Unseendl’s Bedwetting Journal

[Unseendl]

@Craig That is a hormone I've surprisingly never heard of. I'm glad you were able to turn lemons into lemonade, but I'm sorry you had to start out that way.

Practice, practice, practice. I can hear my coaches from all of my sports teams growing up and I luckily get to have a chuckle now to it's application ?.

1 hour ago, Craig said:

Consistency is the key, with reasonable, safe practices done over and over, and if you want to, you'll get there.

I think I'm still in the "figuring it out" phase, which once I do, it will then become the consistent mode. Last night I already had a huge improvement of waking, wetting, and going back to sleep, than I have had in weeks. Making baby steps back!

[Craig]

Way to go. If you’re already able to wake up to pee in bed, from what I’ve read, you’re further along than you might think. Now it’s a matter of getting your hard-headed brain to figure out that waking up to pee is pointless. That’ll take a while — I think.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to learn to wet the bed. But I’m pretty sure I fought normal parent attempts to “fix” something I didn’t see as a problem. So, I’m not the best coach with this. Too many other experts on this board. But I can encourage.

People are welcome to correct me where I’m wrong, but this just has to become a habit so you practice over and over. It’s just that this practice is a hoot. You’d be amazed at some of the habits people develop, like getting up in the morning and going to work each week day. Wild stuff, huh?

[stevewet]

11 hours ago, Craig said:

Way to go. If you’re already able to wake up to pee in bed, from what I’ve read, you’re further along than you might think. Now it’s a matter of getting your hard-headed brain to figure out that waking up to pee is pointless. That’ll take a while — I think.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to learn to wet the bed. But I’m pretty sure I fought normal parent attempts to “fix” something I didn’t see as a problem. So, I’m not the best coach with this. Too many other experts on this board. But I can encourage.

People are welcome to correct me where I’m wrong, but this just has to become a habit so you practice over and over. It’s just that this practice is a hoot. You’d be amazed at some of the habits people develop, like getting up in the morning and going to work each week day. Wild stuff, huh?

Growing up I never saw my bedwetting as a problem.

[Unseendl]

13 hours ago, Craig said:

Way to go. If you’re already able to wake up to pee in bed, from what I’ve read, you’re further along than you might think. Now it’s a matter of getting your hard-headed brain to figure out that waking up to pee is pointless. That’ll take a while — I think.

Absolutely the first step. What's weird for me was that back in January, I was strangely able to wake up consistently on schedule, lay in bed, take a few minutes to relax and then wet. In February, I couldn't get myself to wakeup, or to relax enough without distraction. A couple nights ago was the first night I woke, did my routine and went back to bed. My guess is work-stress related

[Craig]

I have several Google Alerts set to kick out one email each day with results from various topics I specify. One is “adult bedwetting.” I don’t get much on that one, but this just came in from the National Association for Continence. I understand that we’re on the opposite side of that organization’s goals, but here’s some encouragement: Most of the time, medical professionals have no idea why adults wet the bed and a lot of them just help with selection of undergarments and blow it off. The underlined parts are emphasis by me.

“Adult bedwetting. It’s a rarely talked about condition, but is one that affects many people. In fact, NAFC receives more visits to the adult bedwetting pages than any other page on our site. People struggle with this condition for all sorts of reasons – spinal cord injuries, neurological diseases, and even stress can cause bedwetting. And sometimes there can be seemingly no cause at all, which makes it all the more frustrating to address. Most people who wet the bed are desperate for a solution. They find it deeply embarrassing, and it greatly affects their quality of life, as they are constantly dealing with keeping things clean and worried about how it will affect current or future relationships.”

…

“My first Urologist really wanted to focus on medication. I was all for that if it would make my problem go away, but it didn’t and it had undesirable side effects. When the medication didn’t work the Urologist referred me to a physical therapist and a psychologist, convinced my continence issues were the result of depression. They weren’t, and that was when I opted to go with another Urologist. Not every Cop that pulls you over is going to give you a ticket, and not every Doctor is going to focus on what works for you. My second Doctor was focused on how it affected me and how to manage it, and it proved to be a more fruitful relationship.”

So this person went through a urologist and meds, then a physical therapist, then a psychologist, all of whom failed to fix the problem. So this person went to another doctor who basically helped in the selection of diapers.

