www.incontinentsupport.org

My wife and I went to a show last night (Murder on the Orient Express) and I ate /drank nothing from 5:45 PM until after we got home around 9:00 PM. No alcohol at all and no caffeine (half caff coffee) since 1:30 in the afternoon. i had maybe 3 oz water at 9:15 to swallow a pill and rehydrate because my mouth was dry. I went to the bathroom at 9:30 or so, read for 15 min - 20 min and went to sleep. Was not wearing protection.

I woke up at midnight badly needing to use the can which I did. since I usually don't wake up needing to urinate until 2 or 3 I figured I was having a bad night and put on protection. Was fine the rest of the night so protection was unnecessary and wasted.

This drives me nuts. A few (3) ounces of water should not wake me up so damn soon when that's all I had for the almost 4 hrs before hitting the sack. I had fallen asleep fully clothed so I shouldn't have been and wasn't chilled. Even though I did wake up and used the can, I am petrified that I won't wake up and I'll soak the bed. It's been awhile since that happened (mid-March) but it has happened.

Sporadic bladder issues suck!

G

Although my daytime incontinence problems are quite consistent and I wear full tape-up diapers at night time it's a completely different story so I somewhat understand what you are going through. In my case I finally decided to quit playing "diaper roulette" at night and am wearing protection every night in addition to a large (48"x36") bed pad.

Interestingly I've recently changed my night time protection to a cloth pad+pull-up+PUL pant combo that is working great for me and is very efficient in terms of not wasting unused protection. I take a 28"x28"cotton cloth (actually a Walmart "Flour Sack Cloth, 5 for $5) and fold it in half and then in thirds to give me a six layer pad. I then place that in my pull-up making sure that the sides of the cloth are tucked up snuggly against my legs and then I pull the pull-up into place. Over that I add my Gary PUL pants. So far the few times I've had a significant leak at night the cotton pad has soaked up everything and not even gotten the pull-ups damp, much less gotten the PUL pants wet. If you've got pull-ups that have a wide crotch and will "contain" the pad, and assuming you don't wet a large amount, I suspect you could even get away without the PUL pants. This is something you might want to try since when you have an accident you may not even wet the pull-up and or course the cotton pad is very easily washed.

One additional bit of advice I can give you is to definitely start using a large bed pad. At least it will save your mattress even if all else fails.

Inconsistent, unpredictable, whatever label we put on it pretty much describes my situation as well. I can go several days without much of an issue both day and night, then there are other days I'm not so lucky. I even tried wearing my regular briefs one day at home...a big mistake! Since my combined prostatectomy and diverticulotomy 8 months ago, I've come to the conclusion that I will always need some protection day and night. I don't think I will ever be brave enough not to. I wear either a tape on diaper during the day, or a padded brief with a pul pant. At night I wear a thick cloth pin on diaper. Those combinations seem to work best for me.