What Caused Your Incontinence?

[rusty pins]

For those of you who are actually incontinent, I'm curious as to the actual reason and cause. I'm aware that some people may have a birth defect that caused it, others may have been in an accident that caused it and others may have other causes. For example, if you are bladder incontinent, is it caused by spincter muscle problems, small bladder, bladder or urinary tract infections, or is it possibly spinal nerve damage or something in your brain that dosn't send the signals to your bladder to hold it when you have to go. Was there any kind of accident you might have been in that did irreparable damage to your bladder or anything like that? Same for bowel control. Spina Bifida, ceribal palsey, things like that. I don't want to bring back any upsetting memories for anyone and should you question my motives for this post, no, I do not want to make myself incontinent! I'm just curious what different reasons people have for being incontinent, what caused it (being both the reason and medical cause, such as "I was in a motorcycle accident and it crushed a vertibre in my back that disrupted the nerves controling my bladder").

[Guest Katharsys]

I'll toss in here. Mine came from a nice little fall while repelling out of a helicopter (fracking idiot on belay) and landing hard on my back.

The frame on the rucksack did a little damage on my lower spine, and the incon has progressed from there as the nerve degeneration has gotten worse.

Edited to add: This was back in 94 when I was with the 101st Air Assault.

[jmcnappy]

born very premature 2 pounds in wieght(1975) in hospital for 4 mounths

at age 4 i had a operation on my eyes the mussels where that weak they just keeped turning in

they said that was from the prem birth...

bye then i was potty trained in the day wet at night still.

i think it was around the age 10 that i started wetting in the day again(always been wet at night)

just a few at first 3 or 4 times a week,but the older i got the more it happend.

at the time the docters could not find what was causing it(a grouth spert they said )

nappies day and night you will grow out of it...

finaly when i was 17 i got sent to a new docter,lots of tests later(and lots of tubes)

i was told that my bladder had never realy develaped.i was told that they could operate to fix the problem,

but that it was risky...at the age of 20 ihad the op...could a clam entro cistaplastie (5 hours on the table)

they take a part of the bowel and put it on the bladder to titen every thing up...no more bladder spaserms no more wetting

the only problem is the fact that the bowel still creates mucas witch= lots of infections,the septisemea i got nealy killed me.

i then had a superpudic cathater in for 7 years(bladder flush out every day to stop the infections)it did not work.

and all the infections i have had pritty mutch killed my bladder off...

3 years age i told my docter that i have just had it take the cath,out i do not care any more...no more pain no more we will try this or that.

5 times he has had me under general anastetic for ops and tests.its just wet nappies for me.

ow and 1 or 2 poopy nappies after they took part of my bowel away it a case of i no when i need to poop,it just i have to go strait away no holding on...like standing in the kitchen having a cup of coffee in the morning,gets things moving some days i cannot make it up stairs...well thats me

[jmcnappy]

oww i forgot to say my ab side comes from being in school(in nappies)all the bullying and name calling

you just wont to go back to a time when its acseptable(to wet yourself)it started with a teddy a dit of thumb sucking,

you see babies and toddlers with not a care in the would...thats what did it for me that escape from life

[Nia]

Mine was a car accident. Left me with a ruptured bladder, Nerve damage at L5,S1, rebuilt shoulder, rebuilt elbow, nerve damage in my left arm, new right knee and tibia. Now I'm incon at both ends so it's diapers and a bowel management program.1

[rickibrat2]

plane crash viet nam 1967 have a small peace f metal lodged in spinal cord they never found till way to late to correct

[turtlepins]

A sixty foot fall onto rocks in a heavy Lake Michigan surf, 21 days in a coma, and poof whizz! Incontinent! Who'd a thought?

[BBoy]

I've got IBS (bowel issues) it began during a year in China. Not completely sure how I got it however if you spent anytime over there you find your stools are always very soft. When I returned to Canada they remained in the same condition. Doctor suggested controlling it with diet and for the most part its been successful however every morning like clock work I'm a slave to the toilet. In the end it doesn't cause many big issues unless I don't poo before leaving the house in the morning. If I don't I really hope I'm near a bathroom, hence my insurance policy (aka diapers).

[Angela Bauer]

Nearly all the female descendants of my maternal great-grandmother are challenged by profound urinary incontinence. In my case I had good bladder control generally until I reached puberty. Sure my bladder is small and was over-active. Then a week after puberty I reverted to bedwetting. At 21 I lost my day bladder control.

