Are you sick and tired of using pads and diapers for your urinary incontinence? trust me I hear
this from my patients all the time they're stinky they're expensive and they're uncomfortable I'm
Dr. Rena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today I'm going to do a deep dive and review
several absorbent reusable underwears to see if they'll help you for your urinary incontinence.
First off I want you to know that you are not alone urinary incontinence affects
up to 30 percent of the population and while it is more common in women than men experience
it as well interestingly in women we see one in four women will suffer from some bladder
leakage in their lifetime and that percentage can go up as high as 75 of women after the age
of 65. that's a lot of incontinence so not only is it a very common problem but it's extremely
embarrassing and it can have some real major psychological effects I see many patients
who are depressed anxious don't go outside or socially isolated because of their incontinence
and a lot of people just don't have an opportunity to do anything but wear pads and diapers because
they are otherwise having to change clothes wash sheets or not be able to go outside for fear of
accidents more than that it's extremely expensive so back in 2000 which was now 21 years ago they
estimated the cost of incontinence products is probably lower than it is now but they looked
at the cost of reusable absorbent pads and they estimated that the average community dweller who
suffers from incontinence spends somewhere from 378 a year for men and 978 dollars for women
and if you look at people who are in nursing homes that number goes way up to about five thousand
dollars a year so they're spending almost fifteen dollars a day on incontinence products that's a
lot of money and even worse these products end up in our landfills and take hundreds of years to
decompose in fact seven percent of our landfills are made up of adult diapers that's three times
more than children's diapers and as our population ages we're just gonna see more of that so using
these reusable products does have some distinct benefits one they are comfortable they feel
just like underwear and they're definitely more discreet than having to wear a diaper or a pad
but will they work for urinary incontinence a lot of them are marketed for periods or menstruation
and will they actually work for the incontinence that you have for urine so how do you know exactly
how severe your incontinence is well there was a study that actually looked at this and they
took pads that people wore for 24 hours and they weighed them and they categorized the severity of
their incontinence based on how heavy these pads weighed and what they found was that if you had
somewhere between 1 to 20 milliliters or less than an ounce of urine loss over 24 hours you had mild
incontinence if you had somewhere between 20 ml to 74 ml which is somewhere between a little less
than one ounce to a little more than two ounces you had moderate incontinence and if you had more
than that 75 ml or greater almost three ounces or more you would have severe incontinence but what
does that mean for you well if you feel like every time you have incontinence you're having a couple
drops that's probably mild incontinence if you're having a flood or losing your entire bladder
volume when you don't make it to the bathroom in time that's more severe and if you're somewhere
in between you're probably on the moderate side so what are some things that you'll need to consider
before you take the plunge and buy some reusable underwears well one you'll want to see if it's
absorbent enough so estimate how bad is your incontinence and take a look on the websites
and we'll go over some of these products and their absorbency while we talk about them but make sure
that it will work for the amount of incontinence you're having you'll also want to consider if you
might need to change it during the day or at night time so if you have no incontinence at nighttime
you may want to have a lighter underwear a mild incontinence underwear for that time and use a
heavier one for the daytime also you want to make sure you have enough supplies so how often do you
do laundry and will you need to buy a certain number of underwears to feel like you don't have
to worry about having another one for the next day all right well let's dive in to take a look
at some of these products the first one i'm going to start off is called underwear or underwear
and this is actually made by a urologist so of course I am partial to this product because
it's made by one of my colleagues all right so this is underwear it comes with this little um
kind of top part which is kind of pretty and it is made with a liner on the inside which is machine
washable and biodegradable I have to say when I first put these on I
felt the pad but as I wore them throughout the day I forgot it was there these are meant to be used
for mild to moderate incontinence and range from about twenty six dollars to thirty two
dollars depending on the type of underwear you buy they come in thong boy shorts high waisted
uh those sorts of things the one thing I loved also about this company is that they have this
thing called the pp guarantee and what that is is if you don't absolutely love the pair that you got
or the sizing you can reach out to them within 30 days and they'll send you another pair and you can
keep the first pair so that's really great and a wonderful thing that they offer because sometimes
it's hard to tell the sizing I will say with all of these underwears that I tried they were all a
little bit snug which I kind of understand because you want them to be snug so that you don't have
any leakage or incontinence escaping the the pad that's in the underwear itself so the next company
I'm going to talk about is bam body and they have two different kinds of underwear and this is their
leak proof hipster so the leak proof has a couple layers inside here that are made of
bamboo that help soak up the absorbency this was actually very comfortable I liked the
little lining on here it was very cute they also have the absorbent panty which is meant for more
volume of holding more volume of fluid and this holds up to about 30 ml or one ounce and
this has an extra layer in here to catch any urine that might come out this one felt kind
of like wearing a bikini bottom but still very comfortable didn't bunch up too much the other
kind of cool thing I found out on their website is they're collaborating with this project called
the masai water project to help provide these types of underwears to communities that don't
have a lot of access to period products and have a lot of shaming associated with period products
so once they get that underwear up you'll be able to buy one and they'll donate one to the project
the other great thing is the price point is a little less than fifteen dollars in underwear and
it's free shipping no matter how much you buy the next company I'm going to talk about is modi body
and I have to say I really like their products they come in a number of different absorbencies
and on their website they have a quiz so you can put in what you're looking for
how many pads a day you use and they will tell you what they think the best product is for you if you
choose wrong they do have a 60-day risk-free guarantee where you can send the product back
and get a refund except for the shipping cost so this is a couple of the ones they sent me and
you can see they they are very nice and they have different absorbencies and overnight one
