www.incontinentsupport.org

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since my last post. I had some incontinence issues as a child while taking growth hormone replacement medication and had a severe upper UTI last year. This year it seems a new issue has developed.

When I sleep 5-6 hours I can make it through the night without waking up and am able to proceed to the bathroom first thing in the morning without issue. However, if I plan to sleep in (weekends, etc), I typically sleep through the night and wake up with a painfully full bladder. When I stand up I can't contain urine and start releasing almost immediately.

If I plan to sleep in OR traveling and anticipate I will not have restroom access immediately, I wear a Dry 24/7 to bed as I can anticipate that I will urinate for a long time first thing in the morning. I had an issue while I was traveling this summer where I was far away from the bathroom and it was unavailable sometimes first thing in the morning. I used one Dry 24/7 per night for 7 nights.

I have some intermittent day issues as well, but they are much less frequent. During the day I sometimes wear Abena pullups if I anticipate being away from a bathroom for a long time. Normally that happens when I travel and anticipate that I may wait in long security lines and/or not permitted to get up during the flight due to turbulance.

I have an appointment with a urologist in September. My doctor ran a urinalysis/urine culture with microscope and ruled out diabetes and UTI. I also have a supportive wife and friends which I am very grateful for.

Based on all of your experiences, is there any possibility this issue is anxiety driven? I am wondering as I have had past experiences with incontinence for other reasons.

In my opinion, your incontinence is probably more related to some physical problem than to anxiety. However, that's really just a guess. To the extent that anxiety may be involved, is the anxiety the cause of your incontinence? Or is your anxiety caused at least in part by concern about being incontinent?

Thinking about it more, I'd say there is anxiety about the incontinence. I am a bit of a worrier in general and sometimes highly anxious. Wondered if there is any link between stress level and incontinence. I think my doctor and I agree that there is at least some kind of physical issue present. Hopefully the urologist can tell me more in September.