www.incontinentsupport.org

Hi all,

You may recall that I am bowel incontinent and, more recently, bladder incontinent.

14 days ago I had a spinal fusion of L3L4/L5 plus decompression, etc. Surgery appears to have been successful, despite more pain than I expected.

The GOOD and UNEXPECTED news is that on the fourth day after surgery I woke up at about 3:00 a.m. with a dry diaper and needed to pee! Somehow, I have become bladder continent again. I now can sense the need to urinate and the previous overriding urge has gone as well as all of the involuntary automatic urination. My surgeon does not understand how that happened. The surgery for the stenosis by itself should not account for the change, however, I have a lot of other pelvic trauma also affecting things. I really don't care - I will take the win.

I need to recover more from the back surgery before I can see a urologist. I still have frequent urination. As I have no idea what happened, I am fearful of somehow accidentally triggering the urinary incontinence again.

Of course, I remain bowel incontinent.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

--John

Hello JD,

First, let me explain the title of my post... It's awesome that you have bladder control back, but really sucks that you still dont have bowel control. The bowel control loss alone still means you pretty much have to wear 24/7, which means in some ways you might as well be bladder incon as well... since the best diapers to manage bowel incon are the premium ones and those are hard to get on and off to use the toilet... but, enjoy your victory. I'm sure it will improve life for you, and i am happy for you.

_________________
"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

John,

That is amazing news!!! I am thrilled for you. I hope your new found control is not a flook and stays with you. I would imagine the high frequency may be due to the fact you bladder has not been use to holding much volume for a while that you may need to do some reconditioning to get yourself as close to normal as you were.
Either way I am happy for you and will keep my fingers crossed that maybe your bowel issues follow suit.

Rope

JD,

I could not be happier that you are back, and I'm happily surprised that you have regained bladder control. I have had my share of sciatica episodes, and I've heard and read too many horror tales of back surgery gone awry. That it is working, at least this much for you, is cause to celebrate. Welcome back, and I hope your control becomes permanent.

Good to hear that JD, glad the operation was successful, and even had an unknown bonus you didn't expect! The spinal cord and nervous system is an amazing piece of work if you look at a close up chart, it is beyond complex what goes on in the human body and all the things that can go bad from a simple injury, yet others have horrific accidents and a year later you would never know it looking at them... never ceases to amaze me! Heal well, Puffy

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

Get well soon and keep dry. My incontinence was caused by lots of back fusion operations so it's good to hear of it helping.

Long may you remain dry

4wheeldave.

Thanks for all of the responses guys.

My cup is half full. I have fully accepted my fecal incontinence and cope with it fairly well.

When the bladder incontinence first hit, I thought it interesting that in many ways the bladder incontinence was more restrictive on my activities than my bowel incontinence! Because of my preventive enemas, after my morning procedure I usually can go about a full day without a bowel accident or having to change diapers until the evening. The bladder incontinence really complicated my life and required much more planning and logistics.

Of course, it is too early to tell whether the bladder incontinence really has gone away. Until then I'll just take each day at a time.

--JD

JD, I'm so happy to hear that your surgery went well, and also of your unexpected beneficial turn of events! It seems like your rehab has gone well, too. Good on ya.

Wetters

Yes, great news! how it stays that way. I suspect it is the case that you will have to work in increase the volume you can hold though. Fingers crossed!

I will join the others and saying "congrats." I am sure some bladder training/timed voiding might help with capacity to reduce the urgency. I agree with SociologyGeek that getting the diaper off might prove more difficult than just using it, but at least it would be on your terms as you deal with your fecal incontinence