Greetings from Planet Suzy :-)
Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:02 pm
Greetings from Planet Suzy
Hello! I’m Suzy from Welwyn Garden City (a small town about 20 miles north of London, England, originally from Dundee, Scotland), 38, and a fairly recent finder of this forum. My life is varied and complex, but I will try and break the relevant chunks down a bit – hope I’m not prattling on!!
I presently have been diagnosed with the early stages of Huntington’s Disease (inherited from my dad), Gender Dysphoria i.e. a post-op male-to-female transsexual, IBS, and Borderline Personality Disorder, with mild asthma, under control now. More recently I’ve been diagnosed with “probable” Chronic Fatigue Syndrome this Spring. I live with the love of my life (and now my wife) Caroline, and I work self-employed publishing transport timetables (schedules) from home. Also enjoy hardcore wrestling, and a long suffering Arab (the term for Dundee United FC supporter!)
During my childhood and teens I don’t recall having any kind of toileting problems (aside from my brother having soiling accidents, nothing which was talked of otherwise). This was the case until I moved down from Scotland to London at the age of 20. Fast forward about two years to Autumn 2001, I’d kinda left a dream job on bad terms, and my health was starting to slip. From no-where came a wetting accident, quickly followed by a fecal leak too. Now, this was a bit surprising, to say the least – lucky it was nearly Winter and I was more of a night person! I’d never had anything like that, aside from odd things like when sick etc. After about two weeks of mostly urine incidents, I went to the doctor… and was sent to the local hospital with a referral letter (suffice to say the coffee I’d prepared that morning resembled treacle when I got back home five weeks afterwards!!!!)
Five weeks in North Middlesex Hospital (pre-transition, so still as him not Suzy!) ended with no real cause other than “stress” – but in the end I was on oxybutynin and Intermittent catherers, as well as a small number of pads. While initially I was just happy to get out of the hospital, I seem to recall this went downhill the following year (in terms of urinary problems). I moved back to Scotland over most of 2002. I was given pads/all-in-ones/nappies/diapers from the local CS, which Shiloh Contifit Plus which worked well – whatever happened to them?
I’d got slightly better health (in terms of less accidents) early in 2004, which was good for me. That was the year I planned to transition/come out – and that went surprisingly well. (25 at this point). However, the following autumn, the problem started to rear its head again. Back in the same giant wrap-around pads, as opposed to small pads and the occasional anal (Conveen) plug I had been using for a few months. I had been told to get onto HRT, to the point where the Continence Nurse was practically very positively recommending it! (It was on the To Do list…)
Imagine my surprise when, having done that, my problems started to go again… slowly, but surely. This was useful for late 2006, as there was talk of (gender reassignment) surgery in 2007 around that time. That went fairly well – catheters do hurt even more now! Aside from a fixer-upper two years later, the rest was all fine.
Also over the years, I had tried changing/avoiding foods for a while each – like sorbitol, gluten, and lactose. Initially it helped, but then the issues went back to normal.
I’d not had problems with urinary systems for many years, aside from a couple of weeks in 2011. I did try daily enemas (to combat the IBS) from October 2015, but this was reduced to weekly, after not having massive effects.
So, to bring things back forward, over the past few months, I’ve been having more and more issues of urge incontinence, on occasion but not every day. This can be urinary or faecal, but on occasions only, but this is in addition to the slight everyday faecal smearing. The latter is a bit different as it’s sort of always been an issue, but just something to make me a tiny bit ashamed. So, I’d use sanitary towels (even though I don’t get periods), which I’ve then grown through Tena lady pads, still not long enough! There are also a large number of visits to the toilet for me regularly, presumably the result of drinking a fair bit to avoid dehydration headaches, and to counteract the effects of the Quietapine (one is notorious for drying your throat out overnight, and I’m on four!)
I had already been going out for appointments (and days out from the office!), travelling from place to place. I’d been planning days out thinking “well I know there’s toilets there……” etc. but not too much of a joke – the curtailments to many trips recently having involved fatigue, rather than more serious urinary problems. There’s clearly something to think about, so I decided to buy some all-in-ones/nappies/diapers. These were initially planned to be used for my holiday, about four weeks left to go today! However, they got me thinking. A few recent events came to mind – like when I was walking up stairs with bags of shopping, and suddenly got the urge… held in as much as I could, but still ended up leaking. There was also the time out shopping when I had to run off to the loos, to leave the Mrs to wait for about 20 minutes, while my IBS flared up – and several others. Now, this was not all the time, but when combined all together, I wondered if it was perhaps time to try these again?
After a couple of days trying, I’ve gone back to using the all-in-one style of pads/incontinence protection, with the aim of making my life easier. (I also plan to increase the use of the disposable enemas over the next month, to try and make cleaning up of that less often – but time will tell). These have done that already, in that they do make my life a lot easier!
However, it was then I was thinking I must be mad, to consider using such protection 24/7, not as bas as before, but more of a combination of things? Well I did a search online for an Incontinence Forum (I run a few on other subjects), and found this one. I was pleasantly surprised to find many of you in similar terms of protection requirements, and “just in case” thinking. I did like some of the positive thinking across several threads, which lead me to think that not doing this could be potentially worse – and that’s happened. So, they are a very good starting point for now!
So, that’s my story… hope it wasn’t too long! I’m always happy to talk about any of the above, and would love to hear from anyone – especially those in the UK!!!
