www.incontinentsupport.org

Hey, good news! I have managed to slowly phase out protection in public, now to the point where i feel comfortable without it. and my pants have not gotten wet. The worst that has happened is a little dribble here or there on my underwear..thats it.. a big contrast from mere months ago, where i was wearing all the time and on the verge of giving up control.. so, if i can get help..maybe the rest of you can too..depending on your circumstances....dont ever give up hope of being dry, until there is no hope left at all. Peace out!

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"We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love" Mother Teresa

"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" - Captain Picard from Chain of Command, Part II

Glad to hear you were able to over come your bladder issues. For some, meds, and/or tapes will cure the problem. However, most of the time meds help to manage the problem and don't cure it. For those of us that are incontinent due to nerve damage all we can do is manage the issue and take more Gabapentin. Good luck to you!

Hi Sociologygeek,

Your's is a wonderful sucess story! For a long time, now, many of us here have followed your struggles to come to grips with what was going on and causing your incontinence. A low point, I think, was reached when you were about to throw in the towel. You had even selected a "deadline" beyond which you did not plan to pursue the cause any longer and were going to accept diapers as your permanent form of underpants.

But you persisted and prevailed! Which, even tho your sucess is a rare case, it sure does point out the necessity to thoroughly investigate the cause of incontinence.

Certainly physical causes and nerve damage are, for the most part, permanent when it comes to incontinence. In such cases, acceptance can ease the difficulty of getting on with life, especially a life to be spent in diapers.

Your case certainly shows how incon can have emotional / mental roots, if I can put it that way....stress can have enormous effects on the body. Your success story should help others who have incon that is not solidly diagosed as physical, to persist and maybe get lucky, just as you did.

Congratulations on your sucess....and we do hope you won't just walk away now but will continue to visit and contribute....esp when you see signs in other's posting here that they are struggling with the doctors to find a "cause" for their leakage problem.

JoeK

Joe,

Of course im staying! Your'e not getting rid of me that easily! Ive grown close to this board and its members over the past year or so..its become like family. Yes, you are correct in that physical causes such as nerve damage are pretty much permanent, and accepting diapers as soon as possible makes life easier. In my case, nerve damage was considered a possibility, so for the longest time, i wasnt optomistic about my situation, since there wasnt an alternative explanation to the nerves. But that changed when i visited the PT, coupled with the fact that the battery of neurolgical tests run at U of M showed absolutely NO neurological anomaly whatsoever, other than a cyst on the pineal gland, which may or may not cause incontience, and is known to affect sleep habits more than bladder control, coupled with the fact that my dryness has gotten MUCH better.

While i didnt realize it at the time, because i still had some leaks, going off Catapres made a big difference, because i stopped flooding in the morning. I guess i had to do the physical therapy to get all the way dry. Now, keep in mind that sometimes OCCASIONALLYi dribble or drip small amounts of urine, but these look like pin drops.. smaller than the size of a dime...contrast that with a silver-dollar size spot that was the DAILY occurance of yesteryear. So, yes, i may still get wet, but its not enough to cause me bother .

I am glad i decided to wait until now to make a defenitive descision about keeping going or not, because if i had given up and gone 24/7, id have lost control by now, and would be stuck in diapers.

I cant tell you how good it is to NOT carry my backpack everywhere i go..there were some days that thing felt like a shackle and leg iron.. not to mention the akwardness..

So, ill stick around to give moral support to anyone who needs it.. and be a cheerleader to those who contiue to seek answers to their issues..

Peace out!

Rob

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"We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love" Mother Teresa

"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" - Captain Picard from Chain of Command, Part II

Good news of your success, Rob and that you are staying too!

I am an MS person and am currently managing to stay dry when near the toilet and short shopping trips but daren't risk any further afield. Anyway, enjoy the lack of the backpack.

Congratulations Rob!

