Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[Greybird]

2 hours ago, oznl said:

Thank you for sharing.  It's nice to know people are interested to read.  Your recent life experience of clinical incontinence colliding with a lifetime of ABDL inclination would be a very, very interesting tale for a lot of people wondering what a "cure" looks like...

I am not sure I believe in a ‘cure’ for being ab or dl, I wasted far too many years worrying about it! As for a cure for the incontinence, my surgeon was disappointed that I had so little control after six weeks post op. I did not tell him that I was not really trying, rather letting things take their own time, if they wanted! He told me pre op that as I suffered from urgency and bedwetting, I might never regain my continence. He was very surprised when I told him I did not mind! In many ways I quite enjoy the incontinence. If anyone sees my nappy, I have a ready made excuse and I can always cry ‘medical need’ if said nappy is about to leak in a difficult location. No, my only new problem is estimating how long a nappy will last. Right nappy for right time as well as working out which of the damn disposables doesn’t fall apart when I am active, ggrrrr very frustrating. On the plus side I do have a very supportive wife who is perfectly happy to see hubby in a nappy. I feel for you on that score. 

[oznl]

On 12/27/2019 at 11:10 AM, oznl said:

On an upside, I’ve met a lot of interesting people: it seems that our small “.alt” world is skewed toward the intelligent and the thoughtful.  There are a number of people on this forum (and if you think you might be one of these, you probably are) whom I would like to integrate into my mainstream life as friends, if only I could think of some way of doing this without having my wife convinced I was trying to organise a gay sex orgy.

I need to correct an important oversight here.  There are indeed a number of of people on this forum whom I would like to integrate into my mainstream life as friends.

I went on to say that I'd never be able to persuade my wife that I wasn't trying to organise a "gay sex orgy".

That's hardly fair to those people on this forum whom I regard as a friends who are female.  I would therefore like (for the record) to strike that comment from the record on replace it with "if only I could think of some way of doing this without this without having my wife convinced that I was trying to organise a gay sex orgy an orgy.

I'm not sure that helps much but nevertheless, I considered it symbolically important anyway.

[ozziebee]

*giggles*

Does wife even need to know new friends are from a diaper/AB community, rather than from your professional work community?  

[oznl]

3 hours ago, ozziebee said:

*giggles*

Does wife even need to know new friends are from a diaper/AB community, rather than from your professional work community?  

Well in YOUR case, you're out of the "right" industry so yeah, we could possibly get away with it...  For a while anyway.  She's gotten quite good at identifying a nappied bum :-)

[thicker]

Onzl,  your thread here is one of the great ones.  It has possessed my mind the last few days as I've read and pondered.  I seldom wear.  The wife hates my diapers, I wore in her presence 40 years ago, then upon her repulsed reaction, I just decided to go back in the closet with my diapers as I had done all through childhood.  Yes, I thought marriage would erase my diaper love, NOT!  But here I am, I surf daily, wear on occasion when opportunity presents itself, never in her presence, sometimes at work, always when she is away from the house or I am traveling.  You have blazed a trail for me in your 24/7 experiment.  I have imagined some of the difficulties you have so well documented.  I have experienced being in public dealing with a leak.  I have packed extra bags, just for diaper supplies.  I thank you for sharing details and thoughts, and your thinking out loud about being 24/7.  I dare say I will never have your experience.  I fear my wife would do more than "not look at her diapered husband".  Mine would end the relationship and that is why I went back to the closet with my diapers.  Your courage is amazing.  Don't think ill of my wife, she is great lady whom I love but she just never could accept my diaper love.  Everybody has to find their happy medium in marriage.  Mine is to wear outside of her presence.  I think your writing has helped me realize I really would not want to be 24/7, but those situations you have described do invade my continued love for diapers.  I have been satisfied diapering up when I can and having a good marriage with many life benefits.  Thanks again for sharing your experience.   

