CP and Adult Incontinence Pull Up Diaper Pants

BIT2FAST4U

I just want to share my experience of my struggle with bladder control and the use of pull up diaper pants. I am a 56 year old male with Cerebral Palsy. I am a full-time powered wheelchair user and although I need help with many everyday activities, I am independent with dressing and toileting. I used to have very good bladder control, but in recent years it has deteriorated. I got to a point where I needed to pee every hour and sometimes more frequently. Also, when I need to pee I was unable to hold on for long without having small accidents. Needing a wheelchair accessible toilet and not being able to get to the toilet quickly compounding the problem even more. I got to a point where I didn’t want to go out in case I needed a pee and I could not get to a toilet in time.

I did turn to my GP and I have seen an urologist. After a few unpleasant test procedures, I was told that there was nothing physically wrong with me, I just had an over active bladder. I am now taking two medications for this, Mirabegron 50mg tablets and Solifenacin 5mg tablets, which have helped to calm things down a bit. I am peeing less frequently, and it is less urgent when I need to go, however it has affected my confidence and I still worry about needing a pee at the wrong time.

While I was struggling with this issue and waiting for the test procedures, I confided in a friend, and she suggested that I might try some incontinence products as they are quite good these days. Well, I didn’t tell my friend, but my initial reaction to this idea was one of disgust. Diapers are for babies, not adults. How could I purposely pee myself and sit in my own pee for hours? It would make me wet, smelly, and dirty. How could I consider this as an option? After a lot of thought I managed to get my head around the idea of trying adult diapers, which was the hardest thing for me to overcome. I decided to do some research and experiment with some products. The internet is a wonderful thing for research and ordering products discretely.

I soon decided that pull up diaper pants would probably be the easiest product for me to use as they are virtually the same as putting on normal underwear. The problem was that there are so many different brands with different absorbency ratings. I knew that I needed high absorbency if they were going to be of any real benefit to me as I would need to be able to empty my bladder 2 or 3 times into them without any leaks. Over the last couple of years, I have tried quite a few different brands, but I still rate the first ones that I tried as the best in terms of comfort, dryness, absorbency, leakage, and odour control. That is Comfy Life Premium Adult Incontinence Pull Up High Absorbency Diaper Pants with a claimed absorbency of up to 2500ml. My second recommendation are TENA Proskin Maxi (Pull up) Pants with a claimed absorbency of 2550ml. These were in size Small for me, but the absorbency capacity increases with the sizes. I have tried cheaper brands, but they either don’t have the absorbency, don’t feel dry, don’t control odour, or don’t fit well or leak easily.

Whenever I go out now, I wear these pull up pants. I don’t think that anyone can tell that I am wearing them, and I don’t always need them, but they give me confidence knowing that they are there if needed. It took a while to get used to peeing myself and to trust that the pull up diapers would absorb everything and not leak. They have saved the day a few times when I needed a pee and there was no accessible toilet available. They are comfortable to wear, even when I have peed there is only a slight dampness that gets less as they absorb. I can pee up to three times in the same diaper with confidence that they will not leak. Once the diaper has pee in them, the absorption rate gets slower, so I do slow down my pee flow, start stop start stop, to allow more time for absorption. I have had leaks through pushing my luck with the number of times that I pee in them, or by using cheaper brands, but fortunately it has not happened in a public situation. I have also found some waterproof shorts that are fleece lined with elastic around the waist and legs that I can wear over the pull ups for extra protection against leaks. I wear these when I know that I will be out for more than a few hours and I want maximum protection against leaks. I normally wear loose fitting jogging bottoms over the these, so it is not obvious what I am wearing underneath. The pull up diapers do get more bulky and quite heavy when they are full of pee. This is not a problem for me being seated in my wheelchair, however if I was walking around, I think that I would need to wear clothing that would provide support to keep the pull up diaper in place.

I have shared this as I thought that it might be helpful to someone else who is struggling with bladder control. I just wanted to show that pull up diapers might be worth a try and they are not as terrible as you might imagine. For me pull up diapers have solved my issues with deteriorating bladder control. I like the fact that I can deal with the issue and maintain my independence and dignity. I can order the pull up diapers online, open the package on delivery, store them discretely in my bedroom, put them on as needed, and place them in the bin after use.

I believe that it is possible to get incontinence products on the NHS, however I don’t really want to ask for this and I am not sure that I would have any choice about the product that they would provide. As I am not using pull up diapers every day, I am able to comfortably afford the cost, however if I was using three or four diapers per day then the cost would be a problem.

Sorry if this is a bit of a long post. Thank you for reading this until the end. I would like to hear other people’s comments, thoughts, or experiences with these issues.