www.incontinentsupport.org

So I've been struggling figuring out how to best manage my incontinence during the day. I tend to get frequent urges and usually can reach a toilet but if not either I will leak a little or less frequently have huge surges. I've found that when wearing protection I try to hold my bladder longer which results in more frequent accidents. I am not sure whether it is best to go without protection as then I make sure to find to toilet but then I worry I will be in a situation I won't reach a toilet fast enough. I could use a pull up which works great for any leakage and I can still use the toilet when I need it but makes me tend to try to hold it longer and then more likely to have large accidents because if my bladder completely lets go the pull ups aren't always able to absorb everything. Or I could use a tape on diaper and not really have to worry about leaks from my protection but then won't be able to easily use the toilet when I do make it. I was wondering if anybody has any advice or thoughts?

_________________
-full time graduate student with urge urinary incontinence due to an overactive bladder

Greengold, you have a very personal decision to make. It largely is risk management and how much risk you are willing to take of having a sudden bladder accident during the day. If you have overactive bladder, trying to hold your urine after you feel the need to urinate probably is not good for you and you also risk a sudden and major flood when you do have an accident.

I still have some bladder control and I can wear a pull-up or training pants and practice timed voiding in a toilet for a limited period of time. However, subsequently I cannot guarantee that I will not have a sudden accident. Therefore I usually wear a tabbed diaper with a booster pad (as I am fecal incontinent, I would have to wear a diaper anyway).

In your situation, for work or when out of the house I would choose to wear a premium tabbed diaper as it will have much more absorbency than any pull-up and should have internal standing leak guards. If you flood, the internal standing leak guards will keep the urine in the main channel of the diaper and away from the leg gathers until it is absorbed. At home you still can wear a pull-up and practice timed voiding in the toilet to maintain as much control as you can. This is what my urologist approved for me.

--John

I've now been wearing a diaper 24/7/365 for about 30 years. Prior to that, I had generally not been wearing a daytime diaper unless I was going to be in some situation where I knew I wouldn't be able to get to a toilet quickly when I needed to. However, not wearing a daytime diaper led to a few extremely embarrassing public accidents; and fear that I might have an accident caused a lot of stress and anxiety. Wearing a diaper has been a great source of peace of mind.

Let me second everything Inconinmiss wrote. Diapers enable me to function in public. Without them, I would be housebound, and my house would soon smell like a portapotty.

These guys are all on the mark. Here's my piece of advice: I have always felt that it is better to be over-protected than under-protected.
I also can get away with pull-ups pretty much 100% of the time as I pretty much always make the toilet, I just leak like crazy after I use the bathroom. I prefer regular diapers nearly all of the time; however, a tab style "fitted brief" diaper is nearly always better protection for the same or less money. There are some instances where a pull-up is just more convenient, that's why it is preferable to most of us to have varying levels of protection depending on what we are doing on a given day. It takes a lot of trial and error to find what works best for you. A cloth backed diaper with Velcro tabs is a great diaper for somebody who makes the toilet with reasonable certainty. Examples of this type of diaper is the Tena Ultra or the Tena Super with the Super being more absorbent. These are my regular diapers, though just because they work well for me doesn't mean they will work for you necessarily.

I just use my diaper pretty much 100% of the time, unless I'm in the shower or something. My urge IC has gotten tremendously worse over the last couple years but in the beginning I was having urgency maybe 50% of the time and having leaks maybe 20% of the time. So I always tried to make it to the bathroom. As my symptoms continued to spiral out of control I stopped trying. I have severe urgency pretty much every time I urinate now and a major leak most of the time. I'm sure I probably still could make it to the bathroom 30% of the time, but it's not even worth the hassle of untaping a diaper and rushing etc. I pretty much just let it go whenever I feel any urge to go. This has had a few benefits though I'm sure my doctor would 100% disagree that it's the right thing to do. For one, my voids are way smaller now. I'm not just dumping 350mL of urine all at once in a violent gush. It's probably really like 5-7oz at a time now. This prevents huge floods that can overwhelm even the most capable diapers. This allows me to stay on a fairly regular changing schedule of about every 4-6 hours depending on what diaper I'm wearing.