[oznl]

9 hours ago, thicker said:

Onzl,  your thread here is one of the great ones.  It has possessed my mind the last few days as I've read and pondered.  I seldom wear.  The wife hates my diapers, I wore in her presence 40 years ago, then upon her repulsed reaction, I just decided to go back in the closet with my diapers as I had done all through childhood.  Yes, I thought marriage would erase my diaper love, NOT!  But here I am, I surf daily, wear on occasion when opportunity presents itself, never in her presence, sometimes at work, always when she is away from the house or I am traveling.  You have blazed a trail for me in your 24/7 experiment.  I have imagined some of the difficulties you have so well documented.  I have experienced being in public dealing with a leak.  I have packed extra bags, just for diaper supplies.  I thank you for sharing details and thoughts, and your thinking out loud about being 24/7.  I dare say I will never have your experience.  I fear my wife would do more than "not look at her diapered husband".  Mine would end the relationship and that is why I went back to the closet with my diapers.  Your courage is amazing.  Don't think ill of my wife, she is great lady whom I love but she just never could accept my diaper love.  Everybody has to find their happy medium in marriage.  Mine is to wear outside of her presence.  I think your writing has helped me realize I really would not want to be 24/7, but those situations you have described do invade my continued love for diapers.  I have been satisfied diapering up when I can and having a good marriage with many life benefits.  Thanks again for sharing your experience.   

I know that some consider my decision to diaper myself 24/7 to be self-indulgent and egocentric.  At the start of this venture, I considered carefully that flying in the face of my wife's progressive erosion of my diapered proclivities might end our marriage.

After much introspection into my darkening moods however, I came to the realisation that to deny the “diaper thing” was deny who I was.  I decided I could not endure a relationship that required me to pretend to be something I wasn’t and that I was running out of time to do something about it.

So, I cried “Havoc!”, and let slip the dogs of war.

My wife hates my diapers too but fortunately it seems most other parts of me she does not hate and so our relationship has thus far survived.  As they say on the internet however, “YMMV” and others may find themselves at the business end of a divorce lawyer…

Fully aware of the utter madness of my venture, I decided to chronicle it.  I’m not an advocate of 24/7 diapering, I just journal it.  It may yet prove that my value from this stands only to act as a warning to others ?

Thanks for reading.  It's nice to know somebody *does* read this.

  I have to go now because that wife is insisting that I give up vacation-day 'net surfing and drive her to the mall.  She has her own car and knows where the mall is so I suspect carrying bags and buying her lunch may have more to do with this than transport logistics but that just shows that there is give and take in our relationship regardless.  That I am diapered and will remain so for this venture will be graciously ignored by her.

[oznl]

And now for something completely different...

Entering into my 10^th month of being uninterruptedly diapered this week. 

In view of the number of messages I’ve received from those in the DD and Fetlife communities, I’ll briefly defer the couple of updates I had in mind and instead, comment a little on the fire situation affecting large parts of Australia right now.  It’s not exactly on-topic, but so many of you have asked.

My personal headline here is that these days, I live in a  comfortable suburban area of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland.  My property is not at any significant risk and my family and I are completely safe.  There were severe and unusual fires in my region early on in the fire season but even then, the closest major fire would have been 50 miles away.  Since Christmas, it has been relatively quiet on the fire front in Queensland.

More than a dozen years ago, I lived down in New South Wales, directly on the edge of a National Park.  There, my property was designated “bushfire prone” by local Government and I was a member of a local community fire unit.  Accordingly, I have a modest amount of basic fire training and experience. 

Bushfires (as they are known here much to the amusement of my US friends) here are a part of the natural environment.  They visit regularly, can be large and awesomely destructive.  To a certain extent, both native flora and fauna have adapted to, and even depend upon them.  In the right fire heat, humidity and wind conditions, Eucalypts (gum trees) literally burst into flame in advance of the actual fire: who’d have thunk it people?  Exploding trees!   I think a few Californians have since tumbled to this though.

Having said that, these are the largest, most wide-spread and protracted fires that I have ever seen.  They are also impacting big tourist areas at the height of the tourist season compounding the logistical challenges of large numbers of transient population with no local knowledge with a devastating body blow to local economies.

These fires are so large they are creating their own weather systems.   As a regular air traveller for work, I have overflown these fires on multiple occasions over the last few weeks (yes, this crisis has been bubbling along for months), even smelling smoke inside the airliner cabin at cruise altitude (that’s how high it gets).  I’m very pleased to be “grounded” for January as a frightening new phenomenon of pyro-cumulonimbus thunderstorms has been grabbing hold of cruising airliners, pitching daylight flights into sudden darkness with extreme turbulence.  These “fire thunderstorms” don’t show up on flight radar and visibility is poor to begin with.

