www.incontinentsupport.org

hi

40 year old male from Ireland here. I have suffered with oab all my life but only sought help 4 years ago, before this it did not bother me to much as i only had small amounts of wetness and got around the problem by going to the toilet a lot ,also as I have suffered with depression and anxiety, i did not have intimate relations with anybody so it was easy to hide the problem.

Thankfully i have worked through a lot of my psychological problems with counselling and without medication ,unfortunately in the last 4 years my bladder problem has gotten worse, now i can have complete loss of bladder control without any warning, i have painfully strong contractions made worse by thinking about a toilet,running tap,key of the door ect.

i have beging to hospital to have all the usual tests done but found no problems so was diagnosed with OAB Medication or pelvic exercises has not worked, next step botox or neurostimulation both of which i am trying to avoid. Other than bladder problem i am in good health.

Because I am a very distant person who has never had any close relationships I wear no protection and get by using my pelvic muscles and shaking my body in the hope I might one day be able to control my bladder like a normal person I was wondering if there is any conection with OAB and a troubled childhood (disfunctional family with very angry mother) also i wet the bed until I was 11 or 12 years old. I would be happy if i though some type of counselling or therapy would solve my problem without any need for these bladder operations or am I expecting to much.

I would be grateful for any information about other options as I feel Iam very young to have blader operations also is there any problems with long term use of botox and self catheterisation. Wishing everybody here good look with there problems. Regards Jim

Hello Jim, welcome to the forum... you sound very much like myself, even down to the childhood area as well, although I do not believe that has any affect on my problems. I also suffer from urge incon, I can get by for short periods of time without wearing anything, but any length of time out and be sure I have something on. I also have not tried any of the meds, I don't want the side effects they give you, even if there is any relief from the urgency, not a good trade off for me. You even have some of the same triggers as I do, the key in the door is the worst! Some days, I don't even need a key or a door!
I guess you really don't know if therapy or counselling will help your issue, might want to give it a serious look and try it, worth a shot. There must be some risks to using Botox, after all it is Botulism that it is manufactured from, isn't it? Self cath also has it's own drawbacks, the main one being UTI's, along with internal damage to the urinary tract if not done properly. I would avoid both like the plague! Diapers are a useable solution, as well as the external catheter, which I use now and then quite successfully, (it is nice staying dry!) Hope that gives you a bit of insight, a Google search on the Botox thing may be beneficial, unless anyone on the forum has tried it, not sure... take care, Puffy

_________________
Puffy
BC, Canada
Fighting the "Bladder Battle" since 1995

Hello and Welcome

I been on all sides of bladder and bowel problems over the years the last being retention of the bladder. I first started to have problems when I was 36yrs I am mow 68yrs.
Botox is something I have not been given or suggested by my urologist but self cathing was.
In the United States alone there are millions of people that self cath and have great success with it and I did also for several years. It easy to find out look on the net about self cathing.
Self cathing is preferred because it has little chance of infection if you do it as a sterile procedure the risk is minimal.
If your doctor suggested self cathing talk to him or her and if you are comfortable with it then try it you can always stop it and who knows it may help.

Self cathing worked for me for two years no diapers it was great but my neuropathy has changed I now cannot go on my own my bladder will not release and I need to use an indwelling catheter but still no diapers.

I am not trying to sway you to self cath just giving you a different opinion I had good luck with it.

My advice is if you like your health care provider and trust him and seriously trying to get better and overcome incontinence then there is only one choice listen to him and if you have questions ask him you can always stop. About medications ask your doctor about your concerns he is the one that went to school to become a doctor. If he suggests something radical get a second opinion or even a third.
Remember we are not doctors just people with a problem.

2lyle

Welcome aboard, Jim!

I can imagine an incontinence forum is not exactly where most folks wish to be...but if the reality is you have to deal with wet pants or a wet bed.....then you need answers and advice!