Right – dinners about to buzz, and then there’s a game later…
p.s. Pusskins4Mouse? My wife says I have a cat-like style of affection, and she’s Mouse…
Kind regards,
Suzy x
Hello! I’m Suzy from Welwyn Garden City (a small town about 20 miles north of London, England, originally from Dundee, Scotland), 38, and a fairly recent finder of this forum. My life is varied and complex, but I will try and break the relevant chunks down a bit – hope I’m not prattling on!!
I presently have been diagnosed with the early stages of Huntington’s Disease (inherited from my dad), Gender Dysphoria i.e. a post-op male-to-female transsexual, IBS, and Borderline Personality Disorder, with mild asthma, under control now. More recently I’ve been diagnosed with “probable” Chronic Fatigue Syndrome this Spring. I live with the love of my life (and now my wife) Caroline, and I work self-employed publishing transport timetables (schedules) from home. Also enjoy hardcore wrestling, and a long suffering Arab (the term for Dundee United FC supporter!)
During my childhood and teens I don’t recall having any kind of toileting problems (aside from my brother having soiling accidents, nothing which was talked of otherwise). This was the case until I moved down from Scotland to London at the age of 20. Fast forward about two years to Autumn 2001, I’d kinda left a dream job on bad terms, and my health was starting to slip. From no-where came a wetting accident, quickly followed by a fecal leak too. Now, this was a bit surprising, to say the least – lucky it was nearly Winter and I was more of a night person! I’d never had anything like that, aside from odd things like when sick etc. After about two weeks of mostly urine incidents, I went to the doctor… and was sent to the local hospital with a referral letter (suffice to say the coffee I’d prepared that morning resembled treacle when I got back home five weeks afterwards!!!!)
Five weeks in North Middlesex Hospital (pre-transition, so still as him not Suzy!) ended with no real cause other than “stress” – but in the end I was on oxybutynin and Intermittent catherers, as well as a small number of pads. While initially I was just happy to get out of the hospital, I seem to recall this went downhill the following year (in terms of urinary problems). I moved back to Scotland over most of 2002. I was given pads/all-in-ones/nappies/diapers from the local CS, which Shiloh Contifit Plus which worked well – whatever happened to them?
I’d got slightly better health (in terms of less accidents) early in 2004, which was good for me. That was the year I planned to transition/come out – and that went surprisingly well. (25 at this point). However, the following autumn, the problem started to rear its head again. Back in the same giant wrap-around pads, as opposed to small pads and the occasional anal (Conveen) plug I had been using for a few months. I had been told to get onto HRT, to the point where the Continence Nurse was practically very positively recommending it! (It was on the To Do list…)
Imagine my surprise when, having done that, my problems started to go again… slowly, but surely. This was useful for late 2006, as there was talk of (gender reassignment) surgery in 2007 around that time. That went fairly well – catheters do hurt even more now! Aside from a fixer-upper two years later, the rest was all fine.
Also over the years, I had tried changing/avoiding foods for a while each – like sorbitol, gluten, and lactose. Initially it helped, but then the issues went back to normal.
I’d not had problems with urinary systems for many years, aside from a couple of weeks in 2011. I did try daily enemas (to combat the IBS) from October 2015, but this was reduced to weekly, after not having massive effects.
So, to bring things back forward, over the past few months, I’ve been having more and more issues of urge incontinence, on occasion but not every day. This can be urinary or faecal, but on occasions only, but this is in addition to the slight everyday faecal smearing. The latter is a bit different as it’s sort of always been an issue, but just something to make me a tiny bit ashamed. So, I’d use sanitary towels (even though I don’t get periods), which I’ve then grown through Tena lady pads, still not long enough! There are also a large number of visits to the toilet for me regularly, presumably the result of drinking a fair bit to avoid dehydration headaches, and to counteract the effects of the Quietapine (one is notorious for drying your throat out overnight, and I’m on four!)
I had already been going out for appointments (and days out from the office!), travelling from place to place. I’d been planning days out thinking “well I know there’s toilets there……” etc. but not too much of a joke – the curtailments to many trips recently having involved fatigue, rather than more serious urinary problems. There’s clearly something to think about, so I decided to buy some all-in-ones/nappies/diapers. These were initially planned to be used for my holiday, about four weeks left to go today! However, they got me thinking. A few recent events came to mind – like when I was walking up stairs with bags of shopping, and suddenly got the urge… held in as much as I could, but still ended up leaking. There was also the time out shopping when I had to run off to the loos, to leave the Mrs to wait for about 20 minutes, while my IBS flared up – and several others. Now, this was not all the time, but when combined all together, I wondered if it was perhaps time to try these again?
After a couple of days trying, I’ve gone back to using the all-in-one style of pads/incontinence protection, with the aim of making my life easier. (I also plan to increase the use of the disposable enemas over the next month, to try and make cleaning up of that less often – but time will tell). These have done that already, in that they do make my life a lot easier!
However, it was then I was thinking I must be mad, to consider using such protection 24/7, not as bas as before, but more of a combination of things? Well I did a search online for an Incontinence Forum (I run a few on other subjects), and found this one. I was pleasantly surprised to find many of you in similar terms of protection requirements, and “just in case” thinking. I did like some of the positive thinking across several threads, which lead me to think that not doing this could be potentially worse – and that’s happened. So, they are a very good starting point for now!
So, that’s my story… hope it wasn’t too long! I’m always happy to talk about any of the above, and would love to hear from anyone – especially those in the UK!!!
Right – dinners about to buzz, and then there’s a game later…
p.s. Pusskins4Mouse? My wife says I have a cat-like style of affection, and she’s Mouse…
Kind regards,
Suzy x