It is a testament to the effort and ingenuity of locals and firefighters, who are often one and the same, that the loss of life has been contained as well as it has been.  The loss of homes is widespread though and the toll on animals has been incalculably massive and remains the untold tragedy of this period.

Fires this big simply cannot be practically extinguished by man.  Sometimes they can be managed but not this year it seems.  The only solid answer is rain, lots of it.  The episodic climatic phenomenon underpinning this event is called the “Indian Ocean Dipole”.   It is currently in a very strong, positive phase that has been effectively stopping moisture getting into Australian weather systems for months, replacing rainfall with heat waves.  This system is now collapsing as evidenced by the birth of "Cyclone Blake" today off the northern West Australia coast.   This is the first time I've ever seen Australia pleased to see a tropical cyclone (hurricane).  It *will* rain.  The question is how much more misery will be inflicted upon man and beast before this occurs.

Still here in South East Queensland, we are safe.  Many others are not though.  Here, we live under skies rendered Martian-pink by smoke from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, see spectacular blood-red sunsets every evening and endure the minor misery of ongoing upper respiratory issues caused by breathing super-heated, dusty, smoky air for weeks whilst we wait for it to rain…

Meh, this is Australia, where even the weather wants to kill you.  Next week it will be cyclones and floods…

[ozziebee]

Where I live, a bushfire started about 5km away.  It was reported by some on Facebook that a pair of stoners appeared out of the bush at the time the fire started.  After an hour or so, the fire had blown up so much through the scrub that the rural fire service called in aircraft.  Was amazing to watch a C130 and a 737 buzz around, and dive into the smoke to drop their fire retardants.  That fire was luckily moving away from my house, but we were inundated with smoke and falling black eucalyptus leaves.  

 

As I speak, I just heard some thunder!  Wow, what a sound!  I woke up this morning to hearing rain on the roof! What a novelty!  (I do hope the lightning doesn't start another fire nearby).    Yes, some areas desperately do need rain, and lots of it.  More thunder! Windows creaking from the earthy vibrations! How exciting!

 

I won't go into the causes or otherwise of these terribly massive fires, as this isn't a political discussion.  I have my own views, and will leave it to other threads.

[herb330]

Originally she was against diapering me but after a while she did not mind it.  She enjoyed the bathing and cleaning time  and after a while adapted to taking care of me.

[Little Sherri]

@oznl, I just wanted to take a moment to add my voice to what others have said already, which is to say that I, too, have greatly enjoyed reading about your journey and walking in your footsteps - yours was the first such string I read here, after you replied to my inquiry into what going 24/7 might involve, and it was your story that really prompted me to do what I wanted to do, rather than what I thought I "should" do. Like you, I suspected that my fascination would quickly wear thin, but here I am, 9+ months later, still swapping one diaper for another diaper, and on it goes. To paraphrase the sober living mantra, "I don't have to wear diapers for the rest of my life, I only have to wear diapers today." (That's about all I know of sober living, however.)

I would love to have a regular beer with a bunch of these folks as well; I'm not sure how well adapted I am to orgies, however. I'll make sure everyone's drink is topped up. 

 

[oznl]

"Oh I’m a Lumberjack and I’m ok,

I sleep all night and I work all day…"

-           Famous Monty Python anthem from 1975 celebrating the sometimes-dubious clichés of masculinity and the women that pursue them.

So, Christmas happened (in case you were asleep) and my wife has been gently pressuring me to not bother shaving.  At least my face anyway.  For reasons of cleanliness and odour control that I’m certain she doesn’t want to know about, my “nappy zone” is also usually clean-shaven but she doesn’t like to look at me below midline these days.  She may not even know that.

It’s my face that’s caught her attention.

It started just after Christmas day: “Don’t bother shaving, just let it go, you’re on holidays!”.  After a few days, the stubble started to annoy me and I announced my intention to mow the facial lawn so to speak “Oh nooo!” she cried, “just let it go on a bit more” as she patted it, a bit like a cat.  It’s a good thing I’m not much of an AB or I’d have been strangled by the cognitive dissonance.

