Link between childhood bed wetting and adult incontinence

Status
Not open for further replies.

jamie72

Est. Contributor
Messages
95
Role
  1. Adult Baby
  2. Diaper Lover
  3. Little
  4. Incontinent
Do you think that those of us who wet the bed as children have a greater probability of starting to do it again later in life?
I used to wet my bed until my mid teens and sometimes has daytime accidents as well, these hit fewer as I got older, until I was dry all the time. In my late 30's I started to have problems again. The odd wet bed, then more frequent, later I started not quite making it to the toilet on time, and then full on accidents. I now wear diapers 24/7, and have little or no control of my urine. Having said I was dry, I always had a habit of dribbling a bit in my pants after I peed.
Anyway I was wondering if there is a link between my accidents as a boy and my incontinence now, or if I am just unlucky?
 
I am convinced there is a connection between childhood bladder weakness and it re occurring as an adult. I was a chronic bedwetter as a kid and throughout my teenage years and wasn't reliably dry at night until I was in my early 20's I often wet my pants during the day until I was about 11 and occasionally after that. I too usually dribbled in my pants after peeing. Even after I became dry at night there were episodes of bedwetting and to be honest I have always thought of my self as a bedwetter and it never came as any real surprise if I woke up wet.
When my bedwetting came back with a vengeance after I turned 50 I soon accepted it and as my day time bladder control worsened I just started wearing a nappy all the time. I think some of us are just meant to be this way. It doesn't bother me at all.
 
I'm not fully incontinent, but I have been diagnosed by both my urologist & primary as having severe O.A.B. & mixed incontinence. These symptoms have only gotten worse since my early twenties & the last two years that I've taken a break from my DL activities & diapers in general. - This is all relevant because I was a childhood bed wetter until twelve. But with a lifetime of bladder woes, for me it's not really a 'link' but rather a continuation.

I've been a diaper lover since my earliest childhood memories, but I never loved anything about my issues with bedwetting, and I do not enjoy my condition now. After coming to serious terms these past two years, I feel very duped. 'Hey, you love diapers, don't you? Well! Here ya go! Except one catch.. You'll have to wear either a leak guard or a Depend true fit wherever you go no matter what the situation. You still have enough control to keep you out of diapers legitimately!" -- Not that I necessarily want that either. The options I were given were.. awful, as I'm sure everyone in the forum knows well.
 
Last edited:
I never did stop wetting my bed and became daytime incontinent at age 29 so this may be true
 
I think this has come up before, but yes I think there is a link between bedwetting and later incontinence. It was the case for me too.
 
ST50 said:
I am convinced there is a connection between childhood bladder weakness and it re occurring as an adult. I was a chronic bedwetter as a kid and throughout my teenage years and wasn't reliably dry at night until I was in my early 20's I often wet my pants during the day until I was about 11 and occasionally after that. I too usually dribbled in my pants after peeing. Even after I became dry at night there were episodes of bedwetting and to be honest I have always thought of my self as a bedwetter and it never came as any real surprise if I woke up wet.
When my bedwetting came back with a vengeance after I turned 50 I soon accepted it and as my day time bladder control worsened I just started wearing a nappy all the time. I think some of us are just meant to be this way. It doesn't bother me at all.

Very similar to my own experience. I would have nighttime accidents maybe once a month or so but they seemed to stop when I reach 10 years old. When I hit puberty I started to have the "other" nighttime accidents but that was tolerable. In the ensuing years every once in a great while I would have a problem but nothing consistently. As I got into my forties though it started happening more frequently and after buying an expensive mattress I decided to be diapered every night and that has worked out fine on every level. There are weeks that go by without incident and there are times when I will wet 5 nights in a row.
 
BuffedBaby said:
Very similar to my own experience. I would have nighttime accidents maybe once a month or so but they seemed to stop when I reach 10 years old. When I hit puberty I started to have the "other" nighttime accidents but that was tolerable. In the ensuing years every once in a great while I would have a problem but nothing consistently. As I got into my forties though it started happening more frequently and after buying an expensive mattress I decided to be diapered every night and that has worked out fine on every level. There are weeks that go by without incident and there are times when I will wet 5 nights in a row.

I totally agree. I think there is a strong connection. I was having accidents til I was about 15. Then it returned in my 20s.
 
I've often wondered myself if I may have trouble with incontinence later on in life since I wet the bed until I was 8 or so.
 
Wetting the bed until 8 years old is hardly any thing to worry about and affects many kids. I wet my bed until I was in my 20's and even after that I was never 100% dry at night and have had episodes of bedwetting all through my adult life. I became incontinent due to diabetic related problems around my 50th year. It has got steadily worse and I am dependant on nappies now.
 
ST50 said:
Wetting the bed until 8 years old is hardly any thing to worry about and affects many kids. I wet my bed until I was in my 20's and even after that I was never 100% dry at night and have had episodes of bedwetting all through my adult life. I became incontinent due to diabetic related problems around my 50th year. It has got steadily worse and I am dependant on nappies now.

I didn't think so, but I've always wondered.
 
I think there is a link to. I wet the bed until my mid teens. It stopped with medication until my late 20's which lasted for a few months and then I started again when I was in my late 30's and I'm still wet at night.
 
I would guess there was ..I bedwet into my teens, and started again in my late fifties..of course that is with wetting on purpose in between off and on
 
The old adage "Once a bed wetter,always a bed wetter is very apt. Certainly true in my case. I've always thought of my self as one.
 
BuffedBaby said:
Very similar to my own experience. I would have nighttime accidents maybe once a month or so but they seemed to stop when I reach 10 years old. When I hit puberty I started to have the "other" nighttime accidents but that was tolerable. In the ensuing years every once in a great while I would have a problem but nothing consistently. As I got into my forties though it started happening more frequently and after buying an expensive mattress I decided to be diapered every night and that has worked out fine on every level. There are weeks that go by without incident and there are times when I will wet 5 nights in a row.