None of us know what went on with Granny Vi's mother. Vi says her Mom would not discuss wetting. Vi, my Mom Alice and her sister Betsy all had a history similar to mine, as did my sisters Penny and Ruth. Our youngest sister, Missy, lost her day control while still in high school. Needing diapers all day in high school must be difficult. Actually for me, since then I only wore diapers at night, it was not such a social problem.

Despite being treated my fleets of urologists, no specific cause has been found. Vi formed a theory when she was first married the urinary problem might be genetic. For decades physicians scoffed about that, but since 1992 research shows genetics can influence urinary disease. Knowing this is swell, but still does not help find a cure. For me Kegel exercises accomplished very little. In the opinion of my urologists all the drugs carry side effects making them too risky for me.

So, I continue reaching "Social Continence" by the discreet use of diapers.

[Nappycouple]

When I was about thirteen I was kicked by a school yard bully, where a boy hates to be kicked. Sparing the details I was admitted to hospital for several days. After I healed, I started to have wetting accidents, what today we would call overactive bladder (OAB). Throughout my youth I tried to deal with this problem, by wearing several pairs of underwear. At the time there was no parental person living in our home. (My mother was there but only in name). When I left home for another city, in 1977, I went to a surgical supply store. A nice lady called Margaret, who owned the store asked if she could help. I was very embarassed, but explained my problem. She assured I was far from the only person having bladder control problems. She suggested the same snap on Inco Pants with snap in diaper used in the movie The Baby. As you can imagine these did not work well. But Margaret, never gave up and seached all the supplies until she found the best pants and diapers for me. I'm now working on becoming totally diaper dependent in order to cure my OAB. So far my bladder is holding less, and wet more often and without the hugh floods I used to have.

[babytommy1981]

motorcycle wreck. march 23 2000. lost fealing form the wast down for 3 months, took 8 months to learn how to walk again. bladder never fully came back. and i have no feeling in my left foot.

[lambcannon]

i was drugged and sexually assaulted with something big and sharp crammed way up into my rectum. during my last hospital stay, they attempted plastic surgery and hung my sedated body in a sling. since then my left leg has been burning and tingling, and i discovered over time that i no longer got the 'cue' to go potty. after losing one job for urinating in my pants, i realized that diapers were the only way to go. since then i have lost all control of my pee. my urologist wants to do a sphincteroplasty but quite frankly i am afraid to go into the hospital again for any reason after spending a couple of months there.

[Bobby6154]

Hi, my name is Bobby and I'm a 23 year old male. I have a neurogenic bladder which causes urinary retention leading to overflow incontinence. To help manage this I use self-catheters during the day and wear adult diapers at night to handle the overflow incontinence. This all started for me back in Febuary 2009 after having an Epidural Steriod Injection for a herniated disc at the L4-L5 level that was causing sciatica down my left leg and lower back pain. About 1 hour after the injection on my way home I experianced incontinence. So i called the doctor and he said go to the E.R. After spending time at the E.R. for all their tests, they sent me home with a Foley Catheter and a refural to a Urologist. The Urologist left the Foley in for a few days followed by a void challenge. With the Foley removed I still could not void on my own so he gave me catheters so I could do it intermittantly on my own. After about 2 weeks of self-catheters I was able to start voiding on my own, but I was not emptying completely. Then after about 1 month I was able to void completely on my own. The only thing any of the Doc's had to say about how the retention started in the first place was that it may have possibly have been that the nerve the goes to my bladder was either disturbed/moved, compressed, or injured by the needle during the ESI. Then about 6 months later all my symptoms returned for no reason. Once again I couldn't urinate on my own and I was having overflow incontinence. More tests revealed nothing had changed, and once again the Doc's can't say for sure why its happening. So for time being, like I said in the beginning, I have to use a catheter during the day, and wear adult diapers at night.

[adhb]

My incontinence developed as the result of an unexpected side effect of surgery when I was 14 years old. After the surgery, we discovered that I have an inherited bleeding disorder. The excess bleeding after the surgery apparently caused some nerve damage. I've never had good bladder control since then. As I've gotten older, the overactive bladder and urge incontinence have gotten worse. After a number of extremely embarrassing accidents, I decided to opt for diaper 24/7/365.

[tom58]

Fell off horse while show jumping.

Got crushed.