I would think one of the meds they tried was the one that ramps up the anti-diuretic hormone at night to reduce production of urine while asleep. Apparently it frequently doesn’t work and has nasty side effects. So much for worrying about ADH levels. Forget that. You can’t do anything about that anyway, trying without a doctor’s supervision would be unhealthy, and it just does’t matter.

Again, it seems most times medical professionals have no idea why adults wet the bed. The run tests, try meds, do other stuff, then recommend diapers. So, they find nothing physically or mentally causing bedwetting. So it’s gotta be something else.

So, if you find yourself more of less physically normal and are dry, learning and developing the habit of bedwetting is within your grasp if you want it bad enough. There is very likely nothing physically or mentally stopping you if you want this goal. Too many people with no clinical conditions causing bedwetting still wet the bed.

Just my 2 cents. The link to the article is at “Adult bedwetting” at the top of the first quote.

 

[Craig]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:39 PM, Unseendl said:

Absolutely the first step. What's weird for me was that back in January, I was strangely able to wake up consistently on schedule, lay in bed, take a few minutes to relax and then wet. In February, I couldn't get myself to wakeup, or to relax enough without distraction. A couple nights ago was the first night I woke, did my routine and went back to bed. My guess is work-stress related

It sounds like you make a good point. This progress from dry nights to consistent wet nights sounds like it’s not smooth. So people probably get discouraged. However, from what I’ve read, the first time you wake up wet when you went to bed dry, or work up clearly wetter than you were when you fell asleep — even if you don’t experience that for another week or more — know for sure that it is possible since you did it. I think all you have to do is stay with your program and you’ll get there — maybe in a couple of months or so — maybe in a year. So enjoy the journey. It sounds like you will get there eventually. And who knows? The longer it took you to achieve your goal, maybe the harder it is to retrain you so it will be more permanent?

 

[Unseendl]

4 hours ago, Craig said:

It sounds like you make a good point. This progress from dry nights to consistent wet nights sounds like it’s not smooth. So people probably get discouraged. However, from what I’ve read, the first time you wake up wet when you went to bed dry, or work up clearly wetter than you were when you fell asleep — even if you don’t experience that for another week or more — know for sure that it is possible since you did it. I think all you have to do is stay with your program and you’ll get there — maybe in a couple of months or so — maybe in a year. So enjoy the journey. It sounds like you will get there eventually. And who knows? The longer it took you to achieve your goal, maybe the harder it is to retrain you so it will be more permanent?

 

Based on how stubborn my body is, I expect the journey to take longer than a year. Anything less is just a bonus. Thanks for also sending a link to that article. A lot of solid health information in there and education. Even though that's 99% the opposite of the goal, it's very informative of what's going on with different parts of the anatomy.

[Craig]

10 minutes ago, Unseendl said:

Based on how stubborn my body is, I expect the journey to take longer than a year. Anything less is just a bonus. Thanks for also sending a link to that article. A lot of solid health information in there and education. Even though that's 99% the opposite of the goal, it's very informative of what's going on with different parts of the anatomy.

Hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

[Hannah YMS]

On 3/5/2023 at 9:15 PM, Craig said:

Way to go. If you’re already able to wake up to pee in bed, from what I’ve read, you’re further along than you might think. Now it’s a matter of getting your hard-headed brain to figure out that waking up to pee is pointless. That’ll take a while — I think.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to learn to wet the bed. But I’m pretty sure I fought normal parent attempts to “fix” something I didn’t see as a problem. So, I’m not the best coach with this. Too many other experts on this board. But I can encourage.

People are welcome to correct me where I’m wrong, but this just has to become a habit so you practice over and over. It’s just that this practice is a hoot. You’d be amazed at some of the habits people develop, like getting up in the morning and going to work each week day. Wild stuff, huh?

I think the biggest hurdle everyone has to overcome (well, most everyone I guess) is learning to trust your diapers in bed. If you are afraid of leaking, it won't work. This has been my experience anyway. I'm getting to the point where I'll wake up and whatever position I'm in I feel the need to wet and finally do wet, but if I'm laying on my stomach I feel the need to kneel in bed and let it go. Not ideal, but it's a start.

On 3/6/2023 at 1:32 PM, Craig said:

Most people who wet the bed are desperate for a solution. They find it deeply embarrassing, and it greatly affects their quality of life, as they are constantly dealing with keeping things clean and worried about how it will affect current or future relationships.