I had a beard, a VERY long time ago when I wanted to look older.  I no longer want (or need) to look any older than I already am.

I’m a bit puzzled where this has come from.

There’s just a part of my head that can’t help wondering if this newly discovered interest in me becoming facially hirsute is some kind of compensatory behaviour to offset the (unpleasant for her) reality of my infantile underwear.  She has repeatedly told me that it is important that I appear masculine and strong before her and even if I mitigate and insulate her from each and every inconvenience of my emerging diaper-dependency, the residual effect of her knowing that I am diapered still undermines her mental image of a “strong provider” and this is a problem for her.  It isn’t really a problem for me, unless until she makes it one.  In the same genre, she’s always said that her favourite aftershave on me is two-stroke fuel.  I don’t think she cares for the smell of sudocrem.

“Why the beard?” I ask.  “I just like the silver fox thing” she replies.

Yep, silver fox from the neckline north, over-sized toddler from the belt-buckle south.  Maybe by averaging either end you can count me as “normal”.  I have my suspicions…

[Stroller]

1 hour ago, oznl said:

“Why the beard?” I ask.  “I just like the silver fox thing” she replies.

 

Yep, silver fox from the neckline north, over-sized toddler from the belt-buckle south.  Maybe by averaging either end you can count me as “normal”.  I have my suspicions…

Time to turn furry, I'd say ?.  Did she give you a fox tail for Christmas?

[oznl]

2 hours ago, Stroller said:

Time to turn furry, I'd say ?.  Did she give you a fox tail for Christmas?

Mmm, no, but if you'd met me in real life (and a couple on DD have) you'd realise that as a furry, I'd be more silver back than silver fox.  I might try calling her Mrs Fossey and see what happens...

 

(did anybody else think "Gorillas & the pissed" or was it just me)?

[WetDad]

15 hours ago, oznl said:

"Oh I’m a Lumberjack and I’m ok,

 

I sleep all night and I work all day…"

...

“Why the beard?” I ask.  “I just like the silver fox thing” she replies.

Mine liked the idea of me not shaving for Nov/Dec. I normally keep a very tight beard, but I just let it go. After two months, we both agreed that it made my face look too round,

Back to the tight little beard.

[Little Sherri]

On 1/7/2020 at 3:14 AM, oznl said:

There’s just a part of my head that can’t help wondering if this newly discovered interest in me becoming facially hirsute is some kind of compensatory behaviour to offset the (unpleasant for her) reality of my infantile underwear.  She has repeatedly told me that it is important that I appear masculine and strong before her and even if I mitigate and insulate her from each and every inconvenience of my emerging diaper-dependency, the residual effect of her knowing that I am diapered still undermines her mental image of a “strong provider” and this is a problem for her.  It isn’t really a problem for me, unless until she makes it one.  In the same genre, she’s always said that her favourite aftershave on me is two-stroke fuel.  I don’t think she cares for the smell of sudocrem.

This is interesting to me - my wife has taken an interest lately in hanging my various martial arts certificates and plaques on the walls of my office; I wonder if this stems from the same suspected root cause as your wife's sudden desire for your testosterone levels to be physically manifested upon your visage? Having a husband who walks around in diapers probably wasn't in her life plan, at least not this early on, so maybe she needs more evidence that I'm still a protector and provider. That said, for the most part, she has been a good sport about this new reality, other than that one strange incident, out with friends, where she asked my buddy's wife to look at my backside and comment on the fact that my jeans were clearly over-sized, which they were, deliberately - I had just bought them that way, so that they would fit better over diapers (and it seems to have worked). But other than that, even in the midst of a heated disagreement, she has never thrown my juvenile underwear into the fray. 

[oznl]

11 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

This is interesting to me - my wife has taken an interest lately in hanging my various martial arts certificates and plaques on the walls of my office; I wonder if this stems from the same suspected root cause as your wife's sudden desire for your testosterone levels to be physically manifested upon your visage?

Enforced leave due to my employer’s obligatory Christmas/New Year shutdown is, to be fair, probably the only way I’d take more than a day or two’s break at a time anyway.

