get a whiff of something particularly pungent, you could have an infection or urinary stones, which can create an ammonia-like odor. Diabetics might notice that their urine smells sweet, because of excess sugar. In the past, doctors would actually taste urine for this sweetness to diagnose diabetes." Livestrong says that B vitamins can cause urine to smell, along with coffee, asparagus, alcohol and garlic. Does your mom eat/drink/take any of those?

How do you know that she has no UTI? Did she have a urinalysis. Often the elderly do not have any symptoms of a urinary tract infection what so ever until they end up septic in the emergency room. Also, a lot of times women colonize bacteria in their urine. It may not be an actual bladder infection but there can be a lot of bacteria just sloshing around in there. If she has not had a urinalysis to look for infection, ketones, blood, protein, etc you should bring her to her physician. If she does not have a physician, bring her to a local urgent care.

Thanx Veronica for thinking of me. I wish I had less complicated information.

I'm glad to read that JB may have somewhat solved the problem with (A) the new and refreshed pottie appliance - bacteria so easily forms in the residue of urine that ends up on plastic or vinyl - and (B) seeing that her mom is hydrated more which tends to dilute urine concentration.

It would take the paper off monograph length to outline what is being research to help reduce the smell of urine - generally caused by the ammonia smell in the breakdown of urea - as there are many nutrients being investigated, however everything is a subset of a subset, where they are looking at certain genetic markers that cause inadequate or altered breakdown. Therefore, not anything that can be recommended for general use without genetic counseling of the patient, which no one is going to do, considering the cost, for something as simple as smelly urine if there are other ways to overcome the problem.

Yucca saponins are routinely added to ruminant (animals with multiple stomachs that chew their cud) feed to reduce or prevent the urea break down into ammonia in animal urine or excreted digestive gases. The thought is that it inhibits the action of certain protozoa in the stomach and thus neutralizes the smell in urine and flatulence. That may not be completely true however because there is a liquid yucca it can be given to dogs to help the same problem and dogs don't have multiple stomachs, chew their card or et the kind of diet that supports the protozoa. Hmmmmm...

When my mom with drug-induced dementia begin having heart problems (A-fib), her ability to regulate her internal thermostat went completely out of whack. Her Cardio doc said it was par for the course but her PCP thought it was likely hormonal. He said if she were younger and didn't have the problem she did, we could probably do something about it. However, under her circumstances, he was reluctant to try to fool with the hormones of someone her agent in her condition.

I'm saying that because I am a lot of others have taken the dog yucca and had great results. The problem is its not approved, it doesn't come under the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) qualifications and the products are labeled "For animal use only. Not for human consumption". While there are many nutritional supplements that are safe to try on a senior or dementia person that would be free of complications, this unfortunately isn't one of them.

Another reason not to be fooling around to try to cover up a strong smell is because the most important thing about it is to know WHY. Just like taking an aspirin for a headache over and over again may cover up a brain tumor, using something to cover up the smell of urine without getting to the bottom of it would be overlooking the problem of why it smells. That can be very hazardous in a senior or a dementia person, who generally are very poor informants as to what's wrong with them or how they feel.

Because of the devastating effects of a UTI in seniors, with many more women than men having them, hey generally safe preventative thing that can be given for that is cranberry juice. The best way to get it is to use plain unsweetened cranberry juice that you blend with a little water and add PURE stevia. If you find out to be too difficult, the next option is ocean spray light cranberry juice. Be aware that the sweetener in there is sucralose, which was previously thought to be the less offensive all the artificial sweeteners, but with all the new research on beta-amyloid tangled in the brain, we are supposing that it could lead to an increased contribution toward dementia. If one already has dementia, it's probably not going to make it worse even though the UT I probably would, so it's making another decision based on the risk/benefit ratio.

A couple of other things you may consider: (1) give only fresh raw fruit or vegetable-fruit foods or juices (vegetable-fruits are tomato, eggplant, okra, peppers, cucumbers) and (2) avoid citrus juices.

With my aunt (who had alcohol dementia), by the time she had the sense that she needed to go to the bathroom, it was already too late and she would have accidents as she was trying to sit on the toilet since it took too long to get her undies down and she could no longer hold it.

Now, if I tried to coax her to try to go to the bathroom when she didn't feel she needed to, oh boy, it was like the beginning of World War 3.

The way I solved the problem was to ask her if she would come "here" as I needed help with something. She believed herself to be a helper and she was always willing to come do something helpful when asked. I always made sure that what I asked her to do (which wasn't ever anything really) was within view of the bathroom and the toilet.

Then I'd say that I had to go and should I use "the other bathroom" in case she needed to use "this one". 99 times out of 100, she would say, "Well, I may as well go since I'm already here" and chuckle about it. This prevented nearly 100 percent of her accidents and continued to be a successful method until she later had three small strokes and could no longer feel the sense or urge that she needed to go to the bathroom.