www.incontinentsupport.org

I have been reading posts on this Forum for a number of years and have found many of the posts to be extremely useful, particularly with coping issues and dealing with embarrassment and low esteem. I should probably class myself as one of the lucky ones compared to what some of you guys on here have to deal with. I started with incontinence issues 7 years ago when I was 66. I was an occasional bedwetter up to the age of 12 but never had any further issues until 7 years ago. I started to occasionally wet the bed. I also experienced loss of control during the day. My wife was and still is incredibly supportive. She suggested that I go to the doctors to get things checked out and also suggested that I wear nappies at night until or if a solution for the incontinence was found. Over the next few months I had numerous tests including cystoscopies. Whilst I was having the final cystoscopy, the Consultant Urologist said that there were no cancers which was a massive relief. He also said that there was nothing obvious that was causing the incontinence. I had an appointment with him at a later date and he confirmed again that there were no cancers present and that they couldn't find anything else that was causing the incontinence. He said that the likely cause was the degenerating and weakening of the bladder muscles and to expect them to probably get worse over a period of time. He did say that they could try investigative surgery but that could be invasive and no guarantees. There was a chance that it could make the condition worse. There was no way that I was going to risk that and decided that I would carry on managing the condition with the incontinence products as I had done for the previous nine months. I said earlier that I was one of the lucky ones compared with some people on here. I am classed as incontinent but I only wet the bed three to four times a week. Daytime loss of control only happens once or twice a week but it can happen anytime from getting up in the morning until going to bed fourteen hours later. I am a heavy wetter but sometimes I can sleep all the way through without wetting. Sometimes I wake up needing to go to the bathroom and successfully use it and go back to bed. There are times when I've woken up during the night and I've already peed but still need to go to the bathroom to pee again and there are times when I've peed and slept through until morning. Daytime issues are completely different. Most of the time my bladder acts quite normal. I can feel the need to pee building up and so subsequently go to the bathroom. There are times when, without any warning I get an extreme urge to go and I have to go that instant. Sometimes I make it and sometimes not. It's what I have named a rush and gush situation. The last situation is when I have no warning of needing to go and I start peeing without being able to stop. There ls no point in trying to get to the bathroom. It can happen anywhere and anytime. When I started my journey I didn't receive any advice on what incontinence products were available to manage the condition. It has been all my own research and it's been a long journey, and an expensive one. Initially, through a UK charitable agency which specialises in incontinence, I tried a number of free samples. They were all the types which you have to fasten with tapes. I found them very fiddly to fasten and the majority leaked which was really frustrating. They were probably cheap varieties and not a very high capacity. By good luck I came across TENA maxi pants which was a pull up and the highest capacity in all their range of pull ups. Bingo. They were great. Easy to pull on and off. As I have said, I am a heavy wetter during the night. The pull up wasn't foolproof and could leak and I reckon they were about 70% effective so I started using plastic pants over them. It still isn't foolproof but in my opinion would be about 85% effective. I have used these for over six years. As I am continually researching advice and products I came across a product called ID Expert Slip Maxi Prime. It uses four tapes to secure it into place. I've always avoided products that use fastening tapes for the afore mentioned reasons but I was impressed by the fact they had 65% more capacity than the TENA, 4100 capacity as opposed to 2500. I'm presuming that the majority of contributers on here use the products with the tape fasteners. If any of you have partial control of your incontinence like myself, how do you cope when you need to use the bathroom. With a pull up I can partially pull down with my jeans and pee over the top of them and then just pull them up and fasten my jeans. Do you have to completely take off the garment and then go through the process of putting it back on. What about during the night if you need to go and you've peed earlier on. Do you have to put a new garment on or can you put the old one back on like I can with the pull up. I'm really pleased that I found this Forum. It has been a mind of information and a really helpful site. Thank you to one and all.

Welcome Incontrol. It appears that you have made commendable progress in dealing with your incontinence.

I'm double incontinent and wear 24/7. I wear a premium tabbed diaper with a booster pad, plastic pants, and usually a onesie. At night the onesie is my pjs. If I need to pee at night I just do it and go back to sleep. If I went to the toilet, took everything off, peed, and re-diapered I would have difficulty getting back to sleep. My priority was not to loose sleep by getting up to change. Pullups are not effective in containing pee at night.

--John

incontrol wrote:I'm presuming that the majority of contributers on here use the products with the tape fasteners. If any of you have partial control of your incontinence like myself, how do you cope when you need to use the bathroom. With a pull up I can partially pull down with my jeans and pee over the top of them and then just pull them up and fasten my jeans. Do you have to completely take off the garment and then go through the process of putting it back on.

I have diabetes nerve damage and maintain my level of control as best as I can. During the day, I wear a pull-up because I use a toilet and reserve the pull-up for accidents (mostly fear of diarrhea accidents lately).

At night, I have been wearing a brief (product with tape fasteners) and plastic pants because on a few occasions I wet in my sleep. If I do wake up needing to pee and I simply do so without leaving the bed and go back to sleep. If I fear a BM then I will get out of bed and partially remove the diaper enough to use the toilet.

When I attend sporting events for several hours, I wear a brief and plastic pants. There is no way I can get down the grandstands fast enough to get to the washrooms, let alone stand in line. I don't trust pull-ups for that due to volume and because I have had diarrhea accidents a few times per year.

A lot of it boils down to practical need and convenience.

I was having difficulties in fitting the ID slip so I decided to try TENA Proskin Slip as they had larger and wider tapes. They had a smaller capacity of 3700ml but they were a little bit easier to put on. I was able, during the day,if careful, to pull them up and down slowly. Not ideal if needing to go urgently so more prone to daytime accidents than wearing a pull up. They were still a little bit fiddly to put on and somebody suggested that it could be a sizing issue. I was at the top end of a medium size so decided to try a large size. These were much easier to put on and they did fit better. They are still not as convenient as a pull up but the capacity is 50% more and the cost per item is nearly 50% less than the pull up. They are more bulky but I can live with that.

Hi Incontrol:
I have very similar issues as you describe. Although I do leak a bit during the day I don't tend to have very large gushes, however I do have infrequent full bladder releases at night while sleeping. My solution is to use a medium quality pull-up with a Male Guard pad (non-flow-thru type) during the day, and at night I insert a folded cotton cloth inside the pull-up with a plastic pant over that.

The cotton cloth starts as a 28" x 28" flat sheet (like a small diaper) and I fold it several times into a 12 layer pad. This pad will absorb a large quality of liquid at a very fast rate and any "extra" is then just transferred into the pull-up. .

I will typically use a total of two pads during the day and just the one cotton pad at night. During the day I usually carry an extra pad with me just in case the first pad is full and of course you can always just use the pull-up itself if need be. At night you can even double up with the cotton cloths if you need more capacity. I typically end up just using one pull-up per day but of course sometimes you will flood into the pull-up and need to change it for night use.

Of course you will have to experiment with this system to get it to work best for you but I've had great luck with it.