www.incontinentsupport.org

Although my experimentation with external catheters was relatively successful, I had to put it on hold when my urologist increased my intermittent self-catheterization. The presence of the external condom interfered with the intermittent catheterization and the latter was the priority.

One of the primary reasons for my experimentation with external catheters was to reduce the number of diapers I would need for a vacation aboard a cruise ship and to reduce the possibility of nighttime leaks.

As my wife and I have a Caribbean cruise planned in January (I won't name the cruise line until we are back), I will resume some limited testing of external catheters. Although I found the overall use of external catheters to be very successful, it was exceedingly difficult to remove the condom when I needed to wear it only overnight. The adhesive was just too strong after only 7 - 8 hours of wear.

--John

Good luck with this one.

As you may know from other posts, externals and I do not like each other. I have had them come off, even when professionally applied, and leak through fittings even when they stayed on. External catheters that did not leak were impossible to remove, and those that were easy to remove leaked.

Several years ago my wife and I went on a cruise up the inland passage from Vancouver to Alaska and back. I asked for a handicapped accessible cabin, which was interior and did not have a balcony or porthole; however, it did have a large toilet which was laid out for optimum handicapped usage. I used our vacuum cleaner to drain all the air out of the plastic bags which stored my clean supplies, and did not encounter a problem either with the airline or the cruise line.

I hope your cruise will be as pleasant as ours was.

John,

I hope you enjoy your upcoming cruise. Wished I could offer some advice on this. I tried an external catheter once. Between the condom cath being difficult to come off, the hose showing in my pants and fear of the back leaking made me realize they are not for me.

I do like Patrick's idea of vacuum packing the supplies to squeeze out the air and make them smaller. I will have to remember that the next time I fly.

Yes, Patrick certainly is squeezing the last drop out of his catheters!

On a positive note, my priority is just catheters for nighttime. If I can do that and keep the bed dry I will consider it to be a success. I am wearing disposable diapers for all day-time activities and shore activities.

I now am double incontinent. However, it may be interesting to note that, when I was only fecal incontinent, I was able to manage the bowel incontinence during travel very well by means of daily morning preventive enemas. By means of the enemas I made it through a long 31-day cruise without a bowel accident! I also will admit that I was lucky. I seem to be having more problems because of the logistics required for the urinary incontinence. With only bowel incontinence I was able to get by on two diapers a day. Now I have to double that or a bit more - and keeping the bed dry is an added worry.

--John