My first thought reading your post is about one of our members who is a rare success story. He is "Sociologygeek" and a youngster who joined us the end of 2008 and suffered incontinence all thru 2009 and was a frequent poster....and he pursued medical and psychological options even as he tried one diaper after the other looking for something that would keep him dry.

I am not sure just when he found his answer(s) but he did, and he successfully dried up! He doesn't visit here much anymore but drops in occasionally and I hope he might just see your post and respond. I think his story is one of stress and psychological problems that caused urinary incontinence and once the problems were treated, the incontinence went away!

You mention that you don't wear any protection but it sounds like you could enjoy some peace of mind if you did! Why not wear disposable pull ups? They are undetectable under pants. They are quite comfortable, are underwear-like, and do not interfere with using the toilet, even when you are in a rush! The good ones, like Abena or Medline are fully able to contain a full blown "flood" if necessary. With your present anxiety, why further burden yourself with worries about wet pants in public?

Again, welcome to the group and best of luck finding some answers!

JoeK

Thanks everybody for your responses and advice.
I have being doing bladder retraining for the last few years in order to stretch my bladder sometimes I can fight off the urges for 1 hour and other times I can loose control with the first strong urge which can be very depressing, but I am very headstrong and will not give up easy even though it can be very uncomfortable and distressing.
I seem to think that if I keep my pelvic muscles strong and can have great control some days, I am afraid if I start to wear diapers I will get lazy and loose what good control I have. Its difficult to know what to do, I presume other people have the same difficulty.
Thanks and good luck everybody

Jim

You got some good advice and I believe you are correct about using diapers 24/7 but as JoeK said using them may give you piece of mind.
You sound like you are strong willed and that is a good attitude to have I lost the incontinent battle I am 68yrs old and drought I will ever get cured but I am still fighting.
As JoeK also said few get cured of incontinence but there is always that chance, keep looking.

But I don’t see any problem with using diapers to get out of the house to be with friends once in a while I don’t believe in being a hermit either.

I hope you find the problem and get cured all the best
2lyle

I agree with Joek. I would recommend you try some pull up type of protection. I know Abena, and Molicare make them in different absorbency so you should be able to find what your looking for online. However, if your situation gets worse over time don't let your incon problem take over your life.

I also have overactive bladder and urge incontinence. My problem stems from an unexpected side effect of surgery when I was 14 years old. I'm just a month shy of 70 now. So I've been dealing with these issues for a long time. When I was a teenager, I was an absolute fanatic about doing the pelvic muscle exercises and got to the point where I could generally go without a daytime diaper by the time I went away to university. However, my conditioned worsened as I got older, and I've been back in diapers 24/7/365 for the past 25 years or so.

Jimo, from what you've said, it sounds like you are in roughly the same spot I was in when i decided to go back to wearing diapers in the daytime. The main deciding factor for me was the anxiety that the fear of wetting myself caused. I had a profession that required me regularly to speak in front of groups of people. After a couple or really horrible experiences with wetting myself in public, I started to wear a diaper whenever I was going to be in a place where an accident would be devastatingly embarrassing. However, the peace of mind that wearing protection produced eventually convinced me to go 24/7.

Does wearing a diaper produce diaper dependence? I think the answer to that question is 'yes' in my case. I still always use the toilet for bowel movements and quite frequently for urination. However, I never bother trying to get up at night; and if I'm not at home, I sometimes use the diaper even though I could probably get to a public washroom is I tried hard enough. However, I don't worry or feel guilty about my diaper dependence because it permits me to lead a relatively stress free life and lets me go wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do without worrying about embarrassing myself.

However, I'm not necessarily advising you to start wearing protection on a regular basis. I'm just telling you about my own experience. Each person has to find his own comfort zone.

Jim, only you can make that decision. My problem is mainly slow dripping, which 29 days out of 30 is light enough that I don't need pads or diapers. Night is another problem. My wife insists I wear diapers as she doesn't want even a small wet spot on the bed even if it's nowhere near her side. So I wear Abena pullups, which are very comfortable.

