www.incontinentsupport.org

David,
What I do when my wife and I are at a hotel, is I scout out trash cans near our room. You could leave them in the trash can in your room, but I'd rather not. I would empty my "Wal*Mart" bag full of my soiled diapers after my morning shower. You should be able to find one close to where you are staying. ...........Paul Martin

Thanks Paul, that's a good idea. Do you have trouble changing in the rest stop area or not

_________________
David Wentz
dwentz@clearwire.net

No, not really. Most of these places are pretty busy. Most times the Handi-cap stall is already in use, so you're stuck in the smaller stall. I carry a disposable diaper sack to stuff the diaper in, and just toss it in the trash at the sinks.
Something that really bugs me is people using the toilet stalls to urinate rather than at the urinals. I guess they want the extra privacy, but sometimes I'm stuck waiting for a stall to open up. ....Paul Martin

i have no idea......it just showed up i'm still trying to figure it out.

Hello, Rebecca, and welcome to the ISC.

I can appreciate your bewilderment with leakage that "just shows up" and leaves you wondering what is going on.

I wish you could talk to your parent(s) about this very personal issue but that's up to you. You can certainly talk to us and we have a lot of help available here with a lot of experience.

I would ask you to post an introduction in the General Discussion....where it will be seen by more folks than your current posts that are perhaps not so obvious in these other two areas of the Forum.

We are truly fortunate on this site to have a marvelous resource in the form of a woman named Sandy! No stanger to incontinence herself and she has a long (and very interesting) history of helping others with their coming to terms with this embarassing issue.

Welcome to our Group, Rebecca, I expect you should soon be getting some replies and suggestions!

JoeK

Hi everyone!! Long time reader & 1st time poster. I must admit I am on the Depends board a lot. But reading here I get a real kick out of Sandy

It started with me I guess about a year ago when I lifted a heavy object & Niagra Falls took place and have had problems both not so bad & other days real bad since. I waited & tried to manage it myself without going to a Dr but I relented and went. Started with my GP & got that deer in headlights look from him because I had ZERO pain from the lift. He did some testing and sent me to a urologist where I was poked in spots I really resented a lot. Pills that made me sick did not do the job. Exercise made me lose weight (good thing) but no luck. I was taught about cathing but in that case I was a VERY poor student. For now I've taken a rest from all that junk & learned how to manage living with it. And so far am much happier because of it. What the final outcome will be is anybody's guess at this point.

Hello Welcome to the Board dlb0417

Yes you have found what it seems most people find. The medical community is often very little help if any when it comes to incontinence. Often the cure is worse then the problem. I'll always remember a doctor telling me that they want to try another drug out on me when I was a young adult and trying to get a handle on my incontinence. I was told that they have had good luck with this one but it is known for causing constipation and diarrhea I said OK let me get this straight. What your telling me is I'll either be stopped up or crapping my pants instead of peeing The doc. looked at me with this rather perplexed look as tho he had never thought it through that far I never again ever talked to another doctor about a cure for my incontinence. If and when something is mentioned I tell them I've worn some form of protection all my life with the bulk of my adult life being in full blown diapers 24/7 So being 40 something I really don't know life without diapers. So I'm to the point that I really don't care any more.................Sandy

Welcome to the forum, dlb0417!

I guess we have a lot of readers that don't post, but that's OK. We are all just trying to help one another.
Feel free to jump in and make a comment or two. .........Paul Martin

Thanks Sandy & Paul! I read here to gain information & have but I have also read some fun posts where the regulars here have traded some fun barbs and I got several laughs from that to be sure. I cannot add a bunch because I am still learning. I can only offer what its been like for me and what I have had to do to adjust. And I will do that if I feel I can add something.

