www.incontinentsupport.org

I'll be 75 y.o. soon, and I'm evaluating my life. I had some developmental delays growing up. I didn't walk until I was 2 and I didn't start being dry thru the night (temporarily) until I was 9, after a few months of intermittent dry nights that started when I was 8. A 6 y.o. boy on my block taught me to ride my brand-new two-wheeler when I was 8, after my mother lost patience with me. I never liked nor did well in PE or athletics. My mother never enrolled me in dance classes, and that was likely insightful on her part. Intellectually I was OK - I kept pace w/my classmates academically without private tutoring or Special Ed. I moved thru the public education system and graduated from high school with my classmates. I went to work as an office clerk for a regional utility company and built a career. My mother had once told me that I wasn't college material, so I never pursued it. I got married @age 21 (to an intermittent bedwetter). We'll be married 54 years this May. We retired several years ago. I've had some medical issues, including Type II Diabetes, a stroke and a heart attack, but my quality of life is generally good. There's no actual reason why I should feel ashamed and frustrated with myself. My daytime incontinence doesn't depress me to anywhere near the level that sleepwetting does. I had 11 years of dry nights prior to my bedwetting restarting @age 25. I was a young woman in what passed for the prime of my life. I haven't had any brushes with the law or any other negative societal experiences, but I can't get past the feeling of being not only inferior but despicable as well. Has anyone else here felt extremely depressed about bladder issues? If so, how did you handle it? Did you seek counseling? Thanks for your help. W.

I have the deepest concern for anybody whose incontinence causes them depression. Life throws us strikes, curve balls, change ups, you name it. We need to support each other, and incontinence can be just another challenge in a challenging life, or it can be depressing. But whatever it is, we must always be supportive in every way available to us. This site offers us the resource to do just that for each other. Keep up corresponding, and I'll try to do my part to justify my correspondence and concern.

Patrick, Thank you for your reply and support. I appreciate your reaching out to me. I know my life is actually good and I shouldn't be ashamed of myself just because I have wet nights which I handle responsibly. I'm even ashamed of being ashamed, lol. I just need to immerse myself in something creative or otherwise tangible. W.

Happy 75th birthday!

I recently just had my 69th and have been IC for years now. I am adjusting to retirement these days. I never thought that would require adjustment. After spending my entire adult life (aside from raising a family) perfecting my skills for my career, I find myself no longer needing those skills. So I am trying to figure out what I want to do now. I don't want to slave away at a computer for my remaining time.

The other adjustment has been related to being IC. After 5 years of this, I am learning to accept it (nerve damage due to diabetes type 2). It is humbling since this is not something I wanted or have others know about me. Yet I am able to go to Walmart and put my diapers in the shopping cart every month and checkout without too much of a grimmace. It is something I have to do (lower cost at Walmart) and my skin gets a bit thicker with each purchase. My wife has been good about it, though I've tried not to make a big deal of it. She's only had to help me out a few times.

I would suggest that you should be happy at 75 since many folks don't make it that far. Count your blessings. I've tried to be thankful for every day -- even the bad ones. Diapers are just one of those private details that we have to contend with at this stage.

Hi, Wayne. Thanks for responding and for the birthday wishes. My self-loathing comes mainly from the issue of now that my husband and I are retired, he wants us to do some traveling. We managed our income and expenses wisely throughout our working years and now we can comfortably afford to take a moderately-priced trip once a year or so for the next few years. I love to travel. I want to see Norway and take an American Cruise Lines river cruise before I can't do that anymore. I have mild-stage Glaucoma in my right eye and severe stage in my left, and I don't feel comfortable driving anymore. I've had Ulcerative Colitis for the past 25 years, but I manage it well, for the most part. I use a cane for walking on hilly and/or uneven terrain, but I'm not easily winded. The elephant in the room is my daytime incontinence and sleepwetting. My daytime volumes are quite heavy, and I worry that I'll have a huge leak in public. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm usually not out and about very much for very long. I always carry @least 2 pull-ups in my purse and 1 in the car @all times. I also bring a tote bag w/4 pull-ups in it if I think restroom access will be chancy. My sleepwetting volumes are moderate. I rarely have a leak, and when I do I almost never wet the bed cuz I use a surface bed pad (I like GoodNites disposables). The chances of my wetting a hotel or cruise ship bed are slim, IMO, but back when I had my 2nd relapse @age 25 in 1976, I wet a hotel bed twice in the course of a year. I was having a hard time accepting the fact that I was once again a bedwetter, and because absorbent garments weren't available yet (Depends were the first, and they came on the market in 1984), I had to rely on period pads, which were largely ineffective. Each time it happened (2 different hotel chains) I rolled the bedcovers back so as to allow the bedding to dry as much as possible before housekeeping came to service the room. I reasoned that it would be less abhorrent for the staff to touch sheets containing dried urine residue, as opposed to wet urine. Back in the day, no one wore latex gloves except surgeons. I then wrote a note to the staff, explaining that I had a nighttime accident and apologizing for the inconvenience that I'd caused. I left a crisp $20 bill (a lot of money in 1976) as an in-room tip, in addition to the percentage tip I added to the bill @check-out time. The experience still upsets me.

Although I use washables at home, for travel is use disposables. You might consider experimenting with different brands and different absorbencies at home, to decide which would be most effective for you when you travel. Good luck in deciding what works best for you.

Thanks for your input, Patrick. I've been doing fairly ok with GoodNites pull-ups for both day and night wettings, as size XXL fits my body and it doesn't have graphics. The specs claim they hold 24 oz of liquid and they seem to do quite well. But now that my routine might be changing a bit I think I'll do some reevaluating. I want to embark on some journeys for my own satisfaction, but my husband has earned his place in life and I don't want to hold him back or be a burden to him. He has been an intermittent bedwetter all his life. His wet nights are very infrequent. No fewer than 5 wet nights per year, but he rarely wets more than 8. His volumes are fairly light - approx. 0.5 oz per wetting. No clustered wet nights and he doesn't seem to have multiple wettings during the course of a wet night. Because his wet nights are so infrequent and his volumes are so light, I don't mind being awakened in the middle of the night to clean up a bed. And it appears that he doesn't always wake up or wake me when he has a wetting. He likes to sleep in the nude cuz he likes the soft, silky feel of our Egyptian cotton sheets against his body. I can't get him to wear a pull-up, diaper or a guard inside his boxer briefs, or even use a GoodNites disposable bed pad. I dislike Egyptian cotton cuz it doesn't wear well @all. The bottom sheet wears out and tears very quickly. I'm guessing that urine and chlorine bleach exacerbate the problem. If he wants to travel, he's going to need to start using absorbent garments during the night even though his wettings are infrequent cuz the wettings are random and unpredictable. He's never had daytime incontinence.

When I wet the hotel beds in the '70s, I wasn't contacted by management either time. My guess is that housekeeping didn't out me cuz they were hoping that I would come back and wet the bed again real soon, lol! Or maybe management decided that since there was no actual damage to the room and no down time in readying the room for a subsequent guest (the first bedwetting happened on our last night in Denver), they wouldn't forfeit possible future revenue from me by banning me from the premises or chastising me for "irresponsible & inconsiderate" behavior and making me feel unwelcome there.