my attitude is totally different than when this all started. I was trying to get by with pullups....doing kegels, timed voiding, double voiding, rushing to bathrooms etc. Even when I first started wearing real diapers I'd try like hell to get to the bathroom no matter what even when I knew I'd never make it. I felt guilty and ashamed if I used my diaper If I thought I could have made it if I tried. It was so much stress trying to decide what level of urgency truly constituted an emergency and what level of shame I should feel if I didn't try "hard enough" to make it.

While I don't particularly like diapers, I've kind of submitted to them and now I'm at peace with it. Wearing them feels very normal to me. I'm used to them.
I've grown to trust the products I use. I can go out and about and do my thing and not worry too much about it now.

Thanks for all the advice today I had several classes in a row and likely wouldn't have time to use a toilet so decided to try wearing a full tape-on diaper during the day for the first time. I haven't had any accidents today because I'm guessing I'm having one of the days where I barely need to go at all. I have found that with the Abena's a wear when I do make it to a toilet in time I can untape the top secondary tapes, use the toilet and then retape them on top of the primary tapes. I have felt less worried about having a large accident which is good although I have felt a little more worried that someone else would notice I was wearing protection.



Hey the way you described your urge IC when it first started is about where mine is at right now. I'm hoping it doesn't get worse but often it seems to be getting worse.

_________________
-full time graduate student with urge urinary incontinence due to an overactive bladder

I'm wearing diapers all the time so I don't really have this problem anymore, although I could recommend training your kegel muscles. Unless you lost totally control of your bladder, they may definitely help in situations like reaching to bathroom etc. I've read on different forums that a guy with incontinence has been doing kegel exercises and all those exercises for his penis, he was a member of forum about training your penis and he noticed quite big progress with his bladder control and he was easily managing to get to bathroom. It would never help in my case, but even though I train my kegel muscles as well, just to be more "healthy". I actually do many things that help me stay in shape or be more healthy, it gives you a nice peace of mind.

After trying several different "solutions" for my incontinence (caused by the removal of my prostate) I've found that for me, Men's Liberty is the best answer to this problem. And as a vet, the VA pays for these! Medicaid and your insurance will also pay for these! But Medicaid and your insurance will not pay for diapers or pads for some reason. (However, the VA pays for everything!) Men's Liberty costs about $10 each, and you receive about 30 of them each month in a plain brown box. They also offer a few other products that will help those with incontinence.

I've had good relations with the company and have no issues with either the product or the company, which is based in Florida. If you have any questions before, or when using Men's Liberty, you can call their free "nurse hotline" for quick help. It does take a few days to get used to applying Men's Liberty, and you must follow directions exactly for them to be effective. They are normally worn for 24 hours (however, I've had them last up to three days. After using them for nearly a year now, I've never had any pain, irritation, etc by using these. And one size fits all. Really! They take only a few minutes to attach, and they come off easily in the shower or with a special adhesive remover you get with the kit.

TIP: I use them alone mostly during the day since they can be emptied easily every few hours. But at night, or when I may have a nap, or fall asleep watching TV, I switch to a normal bed bag at night which will hold everything I output all night. It's easy to "switch the plumbing" from the small Men's Liberty default bag to a larger standard leg bag and regular bed bag like they use in the hospital. And in my case, the VA supplies everything I need at no cost.

The Bioderm/Men's Liberty company have many videos on Youtube that fully explains and shows you how to use these. You can also check out their website at MensLiberty.com.

I know what you are going through with incontinence, and wish you all the best!

Jim, Indianapolis

Personally I don't think condom catheters are for me. I am very active and live in a part of the country where it is very hot. I do a lot of physical activities and usually wear athletic shorts which can conceal a diaper but concealing a leg bag seems like it would be a lot more difficult to do.

_________________
-full time graduate student with urge urinary incontinence due to an overactive bladder