I also have problems holding it and about once every three or four months will have a major wetting accident. If I can hit the bathroom at least once an hour I'm usually OK, but if I face a long car ride or a series of errands I wear a pullup. I flooded myself once in a movie theater and once in a supermarket, and had lesser incidents on other occasions. For me the diaper is assurance that I'm not going to repeat an embarrassment like that again. And I travel and do not want to wet a hotel bed.

But it's up to you to determine your own patterns and what to do about it.

_________________
Fred

Joe, yep i saw this post..

Jim, your situation doesnt sound like mine unfortunately, as i didn;t have the textbook OAB that you seem to have. The urgency/frequency was more a result of not relaxing all the way. I'm assuming they have done urodynamics to see what the problem is? if not, that is a crucial step. I see your'e in Ireland, so i guess going to U of M would be out of the question for you; too bad. Their urology team is TOP NOTCH. they gave me answers and real solutions where other urologists couldn't.

Here's my question..do you find yourself constipated ever? Are you on medications that could cause retention such as Catapres? that turned out to be the culprit for me.

As for wearing protection.. that is a call that needs to be made sooner or later. The driving force for me was being really annoyed by skin breakdown from wetness..

I also concur about wearing protection..its ease of mind. Now, as far as becoming dependent on it? that doesnt necessarily have to be the case..i wore 24/7 for over a year and still had the control to use the toilet. I'm curious, do you have night incon? if so, youd probably need protection there. Although its not the case that OAB necessarily be linked to bedwetting, or that moderate to severe daytime incon be linked to bedwetting..as i was moderatly to severe incon during the day, but totally dry at night..

Also, a shout out to Lyle..good to "see" you on this board, and i cant thank you enough for all the support on the other incon board..

For the record, i don't recall ever seeing a psycologist for the incon, the therapy i underwent was the biofeedback therapy that allowed me to relax my pelvic muscles. But, it could be that stress did play a role in my issues; i was right in the middle of my senior year of college, and the stress of not having mom and dad around being alone for 3 months may have done something.

Oh, and it is possible to wear protection and still use the toilet. My thought is.. if you allow yourself to wear a product with moderate absorbency good for the just in case scenarios, then you wont have to run the risk of using the diaper as a toilet. Thats actually a struggle i went through myself. But, it takes getting over denial that you have a problem, and protection might be useful if worn. It sounds to me like your putting through a lot of unnecesary stress shaking the body in order to avoid leaks.. hmm..shaking the body to avoid a flood.. thats a new one on me! One thing that might be relavent in your case is when i was working with the PT, she explained urgency frequency as me not letting my bladder relax..and the floods were described as when my bladder took on so much the muscles fatiged and it all went out. Turns out she was spot on. That could be the case for you. And yes, psycological stress can be a major factor in bladder problems.
JoeK recommended a pullup.. im kinda biased against pullups even for just in case protection.. because i never found a pullup that didnt leave gaps in the crotch, with the exception of the ones he mentioned. I also found them to be indiscreet, since the waistband was Way above my pants, whereas.. the tena ultra brief with its refastenable tabs turned out to be my mainstay. It was cut low enough to not show, didnt rustle under my clothes, had wide adjustable velcro tabs that were refasteanable allowing for toilet use,
and it fit like underwear. The problem with pullups is i found that they are nothing more than a guard length pad with a waistband.. they dont offer adequate padding coverage,and for me always fit too loose and the crotch was too narrow to be efficive, whereas the brief keeps you protected nomatter which way your thing was pointed.. If you have Tena Ultra in the UK..id give them a try.. not sure if they are the same over there as they are in the US, but worth looking. I just looked at the Tena UK website and GRR... all they have are the tena pullups.. which just dont cut it for men.. As far as discresion, they are discreet enough.. i wore my pants a size up and no one could tell the difference. I must say though, for a tape style diaper.. Tena ultra are the closest one comes to feel of reg underwear. If you can find them, id give them a try. If youre worried about dependancy, maybe only use them if you plan to go in public.

I hope ive been some help. Best of luck on your incon journey..

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