Ha! Not us!

[stevewet]

My advice is simple do not fret about leaks. Protect the bed and accept sometimes your nappy will leak and the sheet will get wet. If you use flanellette sheets and a washable bed pad under the bottom sheet the bed will stay warm even when wet

[Unseendl]

On 3/8/2023 at 8:33 PM, jonbearab said:

I think the biggest hurdle everyone has to overcome (well, most everyone I guess) is learning to trust your diapers in bed. If you are afraid of leaking, it won't work.

2 hours ago, stevewet said:

My advice is simple do not fret about leaks. Protect the bed and accept sometimes your nappy will leak and the sheet will get wet. If you use flanellette sheets and a washable bed pad under the bottom sheet the bed will stay warm even when wet

It's definitely one of the biggest hurdles in my opinion too. My wife has actually had a long history with nocturnal enuresis and had been wetting the bed since she was in her single digits. Since she met me, her diaper selection improved dramatically (?) but occasionally her it would still leak. Knowing this was a possibility, we've had our mattress in a waterproof sheet since we've been together and it's removed the fear of bed damage, which works for the both of us.

Recently though, I have come to add an additional for myself with a reusable bed pad underneath the fitted sheet. It really keeps the leaks localized to a specific area, and does a great job of preventing puddling.

 

[oznl]

12 hours ago, Unseendl said:

It's definitely one of the biggest hurdles in my opinion too.

I have a waterproof liner beneath a cotton mattress protector.  A bedwetting event outside of a nappy will trigger a lot of laundry but the mattress will be safe.

On a day to day basis, sleeping in disposables, I have discovered these to be a game-changer:

https://babykins.com/collections/adult-terry-lined-plastic-pants/products/kins-lined-6-mil-double-terry-vinyl-pant-20300dltv

Even with a catastrophic disposable leak, all that will happen is that I have to wash some wet terries, the bed remains fine.

[Unseendl]

6 hours ago, oznl said:

https://babykins.com/collections/adult-terry-lined-plastic-pants/products/kins-lined-6-mil-double-terry-vinyl-pant-20300dltv

Even with a catastrophic disposable leak, all that will happen is that I have to wash some wet terries, the bed remains fine.

That was a similar recent purchase for me. I bought a couple of these (basically the same thing) a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.llmedico.com/garywear-active-brief-adult-diaper-cover/

And they've already saved me a couple of loads of laundry

[Unseendl]

Update #4

I’m two months behind my update. If I’m being honest, I’d say that once the daily journals started falling by the wayside, my progress had started slipping as well. Work has been a huge factor in my ability/desire to journal about my progress, but I haven’t given up on my goal.

 I’ve had a good conversation recently that has really helped solidify my path. The short version is that I had been subconsciously processing what I felt was guilt/hypocrisy in turning incontinent. What I mean is that, after a couple of hurdles that life threw at me, I started questioning if I should go back. During those struggles, in the back of my mind, I know that I could always turn the car around and stop this journey but that’s not what I wanted. The hypocrisy part came into play as my brain acknowledges that there are people out there who don’t have a choice in there matter, and the problem of finding supplies when I needed them made me question my journey.

I spoke with my therapist about my point of view on this and she pushed back on me to ask “why does is matter that someone else needs diapers for one reason and you need them for another?” After some more talking, the self-care point was made, and it was hard to argue against that. For me, being incontinent and being in diapers was my way of caring for myself and at the end of the day, I’m not taking any resources away from anyone or hurting anyone else in the process. These were things that I thought I had talked myself into before, but it was before I had the “scare” of not having supplies for a week and not knowing what to do about it. Since that conversation with my therapist, I’ve found myself much more relaxed in knowing that I still have a support group in my corner, and it really truly is only me that is majorly affected. So I’ve been able to continue to march forward and had felt the motivation again to start writing about my journey.

The progress:

Hasn’t felt like much, but progress has been made. I have noticed that I do wet myself more quickly when standing, and in some situations, but I still am finding difficult to release while I’m lying in bed, unless I’m looking at my phone. For a while, I was able to stop, think about the feeling when I consciously knew I had to go, and could put my mind into a spot where I felt specifically the “thinking-doing.” The results where I would wet my diaper, either full release or several smaller ones, but it still took some time to wet, and I fear every morning that I’m taking too long and reversing any progress made, by letting my bladder expand more that I should let it. This inevitably leads to me overthinking my control and my subconscious takes over to prevent me from having accidents.

