Pete is a 70 year old gentleman married to Sandra with one son and one daughter. He has three grandchildren who he and Sandra look after at various times during the week.
Pete was an ambulance man from 1973 to 1990 and before that he was in the army. Pete is a very active, sociable man and he has lots of amazing stories to tell.
In the early 1980s Pete had haemorrhoid surgery and after the operation found that there was extensive pain to remove his pack. He recounts the story with horror as the pain is still clearly in his thoughts. This incident has lived with him ever since, however his bowels have always been regular going every day with no real issues.
Around five years ago Pete started to get some faecal incontinence episodes and it started to happen every day. This clearly upset Pete and he was embarrassed to seek help so tried to cope with it. Pete’s daughter managed to get him some incontinence pads which he used every day and for the last five years that’s how he has coped.
Wearing a pad meant that Pete was unable to go swimming with his grandchildren and enjoy many of the activities that he wanted to do with his wife and family. Pete loves talking to people and wants to enjoy life, however, his faecal incontinence and needing to wear incontinence pads made him quite a different person. Sandra his wife felt that he had become quite short-tempered, a different person and it all seemed to coincide with his faecal incontinence and having to deal with that.
Pete realised that one reason he didn’t go to see his GP was probably because he was worried that he may need to have a colostomy or some other kind of surgery, he remembered his haemorrhoid surgery and all the pain.
A few months ago, one of his friends had bowel cancer and Pete felt he coped so well with it. After seeing his friend do so well he decided to go to his GP and tell him about his faecal incontinence. His GP was very sympathetic to this and referred him to his local hospital where he underwent some test including a colonoscopy and some other simple tests on his back passage.
After he had the test results he was referred to a functional bowel nurse specialist and she said we can help you cope better with your faecal incontinence and hopefully stop it happening at all. The nurse described to him that he could use rectal irrigation. Pete had not heard of this before and wondered what it all entailed.
When the nurse showed him the irrigation his first thought was ‘wow what a good idea’ but he did wonder how far you had to put the tube up your bottom! The nurse demonstrated it to him, he thought it looked really easy to do and the next day he tried using it.
Pete is using the Qufora IrriSedo Mini system with the extension tube. He found it simple to use. Pete’s bowels open as normal in the morning and then he uses the IrriSedo mini around 15 minutes later. That clears any stool remaining in his rectum. He uses it every day and he had no episodes of faecal incontinence since the day he started using it. He did wear a pad for the first few days, as he was not convinced it would work so well. However, he never wears a pad now.
So this year he has being able to go swimming with his grandchildren and enjoy life again. Pete feels so much better in himself and Sandra says how much happier they both feel. His life has been so improved by using the IrriSedo mini.
Before he used the IrriSedo mini he felt his bowel incontinence affected his whole life. It was always on his mind, the fact that he always leaked, he had soreness and was worried about odour from the pad. Since he’s been using the IrriSedo mini he feels he has more patience, his confidence is back – in fact it’s a new Pete and Sandra says ‘I have my husband back again’.
