This month has seen us serve our 4,000th customer, an achievement we’re really proud of! Especially as the majority of you have become regular customers. What makes us really happy is to receive emails and letters from so many of you on the positive impact that our incontinence products and service have on your lives or the lives of those you care for.

Please keep your comments coming as it’s only by hearing back from our customers that we’re able to keep improving and ensure our product range is meeting your needs. We continuously check the market to ensure that the incontinence pads and pants we offer are amongst the best for both quality and value and meet the needs of both men and women (for whom we now offer the award winning Incostress as well).

Sharing your experiences of managing incontinence and bladder problems can be a large help and inspiration to others who may be in a similar situation. We’d like to add some of your own experiences to our website so if you’d like to share your story please email us at info@allanda.co.uk

Each story published on the website will receive a £20 Marks and Spencer Voucher.

We’re really pleased to announce that we now stock the award winning Incostress. Incostress is the invention of Gaynor Morgan, and has featured regularly in the press over the last few months.

The recent story in the Daily Mail tells how Incostress had the most unlikely of beginnings.

“On a shopping trip in Swansea ten years ago, Gaynor Morgan noticed her mother Carole freeze in the middle of a department store, and then panic, insisting that they had to go home immediately. It was only when they were safely back that Carole burst into tears and explained that she had wet herself. She had coughed and leaked urine, and was terrified other shoppers would notice the wet patch.

‘She was so embarrassed,’ says Gaynor. ‘It was only then that she told me it had been going on for months.’

Carole, then only 51, withdrew to the house, rarely going out - ’she wouldn’t go shopping or out with friends,’ says Gaynor. When Carole saw her GP and told her about the incontinence, he treated her for depression, prescribing antidepressants. Prompted by her mother’s distress, Gaynor searched the market for products that might help but found only incontinence pads.

The lightbulb moment came two years after Carole first developed the problem when she mentioned that it wasn’t as bad during menstruation when using a tampon. As Carole had previously been a nurse (for 15 years), and Gaynor had geriatric nursing experience, they used their physiological knowledge to devise something which would reduce the flow through the urethra and support the bladder.”

IncoStress® is designed for adult women of all ages who suffer with urinary stress incontinence and is worn inside the vagina. It naturally places pressure against the urethra (the tube that allows loss of urine from the bladder) and this gentle pressure helps control the involuntary loss of urine and restores the natural anatomical position of the bladder, thus, preventing stress incontinence. Its unique shape allows the pelvic floor muscles to be gently exercised, which over a period of time can strengthen the muscles.

It is reusable making it both environmentally friendly and economical (IncoStress is cleaned simply by washing in clean water). Incostress is also discreet, comfortable and easy to use.

Clinical trials were carried out at Singleton Hospital, South Wales, UK at the department of obstetrics and gynaecology. As a result a percentage of patients were removed from the waiting list for surgery. As with all new products IncoStress will need getting used to and will not suit everyone.

IncoStress® is a medical device for stress urinary incontinence only. Other degrees of incontinence or bladder problems should be discussed with your doctor first.

Whilst the incontinence products we sell can make a large difference to people’s lives and confidence, we’ll be the first to admit that it’s not often something genuinely new and revolutionary comes along.

After a wait of several months we’re now in a position to launch something genuinely different and that for some people may make a significant difference to their condition. It has already won awards and achieved a high level of interest from the papers.

So what is it? Well it’s not an incontinence pad or pant but something quite different….we’ll reveal more in a few days.