Hurdles aside, I have re-constituted my foundation of needing to be incontinent, I now actually believe myself when I say “I’m incontinent.” It doesn’t feel like a “fake-it until you make-it” situation anymore, and that’s a level of acceptance that I thought I had, but really was subconsciously fighting it.

I am incontinent, and I’ve never felt more normal than I do now!

[stevewet]

1 hour ago, Unseendl said:

Update #4

I’m two months behind my update. If I’m being honest, I’d say that once the daily journals started falling by the wayside, my progress had started slipping as well. Work has been a huge factor in my ability/desire to journal about my progress, but I haven’t given up on my goal.

 I’ve had a good conversation recently that has really helped solidify my path. The short version is that I had been subconsciously processing what I felt was guilt/hypocrisy in turning incontinent. What I mean is that, after a couple of hurdles that life threw at me, I started questioning if I should go back. During those struggles, in the back of my mind, I know that I could always turn the car around and stop this journey but that’s not what I wanted. The hypocrisy part came into play as my brain acknowledges that there are people out there who don’t have a choice in there matter, and the problem of finding supplies when I needed them made me question my journey.

I spoke with my therapist about my point of view on this and she pushed back on me to ask “why does is matter that someone else needs diapers for one reason and you need them for another?” After some more talking, the self-care point was made, and it was hard to argue against that. For me, being incontinent and being in diapers was my way of caring for myself and at the end of the day, I’m not taking any resources away from anyone or hurting anyone else in the process. These were things that I thought I had talked myself into before, but it was before I had the “scare” of not having supplies for a week and not knowing what to do about it. Since that conversation with my therapist, I’ve found myself much more relaxed in knowing that I still have a support group in my corner, and it really truly is only me that is majorly affected. So I’ve been able to continue to march forward and had felt the motivation again to start writing about my journey.

The progress:

Hasn’t felt like much, but progress has been made. I have noticed that I do wet myself more quickly when standing, and in some situations, but I still am finding difficult to release while I’m lying in bed, unless I’m looking at my phone. For a while, I was able to stop, think about the feeling when I consciously knew I had to go, and could put my mind into a spot where I felt specifically the “thinking-doing.” The results where I would wet my diaper, either full release or several smaller ones, but it still took some time to wet, and I fear every morning that I’m taking too long and reversing any progress made, by letting my bladder expand more that I should let it. This inevitably leads to me overthinking my control and my subconscious takes over to prevent me from having accidents.

Hurdles aside, I have re-constituted my foundation of needing to be incontinent, I now actually believe myself when I say “I’m incontinent.” It doesn’t feel like a “fake-it until you make-it” situation anymore, and that’s a level of acceptance that I thought I had, but really was subconsciously fighting it.

I am incontinent, and I’ve never felt more normal than I do now!

"I am incontinent and Ive never felt more normal than I do now!"

Describes me to a tee.

[MLDK]

On 5/20/2023 at 9:17 AM, Unseendl said:

Update #4

I’m two months behind my update. If I’m being honest, I’d say that once the daily journals started falling by the wayside, my progress had started slipping as well. Work has been a huge factor in my ability/desire to journal about my progress, but I haven’t given up on my goal.

 I’ve had a good conversation recently that has really helped solidify my path. The short version is that I had been subconsciously processing what I felt was guilt/hypocrisy in turning incontinent. What I mean is that, after a couple of hurdles that life threw at me, I started questioning if I should go back. During those struggles, in the back of my mind, I know that I could always turn the car around and stop this journey but that’s not what I wanted. The hypocrisy part came into play as my brain acknowledges that there are people out there who don’t have a choice in there matter, and the problem of finding supplies when I needed them made me question my journey.

I spoke with my therapist about my point of view on this and she pushed back on me to ask “why does is matter that someone else needs diapers for one reason and you need them for another?” After some more talking, the self-care point was made, and it was hard to argue against that. For me, being incontinent and being in diapers was my way of caring for myself and at the end of the day, I’m not taking any resources away from anyone or hurting anyone else in the process. These were things that I thought I had talked myself into before, but it was before I had the “scare” of not having supplies for a week and not knowing what to do about it. Since that conversation with my therapist, I’ve found myself much more relaxed in knowing that I still have a support group in my corner, and it really truly is only me that is majorly affected. So I’ve been able to continue to march forward and had felt the motivation again to start writing about my journey.