Your situation sounds almost exactly like my situation. I had accidents for several straight nights at age 5, age 8. In between years were maybe 3 - 4 times per year? By age 10 I was accident free at night but by age 12 I began to have those "other" wet dream situations and since I did not understand them I bought my first plastic underpants myself. By age 14 I was dry again but then at age 18 and going to college I lost it at night completely the first weeks. I put myself back into a snap-on diaper and plastic underpants for an adult and thankfully my dorm mate seemed OK with it (as compared to having me wet the bed each night).

Sometime my junior year in college my accidents greatly tapered-off but trying to not wear and then having an accident after a month or two of varying degrees made it uncomfortable to sleep without being protected. Now I maybe only wake up with peeing in my training brief / plastic PUL about once very 4 - 6 months and I am able to stop it. I just feel better about wearing nightly and folks that do know I wear fully understand and we rarely discuss it (unless they know someone having nighttime challenges and they want my advice). As you noted "this has worked out on every level".
 
Seeing the amount of people posting on here saying that they wet the bed until their early 20's then managed to stop is very encouraging for me. Then seeing them comment that they are now incontinent 24/7... Not so much.

So, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons here and bring some hope to anyone else in my situation: surely any conclusion we can reach from this thread would be skewed. :educate: Here's why: the target audience for this area of the forum is people who are incontinent. Therefore, we don't have a control group of people who aren't incontinent to compare our conclusion to - it may seem that a lot of people here wet the bed as a child, but the same may actually go for the general population anyway. On top of that, this thread is more likely to attract people who did wet the bed as a child as those who didn't are likely to see the title: "Link between childhood bed wetting and adult incontinence" and scroll past it seeing it as irrelevant to them.

In short, to show whether or not this trend is real, or simply skewed statistics (statistics can be used to prove anything and are usually wrong: 1375643.92% of people agree :cool: ), a full, scientific study would be needed.

At least, that's my 1.42 pence (I'm British, so I don't have 2 cents. :twocents: )

P.S: Sorry if this turned into a bit of a rant.
 
TheNerdyPenguin said:
Seeing the amount of people posting on here saying that they wet the bed until their early 20's then managed to stop is very encouraging for me. Then seeing them comment that they are now incontinent 24/7... Not so much.

Almost all primary bedwetters (kids who have always wet the bed) do so because something physiological (usually hormones that control urine production while sleeping) develops later than it does for most kids. Once it develops properly, they stop wetting the bed. And they never wet again, because once the system starts to work, it continues to work.

All my brothers and sisters and all my cousins on one side wet the bed until they were at least nine or ten. Most of them regularly wet the bed until they were teenagers. All of them stopped wetting the bed (other than an occasional accident) by age 20. As far as I know, none of them wets the bed now. (Although all their kids are chronic bedwetters.)

A very few people never develop all the systems. They just keep on wetting, although it might become less frequent.

Kids who stop wetting the bed, but start again (secondary bedwetters) are probably going to have problems all their lives. Their bodies matured enough for them to stop wetting, but then something else happened.

I stopped wetting the bed before I started school. But I have a condition that's unrelated to body maturity. I have had stretches as long as 5 years without wetting more than a couple of times a year. I have stretches (like right now) when I wet every night.

TheNerdyPenguin said:
So, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons here and bring some hope to anyone else in my situation: surely any conclusion we can reach from this thread would be skewed. :educate: Here's why: the target audience for this area of the forum is people who are incontinent. Therefore, we don't have a control group of people who aren't incontinent to compare our conclusion to - it may seem that a lot of people here wet the bed as a child, but the same may actually go for the general population anyway. On top of that, this thread is more likely to attract people who did wet the bed as a child as those who didn't are likely to see the title: "Link between childhood bed wetting and adult incontinence" and scroll past it seeing it as irrelevant to them.

That's exactly right.
 
TheNerdyPenguin said:
Seeing the amount of people posting on here saying that they wet the bed until their early 20's then managed to stop is very encouraging for me. Then seeing them comment that they are now incontinent 24/7... Not so much.

So, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons here and bring some hope to anyone else in my situation: surely any conclusion we can reach from this thread would be skewed. :educate: Here's why: the target audience for this area of the forum is people who are incontinent. Therefore, we don't have a control group of people who aren't incontinent to compare our conclusion to - it may seem that a lot of people here wet the bed as a child, but the same may actually go for the general population anyway. On top of that, this thread is more likely to attract people who did wet the bed as a child as those who didn't are likely to see the title: "Link between childhood bed wetting and adult incontinence" and scroll past it seeing it as irrelevant to them.

In short, to show whether or not this trend is real, or simply skewed statistics (statistics can be used to prove anything and are usually wrong: 1375643.92% of people agree :cool: ), a full, scientific study would be needed.

At least, that's my 1.42 pence (I'm British, so I don't have 2 cents. :twocents: )

P.S: Sorry if this turned into a bit of a rant.

I always like the quote from Mark Twain (who attributed it to British PM Benjamin Disraeli): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

You are absolutely correct about getting an appropriate population base for proper scientific conclusions to be drawn.
 
I never stoped bedwetting
 
The danger with statistics is that they look at the correlation between child and adult bed wetting. The thing that does not take into account is that we are all individuals and between childhood and adult wetting there are many different variables - our journeys are individual and so many things from lifestyle choices to physical conditions have an affect on the likeliehood and start date of adult problems
 
I'm not sure that childhood and adult bedwetting are different conditions. Some ppl grow out of it and some don't, and others stop and start again
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top