This time of year, the heat is often oppressive in Queensland and thanks to the previously-unheard-of climatic “Indian Ocean Dipole Index”, this year’s heat and humidity has been unrelieved by the storms and associated rainfall that would normally occur.    

So we just sweat. 

The heat is unrelenting this time of year.  By now, the whole fabric of the house is idling around 30C around the clock meaning that if you want any kind of comfort, you need to sit in front of an AC. 

Those two weeks of enforced idleness never last for me.  Inevitably, after the social/festive summit of Christmas and Boxing Day has been crested, the boredom sets in and I start finding things to do.  Get thee to the garage, it's testosterone time!

So, this year, the hottest Australian summer on record, why not clean and paint the cathedral ceilings and beams of the upper floor in my house, working up ladders and planks in un-airconditioned zones through the hottest parts of the Queensland day? 

Furthermore, why not, just for the giggles of it, wear nappies and plastic pants whilst doing that?  Think of all that insulation swaddling your nether regions to help keep out the fierce heat radiating off those feebly-insulated ceilings 6 inches above your head.

For me, this is the time of year and modality of life that makes 24/7 nappies suck the most.

After a few hours of such work, it was honestly hard to tell what the state of my nappy was under my pants.  Of course, it was drenched and disintegrating but that was as likely to be sweat than anything else.  By mid-afternoon, I’d decide I must be leaking but at change time, I’d discover that it was sweat and not pee that was running down the back of my legs as I stood, statue-of-liberty-like at the top of a ladder with a paintbrush for a torch, shimmering wetly in the heat haze.  For a large part of the day, my nappy would have been the driest garment was wearing anyway.  My t-shirt would be WAY wetter.  A splash of two-stroke would have made it perfect.

This is just another thing to think about with 24/7.  In nappies, it is WAY more comfortable just to NOT do anything in hot weather and the temptation to sit down and do nothing is always there.  They don’t exactly encourage physical activity.   Recognition being the first step to cure, I’ve deliberately tried to keep myself up and about but painting a ceiling in this climate was possibly overkill regardless of my underwear choices.

At nights, less is more.  Regardless of my wife’s preferences, I’ve been sleeping in just a nappy and waterproof training pants, nothing else…  I will pull on a pair of shorts over these in the morning before making the coffee in case teenage child decides to get out of bed before 10am (quite unlikely) or, the neighbour over-the-back’s kids decide to go trampolining before the mercury reaches 30C (fairly likely). 

It was almost a relief to go back to work.  Even long pants, compression pants, plastic pants and a BetterDry is just fine in a continuously air-conditioned office.  It will cool down – in April…  A bit…

[Little Sherri]

My condolences, @oznl, by the way, for the insane situation with the brush fires. We had some terrible forest fires in Canada last year, including one that laid waste to swaths of a city of 60000+ in Northwest Alberta (West-central Canada basically), but even that doesn't compare to what is going on Down Under. They've started reporting on it more here, recently, and the satellite imagery boggles the mind, to say nothing of the air quality indexes. Canadians tend to identify closely with Australians, whom we view as basically subtropical versions of ourselves: both commonwealth countries, similar populations, we both like beer, whenever we meet them while travelling, we tend to get along, both of us are friendly toward, but slightly mystified by Americans, and there are a remarkable number of Australian students manning our ski lifts out West - I guess this is how far you guys have to come to experience metres-deep snow. Even our currencies tend to mirror each other. I guess what I'm saying is, for what it's worth (not much, really), we are thinking about you guys and wishing you the best. The climate is playing havoc with our forests, too, but not quite as quickly. Having three seasons where the sun goes on sabbatical helps with that.  

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

My condolences, @oznl, by the way, for the insane situation with the brush fires. We had some terrible forest fires in Canada last year, including one that laid waste to swaths of a city of 60000+ in Northwest Alberta (West-central Canada basically), but even that doesn't compare to what is going on Down Under. They've started reporting on it more here, recently, and the satellite imagery boggles the mind, to say nothing of the air quality indexes. Canadians tend to identify closely with Australians, whom we view as basically subtropical versions of ourselves: both commonwealth countries, similar populations, we both like beer, whenever we meet them while travelling, we tend to get along, both of us are friendly toward, but slightly mystified by Americans, and there are a remarkable number of Australian students manning our ski lifts out West - I guess this is how far you guys have to come to experience metres-deep snow. Even our currencies tend to mirror each other. I guess what I'm saying is, for what it's worth (not much, really), we are thinking about you guys and wishing you the best. The climate is playing havoc with our forests, too, but not quite as quickly. Having three seasons where the sun goes on sabbatical helps with that.  