The progress:

Hasn’t felt like much, but progress has been made. I have noticed that I do wet myself more quickly when standing, and in some situations, but I still am finding difficult to release while I’m lying in bed, unless I’m looking at my phone. For a while, I was able to stop, think about the feeling when I consciously knew I had to go, and could put my mind into a spot where I felt specifically the “thinking-doing.” The results where I would wet my diaper, either full release or several smaller ones, but it still took some time to wet, and I fear every morning that I’m taking too long and reversing any progress made, by letting my bladder expand more that I should let it. This inevitably leads to me overthinking my control and my subconscious takes over to prevent me from having accidents.

Hurdles aside, I have re-constituted my foundation of needing to be incontinent, I now actually believe myself when I say “I’m incontinent.” It doesn’t feel like a “fake-it until you make-it” situation anymore, and that’s a level of acceptance that I thought I had, but really was subconsciously fighting it.

I am incontinent, and I’ve never felt more normal than I do now!

Try switch to cloth diapers for nighttime. Maybe your subconscious is going against you, out of fear of leaking. Disposables (my opinion) are not suited for handling bedwetting.

I’m on the same path as you, and use exclusively cloth diapers, so when I wet in bed, no matter how I’m positioned I can wet freely without fearing leaks.

[Diapered Dave]

3 hours ago, MLDK said:

Try switch to cloth diapers for nighttime. Maybe your subconscious is going against you, out of fear of leaking. Disposables (my opinion) are not suited for handling bedwetting.

I’m on the same path as you, and use exclusively cloth diapers, so when I wet in bed, no matter how I’m positioned I can wet freely without fearing leaks.

^^^ What he said...  I also use mainly cloth diapers at night.  I rarely ever leak in bed with my thick cotton diapers and plastic panties. When I travel and stay in hotels, I'll wear a disposable diaper with a booster pad inside, and a cloth diaper and plastic pants over it, just incase.

[Unseendl]

6 hours ago, MLDK said:

Try switch to cloth diapers for nighttime. Maybe your subconscious is going against you, out of fear of leaking. Disposables (my opinion) are not suited for handling bedwetting.

3 hours ago, Diapered Dave said:

^^^ What he said...  I also use mainly cloth diapers at night.  I rarely ever leak in bed with my thick cotton diapers and plastic panties. When I travel and stay in hotels, I'll wear a disposable diaper with a booster pad inside, and a cloth diaper and plastic pants over it, just incase.

I've thought about that a time or two, and really have only tried it once. I hadn't worked out a good management system for when I wake up and have to deal with the wet diaper, but I know there's a few different ways with diaper pales. I'll give it another shot, but I only have a couple of diapers so there's definitely some more investment needed.

[ozziebee]

I concur with the above advice re using cloth nappies at night.  I had my first sleep wetting episode the other day, and I've been 24/7 on and off for about 5 years or so, maybe a bit longer.  I woke up after a good late afternoon sleep to feel the sensations of wee drops wicking their way up the small of my back, only then to get sucked into the cloth padding.  I'm a side sleeper.

All of my experiences to date with cloth has been this wicking occurring after a wetting episode.  It happens irrespective of whether I'm in cloth or disposables, and lying on my side.

I have always woken up before to the pee urges, and still lying on my side had a release happen, with some pee drops wicking away along my butt crack to the small of my back.  The sensation is like having ants crawl across my back.  Even if i'm lucid, I'll wake up fully, as I'm expecting to leak at that point, as I always have had leaks from the small of my back when lying in bed on my side with disposables.  As a result, it's the signal to lie on my back and hope that gravity takes over faster, and have the drops touch and be sucked up by the disposable padding, or cloth padding.  

So this episode last week was surreal in that I woke up only when the drops were marching across my back.  Which meant I'd already wet in my sleep.  I realised it wasn't press-out (which cloth is prone to do when saturated), as I'd only just changed a couple of hours before my sleep, and these cloth prefolds can take up over 12-18hours of use before being in danger of pressout leaks.  

What's the difference here?  I think my body and mind both understand that I'm not going to leak when asleep, unlike with disposables.  If there's __any__ risk of leaks, I'll wake up to the urges.  If one absolutely trusts the cloth nappy to keep one safe from a wet bed, guess what'll happen?