Hi everyone,

Rick Cook here, and I'm new to this site. However I'm not new to being incontinent, unfortunately. My problems began back in March of 2003, after my second back surgery. My first one was on my neck at the C6/C7 disc, in March of 2002, I had ruptured it and it felt like someone was tearing my arm out of it's socket. So it was fused, and after having a blood clot in my leg from being in bed, 10 days later and a diagnosis of Factor Five Leiden and a life long prescription to blood thinners, I was released. Oh, and they also told me that I have degenerative disc disease, lovely!!
Anyway, less than a year later, I experienced excruciating pain in my lower back. I've always had lower back pain, but nothing that was very serious, until then. I went to see my GP and he sent me to the same surgeon that did my neck operation. An MRI later I was told that I needed to have surgery once again, only this one would fuse my L4/L5/S1 vertebra together. It was after this one that I began to have night time wetting accidents. I wasn't too wild about seeing the doctor about it, and I didn't relate it to the surgery or the drugs I was on, (lots of morphine because the surgery didn't stop the pain). I started using Depends to keep my bed dry, but then things began to escalate until I was loosing control during the day as well. I had to use 3 depends at a time to hold all of the urine that I would discharge at one time. Then I had to use plastic pants to catch what the Depends didn't.
I waited almost 6 months before I told my doctor about this, at my wife's insistance. I was too embarrassed to mention it before. I was sent to a urologist and he sent me for tests at the hospital. I had that urodynamic test done where they filled my bladder while I sat there until I could feel it. Unfortunately, I never felt it, and at 700cc's they stopped and drained me. Then I had the electric stimulation test to check the nerve conductivity. That one hurt like hell! But after it all, I was told I have a neurogenic bladder with overflow incontinence. I was given a script for catheters, and they showed me how to do it myself and sent me on my merry way. So I did this regularly 4 to 5 times a day, with accidents happening inbetween on a fairly regular basis, so I still had to wear the Depends. This went on for another 6 months or so, before I became disgusted with the results, and the pain and bleeding from the constant catheterizing.
And to top it off, during all of this, I began to have bowel accidents. It also started out slowly, but progressed until I had lost all control over it. That only took about 4 months to happen. So now I'm in a diaper for both ends, and disgusted with all the efforts to control it. I was prescribed 3 different drugs for my bladder, Detrol, Enable, I think it was called, and the third one I don't remember. But all three had nasty side effects, and I was already on a host of other drugs for various health problems, so there were some interactions as well.
To make things worse, the Depends were almost totally useless for bowel problems of any magnitude. I began searching for something better on the internet when I discovered that somebody made cloth diapers in adult sizes and plastic pants as well. I made a purchase and soon had a solution to the leakage problems.
My social life really suffered because of this, and to top it off, I lost my job. Because of the constant pain and the morphine to control it, my boss didn't want me working there while on drugs, so he fired me for it. Nice huh? But that's another long story.
So now, a year and a half after my second back surgery, I'm totally incontinent, in diapers, jobless, on drugs and in pain, and bankrupt. Could it get any worse? Yes!!
I had to have knee surgery for a torn maniscus, elbow surgery for a pinched ulnar nerve, hand surgery twice for carpal tunnel and 3 trigger fingers, and the topper, a third back surgery. In January of 2007, I underwent another surgery for bad discs, only this time they fused me from the T10 location, the third rib up from the bottom of the rib cage, all the way down to the existing fusion at L4, installing new hardware and removing the previous stuff from L4 to S1. That was the most painful thing I have ever gone through in my life! And to top it off, it didn't turn out the way I had hoped. To start, I wound up crooked, leaning to the left at a 15 degree angle, and the muscles on my right side are constantly trying to pull me back into an upright position, to no avail. That is very painful to say the least, and I have to use a cane to walk now. The pain is worse than ever, and the morphine was increased to compensate. I have to use stool softeners to offset the constipation effects of the morphine, and I have to use a laxative to expel bodily wastes, even though I have no bowel control. It is a constant ballancing act to keep the drugs on an even keel so that I'm not constipated or crapping my brains out.
Now your saying it can't get any worse, right? Wrong! In August of last year I was in a head on car accident. This fool came out of a side street without looking and hit me and my son head on in my lane. Thankfully it was on a residential street and the speed limit was only 25, but that's what speed we hit at. Well, this fractured the fusion in my neck and pulled the hardware loose, resulting in my fourth back surgery on March 10th this year. I'm still waiting for the settlement on this one.
It's over now, right? No, not yet!!! A few months ago my lower back began giving me horrible pains in my buttocks and legs. I went in to see the doc, and he sent me for a CT scan. The X-rays didn't reveal much, but he suspected something. So I get a call a couple of weeks later saying that I needed to make an appointment to see him. Uh Oh!
We go in, my wife and I, and we're hit with more bad news. The L5/S1 fusion has broken, and it slipped, I need another surgery, my fifth one this time! Ain't life wonderful!!!! He said it's not bad enough to need it immediately, but I will need it in the not too distant future.
So that's my story, and I'm sticking with it! LOL!!
This is how I came to be dependant on diapers, and what I've got to look forward to. There is a lot more to this story, but I wanted to keep it short, haha! sorry, I couldn't help myself. if I don't laugh about this, I would cry.
I'm 50 years old now, this May, but I feel like I've been through world wars 1 and 2 and 3.
I hope my history isn't too long, and I posted it here because I didn't see anything for introductions. If there is such a place, moderators, please move it for me.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I can get to know some of you and make some friends as well.

Rick Cook