Yep, it's getting warmer...  No doubt about that.  The trouble is that there's more virtue-signalling and point-scoring going on than meaningful progress toward carbon-free energy but we digress.

There's a strong and vibrant Canadian ex-pat community in Australia.  I knew a guy who'd even some-what courageously set up a curling team.  I remember asking a colleague down in Sydney (originally from the exotically-named Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) why so many snow-bunnies.  His reply was "Easy!  This place is just a twisted Canada with better weather!"

Anyway, a tropical cyclone up north duly sucked in some moisture a couple of days ago and it's started to rain a bit down in Victoria.  It's only mid-January so their summer is less than half over but that's going to help a bit.

Be a bit wary about some of those "fire maps" and "pictures" you see floating around the interwebs.  A lot of them aren't real or don't relate to current fires. 

[oznl]

A pee dream: a rare thing these days.

In my dream a night or two ago, I was at some kind of party, a corporate event, the kind held in those large hotel “ballrooms” with impossibly high ceilings, chintzy floral fabric wall paper, moveable dividing walls and the complete absence of visible daylight.

For some reason I decided that I’d leave the ballroom to use a bathroom.  I don’t recall any particular need to pee in my dream.  These days, I don’t seem to experience any pee urges anyway as presumably I never allow my bladder to sufficiently fill.  Accordingly, who knows why I decided to go off on such a quest.  Anyway, it’s a dream so I shouldn’t interpret things that literally.

Wandering out into the lobby area and up to the bathroom entry, I realised I was still carrying a rather full glass of a mediocre corporate-event-beer and I didn’t think it was a very good look to head into a bathroom with a beer in my hand.  There didn’t seem to be any available tables or surfaces to place my beer and I’m not fond of wasting the stuff.  So, I just decided to turn around and go back into the ballroom and use my nappy instead of the bathroom. 

In my dream, I knew I was diapered so why I’d even bothered to look for a bathroom in the first place was a bit of a mystery but it’s a dream remember.

I didn’t dream any kind of subsequent vivid wetting experience after this decision and apparently, I didn’t wake up.  My recollection of the dream narrative simply stopped at my decision to wet myself instead of using the bathroom.

At least, this was just all I could remember the next morning when I awoke laying on my back.  As I gradually came to terms with the day, realised that my bum felt quite wet.  I wasn’t uncomfortable, just very wet.

When I changed out of my night nappy, I found that my Molicare was soaked all the way up to the rear waistband.  I was vaguely surprised I had not leaked into my trainer pants.

Sleep wetting remains highly intermittent and unpredictable.  The very next night saw me wake up religiously every couple of hours to use my nappy.  There was no particular pee urge I felt but there was definitely pee to be rid of each time so I was storing the stuff.

Regardless of bed-wetting deliberately or in my sleep, it remains a simple source of pleasure to wake up each morning with a warm wet nappy and a comfortable empty bladder, even after a year of doing so.

[oznl]

It looks like I’ll be back in the USA for around 2.5 weeks during March for work.  It was a trip like this that tipped me out of 24/7 diapers for a few weeks nearly a year ago.

This year, I want to try to do this diapered.  Indeed, as I have a habit of waking up in a wet diaper that I can’t remember wetting sometimes by now, I probably NEED to do this diapered.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest I’m going to need around 40 diapers plus some contingency.  Way more than I can reasonably carry in luggage (for practical reasons, I am constrained to a single mid-sized suitcase).

  In addition to what I can reasonably hand-carry (probably no more than three diapers to cover flight and delays in addition to what I’m wearing), I’m going to need around 3 bags of diapers to cover my trip.  I will stuff some smaller diapers in my luggage that I will use tactically through airports etc.