Badness followed.

I now have very weak bladder control and wear diapers and night........and sometimes during the day.

[Vic]

Have had OAB for several years, and developed diabetes a few years ago, that contributed to a bed wetting problem, (I think, because I wet the bed when I was a kid, up until I turned 12, so it could just be the recurance of this problem). So now I'm diapered every night.

Have had some urge incon with the OAB, but was having major back problems at the time with two disks bulging out into my spinal cord, and vertibrae sitting on nerves,and that has gotten better since my back was operated on in June 08.

The daytime wetting seemed to be more of a problem with the worse my back got, I put off the surgery as long as I could (2 years), but after it was done I wondered why it took me so long to get it.

I still have OAB, and I still wet the bed, but have very few daytime episodes. I have three more disks that are bulging out, so I might have to have surgery again, and I'm only 50! Sometimes things just suck, dealing with pain isn't fun at all I can tell you.

Peace,

Vic

[mykeybe]

I got run over when I was 21 and got a broken back, fractured skull etc, but I was out of hospital and walking (impaired) about after a few months. For the first few years I had very occasional messy accidents, usually when walking nowhere near a toilet. I was supposed to use suppositories/micro-enemas every morning to make me go to the toilet, but evidently the system didn’t always work. That meant I usually had to get up an hour earlier than I would normally and hang around waiting to poop. Also at that time of my life my friends were all going on holiday abroad together and I couldn’t go with them because I was afraid of messy accidents caused by foreign food/water in an unfamiliar (where’s the toilet? Nowhere) environment, and having to go through all that rigmarole in the morning without my friends knowing what I was doing. Maybe I could have just told them about that, but as it was I kept having to pretend I just couldn’t get the time off work or couldn’t afford it.

To this day only one of them knows about it, and that's because I dared to go on holiday with him and we couldn't set off somewhere one morning because of my rigmarole taking longer than usual, and I had to tell him.

Anyway, at some point after 2000 I found I didn’t need to do that any more.

A few years ago (not sure when) I started wetting the bed, very occasionally, and it’s gradually got worse to the point where I can have several dry nights in a row, but never a dry week, and sometimes I wet several nights in a row or several times in a night.

The doctors said I have an overactive bladder, and they were going to inject botox into my bladder wall, which should alleviate the problem till it wears off after 8 or 9 months, but there’s a risk I might end up needing a catheter in. I went to the hospital but they couldn’t do the procedure because it turned out I had a urinary infection at the time. I’m still waiting for another appointment after more than six months and trying to chase it up.

Has anyone had that procedure done? Did it work for you? Did it go wrong?

[WolfKat]

Bad vehicle accident. T-6, 11, 12, L5, S1, dislocated rib behind the L scapula, R hip, both knees have hairline fractures, sacral nerve damage. The miracle is I'm not wheelchair bound but I have no doubt I'll be in a chair in the near future. I learned to be thankful for lots of little things in life but I'm also a fighter and won't give up regardless. I'm still mobile and functional. Been through so many medical procedures my insurance has increased the deductible this year another 4G. My only regret about having to wear diapers is; I'd rather it be because I WANT to. When all this gets fixed there's no doubt I'll still be an ab/DL. We're looking at a sacral stimulator as the next option... I have mixed feelings about it tho. Does anyone have one?

[dl247]

Motorcycle accident in 1997.

[diaperboyMKE]

OMG What a downer thread. I'm scared to leave my desk now.

[babiepottypanties]

OMG What a downer thread. I'm scared to leave my desk now.

I have had severl avery head injuries and have lower spinal damage. I also have two very bad knees and have two wear ofset braces. This makes it hard for me to get to a bathroom in time.I now have a care giver who changes my wet and messy diapers. I wear and use diapers 24/7 for both peein and pooping.

