www.incontinentsupport.org

Hi all,
As I mentioned in previous postings I have a slightly enlarged prostate. I started with some meds from the doc but I wasn't comfortable with the potential side effects so I abandoned the meds for a herbal treatment, pygeum. Been taking pygeum 2x (occasionally 3x) a day for 1.5 weeks and my urine stream is a little stronger now, easier to start, and I don't dribble as much. Part of yesterday I even went without a Tena pad.
Pygeum is working, perhaps all too well. Last night I fell asleep on our couch and I woke up at 3:30a.m. completely soaked. The coach pillows are drenched and my wife is furious. I've wet on occasion before, always though dreaming that I'm in the bathroom and I wake up holding myself as if at a urinal! Not this time. Woke up having no idea what happened. Worse, we are expecting to visit friends in Denver this weekend, staying at their house, sleeping on their couches or in their sleeping bags. This is a family with five smart, inquisitive children and we are bringing our own smart inquisitive child.
What to do? I need to neutralize the odor of urine in the couch or risk a flogging from my wife. I need to not have any accidents in Denver and hide both used/unused protection. I'm thinking of cutting down my dosage of Pygeum, at least until we get back Sunday night.
Any suggestions?

Your wife's furious reaction to the couch soaking reminds me of an incident from my childhood. I fell asleep while riding in the back seat of my uncle's new luxury car and soaked his fancy satin upholstery. When he discovered what had happened, he bent me over the hood of the car and gave me the spanking of a lifetime. I presume that you won't suffer quite such painful retribution from your wife.

With regard to your coming visit with friends, what you need is a good high-capacity diaper to wear. Concealing the diaper from the children will require ingenuity but not as much ingenuity as concealing a soaked couch or sleeping bag would require.

Good luck!

gtrudeau88, I'm sorry about your unpleasant surprise. There are products that break down the enzymes in urine. I think The Bedwetting Store and possibly XP Medical, etc. sell them. Also, you might check out pet stores to see if the products they sell work for human urine as well as animal urine. I don't know your location, but you might also consider in-home upholstery cleaning companies such as Coit or Servpro. I'm not sure what that would cost.

As to suppression and concealment, I think it's wise to discuss the situation with your doctor to find out how much lead time you'll need for the herbal meds to flush out, and what adverse reactions you may expect to experience after abruptly stopping it.

Even though you plan to stop your meds, you might want to move up to a higher level of protection for the duration of your stay (pull-ups or diaper briefs as opposed to Tena pads). I don't know what the level of personal privacy will be, so it's difficult for me to design a strategy, but I would suggest gallon-size ziplock bags and a packable duffle to hold the used pull-ups/briefs encased in the bags until you can dispose of them away from your hosts' residence and/or view. It doesn't appear that you will be gone for more than a couple of days.

Wetters

I'm a bedwetter, so I've got a routine for visiting family that doesn't know.

I get enough disposable for every night, plus two, just in case. I simply change in the bathroom before bed. I usually change clothes completely, and sleep in a T-shirt and pajama pants. The extra clothes give me something to carry back and forth to the bathroom, and I just tuck the diaper in between.

In the morning, I take my clothes back to the bathroom with me, along with a gallon ziplock freezer bag. I change out of the diaper, wash up, and put the used diaper in the ziplock. I roll it back up inside the pajamas clothes, and walk back.

My in-laws don't have garbage pickup, so they burn pretty much everything, and diapers don't really burn, so I have to pack them out to the car and take them to a dumpster. I usually take along a backpack, and stack the full ziplocks in the bottom of the backpack.

I would also suggest, if you are not going to have a bedroom, that you just take the whole "bathroom" bag into the bathroom with you. You can stock it with a change of clothes and toiletries, to avoid any suspicion.

Everything turned out fine. Our hosts gave us their bedroom so I had complete privacy. Their house was much warmer than I'm used to and their bed was weird so I never got into a deep sleep. Stayed dry every night and was dry last night (1st night home). Diapers were worn but not needed and I tossed them out at the airport on the return trip home. Kept up with the meds too.

Perhaps the wet night last week was just an aberration. I sure hope so.

I'm happy to hear that the trip went well - maybe you were just nervous about it, and that's why you had a wet night beforehand.

Wetters

Found out something about myself in regards to my night time disaster. The night of the couch accident I was very tired because I hadn't slept real well the night or two before. Since the accident I've worn a diaper to bed quite a few nights without wetting a drop so I've ditched the diaper and gone back to sleeping as I usually do (underwear or less). The other night I fell asleep on the couch while I still had my Tena guard in. I again hadn't slept well for a couple nights and again I wet. I woke up before exceeding the guard's capacity but I weighed the guard afterwards and I had leaked about 2 oz of urine.

In short, I periodically have episodes of insomnia and when I finally do get to sleep I'll be too tired to wake up should I need to urinate. So sometimes I may need protection.