I don’t really want to be experimenting with unknown/unreliable product (although the temptation to try out the unavailable-in-Australia Northshore product is there).  My usual “work” nappy is the trusty BetterDry 24/7 “large” and I’d be looking for some kind of premium-but-lesser diapers for evening and nights (currently using Molicare premium slip maxi).

And, I’ll be in idaho just to make things interesting.  I actually quite like it there but it's not New York or LA in terms of retail opportunities.

So, I’m looking for suggestions from-the-more-experienced here.  Can I purchase these kind of products retail?  (suspect not).  I will have a rental car and I do know my way around there.  Failing that, what would be the best/most *reliable* way of making sure that a few packs of the correct diapers were (discreetly) delivered to a hotel a few days before I get there?

[Puppyz]

Last two times I've been to a furcon in Chicago in November /December, I've ordered from Northshore and gotten two bags and a couple of packs of wipes delivered to my hotel. Bearing in mind one of their distribution centers is located in illinois, I got my supplies two days after ordering them as I ordered late in the day.

I have ordered from Cedar Rapids Iowa early in the day and gotten them within 24 hours. Shipping was around $7 US from memory via UPS. 

If you get the hotels address beforehand and tell them you are getting medical supplies delivered they shouldn't have a problem (even if it wasn't medical they shouldn't have a problem). As long as your full name is on the order you should get them ok. 

Going through airports is no problem for me even when fairly wet getting off the plane at LAX, going through customs, changing terminals and going back through TSA. Getting back through TSA is where you will likely encounter a more thorough pat down and residue test afterwards if you are wet. If you are dry then it shouldn't be a problem. Just be up front with TSA and tell them you are wearing a diaper as you are incontinent. Sometimes they ask if you want a private screening but I've always just said no as I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me. In reality you are surrounded by a heck of a lot of people who will see you and this happening but they won't actually see it. They are too busy trying to get through themselves and gather their stuff before their bags and phones get stolen lol. 

As for changing on the plane, I'm going to assume you are able to change standing or seated. If you are a bigger guy...good luck lol. I'm 5'2" and whilst I'm average across the shoulders, it's a bit cramped even for me. 

Any other questions just ask away :3

edit: Retail? CVS and Walgreens will carry some crappy diapers that are ok in an emergency and you'll find yourself holding as much as you can to pee over the top of them. They may also carry depends but it varies. 

You mentioned the Northshore supremes, these are a much better diaper than the betterdry in respect that they wick much better. they are however quite stiff and this is where the folding a diaper in half along the length thing came from. You absolutely must do this otherwise the diaper could fold the other way with the v pointing up towards you. There is no landing zone just like the betterdry so you only get two shots at fastening them. The boosters Northshore sell are quite good also and you can put one or two inside a supreme for extra milage but as usual it reduces the working height of the standing leak guards. 

 

[dondd]

For all the reasons Puppyz cites, along with my own personal experiences, go with @NorthShoreAdam Northshore Care.  I use their product full time.  Great service with a product that fits my needs.  They also carry the Better Dry - a product that you have mentioned in the past.  You can contact them on their web site and check out details of getting product shipped to you at your hotel.  

[oznl]

Thanks for the advice @Puppyz and @dondd.  I'll reach out to @NorthShoreAdam once I'm locked and loaded with flights and hotel (most likely in a fortnight or so) and I just might take to opportunity to try out some of those Northshore product I just can't buy downunder.

11 hours ago, Puppyz said:

Going through airports is no problem for me even when fairly wet getting off the plane at LAX, going through customs, changing terminals and going back through TSA. Getting back through TSA is where you will likely encounter a more thorough pat down and residue test afterwards if you are wet. If you are dry then it shouldn't be a problem. Just be up front with TSA and tell them you are wearing a diaper as you are incontinent. Sometimes they ask if you want a private screening but I've always just said no as I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me. In reality you are surrounded by a heck of a lot of people who will see you and this happening but they won't actually see it. They are too busy trying to get through themselves and gather their stuff before their bags and phones get stolen lol. 

As for changing on the plane, I'm going to assume you are able to change standing or seated. If you are a bigger guy...good luck lol. I'm 5'2" and whilst I'm average across the shoulders, it's a bit cramped even for me.