You said in your post:
Now, keep in mind that sometimes OCCASIONALLYi dribble or drip small amounts of urine, but these look like pin drops.. smaller than the size of a dime...contrast that with a silver-dollar size spot that was the DAILY occurance of yesteryear. So, yes, i may still get wet, but its not enough to cause me bother .

Hi Rob,
I'm sure you must be delighted to be back in "real underwear" and many of us are very envious while we wish you well with your sucess.

I want to point out underwear that I think is unique, in that it is "real" underwear but absorbant. Check out www.tigerunderwear.com and look at men's underwear and you'll find they offer a basic single and double seat men's cotton brief but they've added in recent times what they term a "training brief" which is a doubled up version of the basic brief. Four plies thru the center from the front to the back while retaining the fit and feel of a regular brief.

The four ply training brief is available in plain white and colors for the more daring who want their briefs "bold".

These may be perfect for you and others like you with only minor spotting who no longer need a diaper. If you wear you pants a bit loose, any wetness on the briefs should not wick thru to your pants....within reason. If, for any reason, you need assurance that your outer wear won't show any spots, then you can pull on a pair of plastic pants....don't know if you ever got any plastic pants, tho....from your posts you seemed to be a totally disposables wearer.

Now that you can enjoy "real underwear" as compared with pull on training pants or pull on diapers, you might as well benefit from a thicker version that fits and feels just as good as regular underwear while providing some minimal protection from spotting.

Hey Joe!

Thanks for the suggestion..yeah.. it is great to wear underwear again...and i'm sorry some of you can't...i really am.. beacause i know what hell having to wear 24/7 can be.. having little to no control really does suck to high heaven.. ill pray for all of you that they find some cure to help you..so none of you ever has to wear a diaper again.. never have to put up with diaper rash again..

For starters..you may want to give the U of M urology department a try if you're so inclined.. the staff treat you with GREAT care.. and they have cutting edge and innovative stuff going on.. U of M is raked 12th overall in the NATION for teaching hospitals.. now THAT'S saying something..

Peace out!

Rob

_________________
"We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love" Mother Teresa

"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" - Captain Picard from Chain of Command, Part II

In reflecting on the the past two years ive been dealing with this issue.. WOW, has it really been that long.. i cant help but wonder how much of it was physical, and ho w much was mental. Like the pad thing.. intiially you wear the pad wear the pad becasue you want to stay dry, but its awfully tempting sometimes to just use it. Before you know it, your leakage becomes a whole lot worse. I don't doubt there was a physical cause, as i had a voiding dysfunction, but perhaps the misinformation i got about stuff kinda hyped things up. I think i may have given myself OAB by going to the bathroom so often to avoid that drippy drippy that often happened. It's interesting Joe mentions psycology, because i think for many people, the cause of incotnience is just as psycological as it is physical.. You have the phyiscal problem, which may not be all that bad, but then you may wonder why you bother trying.. and then end up with much less control than before. Whatever happened.. THANK GOD its over.. knock on wood..

Its possible the Catapres had a lot to do with it.. because i do remember being somewhat drier after going off of it..but in order to get completly dry, i needed to learn to relax my pelvic floor.

I digress... I certanily DON'T miss the 3 to 6 diaper changes per day.. or the rash, or the constant trips to teh bathroom..but it almost seemed normal.. and now that its over, its both a sigh of relief and its akward at times to be out with out a diaper on.... but, I wouldnt trade it for anything..

Btw.. today i notice sensations that border on the OAB stuff in the past.. and i think i can link it to constipation.. so, if i keep my bowels regular, that will go a long way to keeping my bladder nerves calm and in control. . I was a tad worried today whether it would resurface, but im still dry for the most part.. no floods.. phew.. just an errant drop now and then..

BTW.. my PT speculates what caused thef loods was my bladder muscles fatiguing, it just couldnt hold it in anymore.. which goes along with the overflow bit.. catapres etc.. Im just so glad that its OVER!

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"We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love" Mother Teresa

"THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" - Captain Picard from Chain of Command, Part II