this is the overnight one it's kind of heavy because it's got this again multiple linings
using bamboo and merino wool to help absorb all that incontinence but I love that they have
different absorbencies and they have products for men which is so sorely needed because I think that
there are very few products for men out there on the market they also have maternity wear swimwear
activewear and they even have a vegan collection if you so desire so another great thing is for
every pair that you buy they donate two pairs of underwear to women in shelters in australia
and in 2021 they donated over a hundred thousand pairs of underwear which is so amazing all right
the next company I'm going to talk about is proof proof is very similar to modi body but
it is a u.s based company whereas modibodi is an australian-based company it has multiple
absorbency levels of their underwear has a 60-day money-back guarantee and also has free shipping
over 50 and also has tons of different styles on their website so their absorbency levels there's
a number of them but it goes up to 10 teaspoons or 50 mls which is the most that i've seen so far
in as far as holding I uh they come in a number of different styles this is one of the ones I tried
out again it has a very nice feel to it kind of like a bikini bottom it did you know when
I was working out and wearing it these were the really extra absorbency ones I got and so I did
feel them when I was working out but throughout the day otherwise I didn't really notice them
and they were super comfortable they also have a section on their website that you can use your fsa
or hsa dollars so if you're in the united states and you have an hsa you can actually use that
money towards a purchase of this underwear they also have paired with some great organizations
including black women for wellness in los angeles and the period menstrual movement so I'm all for
organizations that support charitable endeavors all right the next company is nyx and this company
actually one of my patients told me she was using them and she was really happy with them so i've
tried them out they're very comfortable and they come in multiple different shapes and sizes and
absorbencies so this one also can hold the most absorbency can hold up to 40 ml of incontinence
they have again this moisture wicking layered material that all of these uh panties have very
soft and also they claim that there's no odor with these panties as well because of the types of
materials that they use there is free shipping over 75 dollars while they
don't have returns on their underwears they do have a positive returns program for their bras
and they actually give those returns to women in need and shelters which is a great initiative
and because of that initiative they've given 35 000 bras to shelters in north america in the year
of 2020. they start at their lowest cost about 23 dollars and then go up from there last but not
least we have thinks which are these underwears here which I'm sure many of you have heard of
I will say after washing them there's a little bit of like things that are kind of starting to
come out um and and so that's the only thing I noticed about them but they are very comfortable
just like the other ones they have um again this very big layered technology they come
in multiple absorbencies they have a classic which holds up to about 20 mls and a super
which is this one which holds about 45 mls they also have a sister company called speaks which
holds again up to about 40 ml of fluid as well which is more designed for urinary incontinence
but I think ultimately they're very very similar they do often have sales they start at around 25
and go up from there they recently just had a 30 off sale and they offer returns and exchanges up
to 60 days no questions asked they have a number of different initiatives including promotions for
women empowerment and leadership they have very good employment practices for their
factory workers offering transportation and meals particularly in sri lanka and they are also very
involved in advocacy and equity initiatives as well so for each of these companies I'm
going to try and test out their most absorbent underwear and since they're mostly from moderate
incontinence I've taken a little beaker here and measured out about 25 ml of this green colored
food coloring water and we're going to test them out so let's see how well they work
okay so I just poured about 30 mls of that green fluid on here it's a little bit damp I think
at about 25 it was still pretty dry and this is again a slight dampness but nothing got through
to the pad underneath so good for mild to moderate incontinence but probably not if you're having a
ton of leakage all the time so this is our proof underwear and let's see how much this can hold
a little mess there but let's move that over
second so a slight bit of dampness there very dry on the outside so and that's already drying up so
definitely held uh held up pretty well to that uh 25 ml or so still getting a little
bit drier here it's a little bit wet but it's starting to dry quickly and again nothing has
leaked through except for where I made that little mess so this is our modi body this is
one of the very heavily absorbent underwears and so we're gonna put a little bit more in this one
I'll try not to spill it this time of course I filled it you know
so interestingly it is still kind of hanging out here it is slowly absorbing the fluid
okay there we go so let's see I spilled some of course definitely nice for heavier leakers
very dry on the outside it is um let's check the inside too and it's already
dry on the inside that's amazing very cool all right so we're going to do our nyx underwear
it's like impossible for me not to spill this over I'll try my best here so that's
obviously going to go through so just ignore that push on it very wet there
nothing leaked through very dry on the outside which is excellent that's still drying didn't
dry as quickly as some of the other ones but the outside is still dry so great
all right so we have our bam body and let's try this one out
Don't think I should quit my day job and become a tester for a product I'm not very
good at this so let me get all this absorbed in here let's uh so it's actually wicking that
away pretty nicely let me put it on this dry part of the pad here and it's still dry that's
great and it's dry on the outside too all right and so this is the thanks right here
thanks brandt I think by the last underwear I get better at this but clearly I'm not that good at it
all right we're all done and this is basically dry like it's just slightly damp so that is kind
of neat about these um but again this only went through one wash and you can see it's
kind of already looking a little worn out so that's my only reservation with this one there
are a number of great options available on the market if you have mild to moderate incontinence
if you have severe incontinence you may want to try some of the really
super absorbency options there's always good return policies in a lot of these companies
and you may want to do kind of a combination so you can use those as a backup and use a pad
rather than having to use a full diaper or something like that I will make a video on
reusable products to help us find some that are more environmentally friendly and work
well for more severe incontinence as well and let me know what else you want to see
in the comments below as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it