[Akira]

In my case my incontinence was caused by falling of a cliff while prospecting in southern Arizona. I fell aprox. 10 to 12 meters, (33 to 40 ft). When I came to I was both wet and bloody. Have wet myself ever since. The doctor I saw at the time said it was nerve dammage, but I would require an unaffordable MRI to determine the precise damage. Did not have the MRI as I considered any surgery for anything other than to save my life as to risky, and expensive. I don't trust the medical profession that well anyway, they just want to make a buck. I discovered latter that I liked wearing diapers anyway. Still have trouble with pain in my right hip since the fall, most of the time that can be taken care of with pain medication. I don't feel an urge to go, It just happens without warning. As a child I had a previous history of stress incontinence anyway, perhaps that is part of the problem, and the fall made things worse, I don't know. I have a stress related componet to my problem as physical activity will make me leak. If I am active I will discover that after a while I am wet anyway, if I am not physically active I will suddenly notice that I am wetting myself without any warning. Over that last 2 years though I have been having problems with the bowel also. I will suddenly notice that I have to have a BM, If I am near a restroom, no problem, if not I end up messy to. I don't have much time to react. Roughly 16 years between the two problems, the wetting I can live with, but messing my diaper is a different story. Don't like to go out much as a result, I don't want to stink. Society has trouble accepting adults in diapers anyway. Discrimination against the disabled. Someone with other disabilities gets more acceptance that the incontinent do, what a bummer. I have been in diapers for 18 years now, time is fun when you are having flys.

[Baby Brian]

Got in a bad car wreck in 96 and has a cath in for 1 week. When the cath came out I was still bed ridden and just used a pee bottle at the first sign I had to go. Once out of the hospital I was in a long leg cast and couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. Doc's said I had functional incontinence and it would pass. Cast came off but by then I was getting urges with about 20 seconds warning I would go. Doc's then said I had urge incontinence and put me on the latest drugs. After a year of that I saw a new doc who eventually traced it back to spinal cord bruising. He said it could have been treated back then if the other Doc's had caught it in time but I was pretty much screwed by then. It's ok though as I've always like to wear diapers. I just didn't expect to get my wish that way, because now I have to live with the discomfort of having urges even though I still end up wet any way.

[Bettypooh]

Tested as a childhood wetter they couldn't find anything physically wrong so they wrote it off as psychological issues-causes unknown The shrinks couldn't find anything wrong there so they wrote it off as a physical problem. As my own knowledge about incontinence has grown, and as my body grows older, I find that I have bouts of OAB, SI and UI which are increasing in frequency and severity as time goes on. I have lumbar problems in my back which seem to relate to some, but not all, of these bouts A surgical procedure on my colon was botched a decade ago and during my recovery the urologist found that my bladder is small and only empties halfway normally, which was the cause of my frequent need to void. There seems no point in my seeking a cure since as another victim of blatant medical incompetence I don't trust them to do anything except take my money and leave me as bad as I am or worse. Give me a money-back guarantee and I'd try it- but Doctors won't stand behind their work the way I have to stand behind mine

Since I have no real issues with wearing diapers I just do what I need to and go on with life. If I completely lose bladder control I wouldn't care. My only real peeve is that I want to wet in my sleep but that doesn't seem to happening- you can't always want what you get but that's life for everyone, isn't it?

Bettypooh

[Inco24/7]

My incontinence started out following an operation for torsion of the testes when I was 13. I was fine up until this point but when I came round from the operation I for reasons unknown had a bad reaction to the anasthetic I was given and seemed to fit. I thought after this I was fine, but was numb in my private regions for some time after it. Sure things healed up from the op without too many problems but I did notice I had an extereme urge to get the the toilet.

Before the operation I had very good toilet control skills and even if I did feel the need to go could hold it for quite some time up to a good hour if not longer should the need occur, but after the operation I started having serious problems with urgency. I could hold on for 5 mins max and being in a boarding school at the time found to make it to the toilet after asking in lessons to go I would have to run to make it. The progressively got worse and around 3 weeks after the op thats when things started to go downhill. I can remember waking up feeling the urge to desperately go for what I thought at the time was a #2. only to stagger out of bed to find me and my bed were completely soaked !!. Stunned by this and the urge to poop I staggered to the door but that was as far as I got before I uncontrollably filled my pants. That was the 1st real taste of incontinence I got. Of course school staff and doctors put the incident down to something I may of eaten and not being well so let it slide, but the urge to go during the day was getting steadily worse and I was starting to wake up more and more to a wet bed.

Examinations by doctors revealed nothing at the time and it was put down to childhood bedwetting even though I explained about the connections to my operation. To this day the NHS swear blind there is no connection and that the operation went as a complete sucess.