I'd plan to go through Australian security dry (possibly even take them off because our stupid body scanners are set to go off at even a dry diaper it seems based on prior experience).  I'd change into a BetterDry which should last me all the way to LAX.  I know I can change out of that as there are bathrooms just outside of customs.  Last time I flew in I was only a few days out of 24/7 use, my cruise range was shot to hell and I needed to use that bathroom pretty badly!

I'd then go through security again in a dry diaper (or maybe diaper-free? don't really want the TSA check) and the next diaper should last me all the way through to ID.

I'm 6'3" and my company makes us fly discount economy so it will be a bad seat up the back but I shouldn't have to change on the plane.  I can get 13 hours out of a BetterDry in that scenario as I'm usually a bit dehydrated anyway.

ps: after months of drought and bushfire it's now flooding in South East QLD.   Up to 300mm of rain fell last night in parts of the Gold Coast hinterland and 115mm in my own rain gauge.  The big theme parks on the Gold Coast are closed and the highway is cut due to flooding.  You've just got to love the Australian climate!

 

[Little Sherri]

Another thought, @oznl - you can order most products, including Rearz products, and probably Better-Dry (which can be had through Rearz, and probably also a number of other outlets), via Amazon, and have them either delivered to the hotel, or, to an Amazon pickup point. I'm not sure about Idaho, but where I am, those things are all over the place now, and some of the automated lockers are quite large. That would make the transaction entirely without human contact, if you want it that way. 

As @Puppyz intimated, the diapers available at drug stores and supermarkets are all pretty much crap. They'll do in a pinch, but they are unreliable, and so you'll end up not wanting to tiptoe past about 50% of their diminutive capacity, meaning you'll be swapping them every three hours. I've been there. If you get stuck, buy some Pampers Cruisers size 6 (there is also a 7 but it's harder to find) and use them as a stuffer in the godawful Tena or Depends or whatever you end up with - those Pampers are actually a way better diaper, because the people who rely on them are serious users. I've been astonished at what they can hold, given that toddlers are not, as a demographic, prone to binge drinking. I can only assume that parents are taking the 12 hour promise they advertise as if it were a factory warranty.  

Airports in the US are crazy about scanners, and more often than not, I end up going through one, so, I tend to toss my flight diaper into my computer bag and not wear one while I pass through security, although a lot of people have told me that wearing one into the scanner isn't a big deal, and the TSA officers have seen everything under the sun, and a lot of things that never see the sun, and won't blink twice at a diaper, considering that earlier in the day they probably had to swab down someone's homemade mule-bridle autoerotic asphyxia rig for the big choked-mule-play forum in Denver. 

[oznl]

@Little Sherri thanks for the tips.  This is all starting to look feasible now.

A curious development:

With the weekend comes “my” washing load.  The machine load that I take care of myself.  Generally speaking, this consists of three to four sets of cloth nappies (don’t worry, they were soaking in a tub, not decomposing in a bedroom) as I will have spent the couple of nights and a day building up to the weekend wearing cloth, along with the plastic pants, compression stockings and maybe night time trainer pants that I wore along with disposables during the week.

The monsoon has decided to arrive so I’m a bit dubious as to how I’m going to get all this dry when the washer goes “beep beep beep”.  There is nothing quite as miserable as running a tumble dryer when it’s 30C and 80% humidity but I digress.

As I sorted through the washing to be done this morning it occurred to me that yet again, my terry-lined waterproof trainer pants had made it to the weekend pee-free.  This has consistently been the case recently and checking my own notes, it was more than one month ago that I last experienced a night nappy leak sufficient to wet my trainers.

I seem to have stopped leaking in bed.  A few months back, I would be wetting my trainer at least one night in three.  It’s not like I’ve stopped peeing at night.  I’m using the same nappy system I’ve been using for a year in bed:  Molicare slip maxi under trainers.

This might be co-incidence and I’ll wake up tomorrow morning floating in a tepid swamp of yellowing terry towelling.  It also might be with all the heat and AC going on, I’m just a bit dehydrated (although this morning’s nappy was impressively wet upon changing, wet to a degree I yet again had zero recollection of being responsible for.  I thought I’d just dribbled a little bit around 4am).  It also might be that I’m wetting with high frequency and low volume during the night also and this is allowing my nappy to cope more effectively.

Time will tell.