The nightime accidents continued for several weeks and as did the urgency to get to the toilet when bizarrely it had adverse effects on me during the day. I would get the urgency to pee so bad that it would cause pressure inside me I would cramp up and tense like mad to stop myself wetting my pants to get to the toilet that when I did eventually get there I would uncontrollably push it out in a sort of high pressure stream, this was ok but led to me messing my pants while trying to pee !!. I also on a few occaisions managed while trying to stop myself wetting poop myself in the process how to this day that works out I still honestly dont know !!.

Anyways things carried on like this until I was 14 when I started having wetting accidents during the day as well as at night. The pooping thankfully at that time subsided. I was referred to my local continence nurse who after assessing me said there was 2 options available to me. At the time wetting was the problem more than pooping so she at 1st offered me the "conveen" sheath system to use with a leg bag, which I found totally replusive and inadquate. The 2nd choice was nappies which as she explained because of previous messing accidents may actually be better. In all honestuy I was doubtful over both choices but finally opted for the nappies.

At 1st to wear they were bulky, noisy and generally no fun at all !!. I did for the most part everything I could not to wear them or use them and only gave in when my problems were really affecting me and on the nights, the rest of the time I stumbled on through with no protection and just made mad dashes for the toilet hoping all would be ok. The messing accidents eventually stopped altogether and I once again had full control over my bowels but my bladder was another matter, things on that side were slowly but surely getting worse.

I again approached my continence nurse when picking up supplies for some more absorbent pads/nappies as the ones I had at the time were beginning not to cope with my demands. I was told as I was then diagnosed as having problems with incontinence to drink more surprisingly to reduce the risk of UTI & kidney infections. This was all good and well but obviously made me wet more frequently and heavier than before.

I was then sent to a urologist for further tests to be carried out as I think the hope by my continence nurse and my GP were that things over time would sort themselves out. 18 months on and things were going the other way and were getting worse!. After several analysations and Urodynamics tests on me and my bladder I was diagnosed as having stress/urge incontinence as a result of an overactive bladder and was told over the years things would get worse and by the time I was in my 40's I would probably need to wear protection all the time. I was at this point still wearing when really needed and not full time as I just couldnt come to terms with doing so.

Things stayed this way with me once a year having further urodynamics carried out to see how things were going only for it each time to show more and more deterioration of my bladder and continence control much to my dismay. Then in June 2005 things took their final toll on me.

On the 29th of June 2005 I had my 1st of 2 strokes which was a pretty bad 1, leaving me unable to move my right side, speak, walk or anything else.

I was in hospital for several weeks recovering and of course (even though I wasnt fully aware at the time) in nappies 24 hours a day and bed bound. When I finally did get my speech back and was able to walk it was then I discovered after thinking I was pretty much back to myself after what can only be described as 1 hell of a rocking that the final damage had been done.

I no longer had control over my bladder or bowels at all !!.

I was told over the next 6 months things may return and lived in the hope they would. After 2 days of wetting accidents and no messy ones I stupidly thought things were back to normal so after I found my nappy was wet on the 3rd day decided to "Risk all" and go out shopping with my wife with no protection at all. Feeling confident and a tad cocky with myself I was pleased not to be in nappies after 24/7 wearing for almost 9 months during recovery it felt good !, till we were at the checkouts queing to pay. We had all in all been out and away from home around 45 minutes by this time when without warning all I felt was the waistband of my pants slowly being pulled downwards. At 1st I thought they were being pulled down by someone or some kid, but quickly realised as I felt the warmth and heard the squelching sound that followed I was filling my pants . It just happened !! no warning no nothing, just a loud squelch and that was that in a superstore full of people I now had a nice bulge in the back of my pants where Id pooped!. I was stunned, shocked and embarrassed, and made a beeline for home as quick as I could!, things got worse when speed walking back to the car when I also started to wet without control also !!. By the time I got home I was in quite a bad way to say the least !!. Went upstairs got out of my wet and very dirty pants and had the longest shower of my life in tears.

Scince then Ive been in nappies 24 hours a day and overtime have now grown to like them and accept my condition, I have been back and seen my urologist but along with my GP they now say theres very little they can do to help me. The damage caused by the deterioration of my OAB and the stroke combined have now distorted messages sent to my brain via my nervous system so badly that my brain now doesnt know what to do with them so more or less if you like ignores them now. So as a result has cut off that part of my body and the urge or need to void. The muscles in my prostate and bowels have now relaxed as a result which means I just "go" without warning so need to wear nappies all the time to keep things under control.

so at 26 till now and I expect till the day I die I will be in nappies 24/7

Inco