DS 10 STILL not dry at night

[Abedchangaday]

DS has never been dry at night. Until he was 9 he was wetting 2 or 3 times a night.
Now he’s 10, he’s wetting 1 or 2 times a night.

He has a PGDL trip coming up and is desperate to get dry. He is refusing to wear pull ups any longer, and is using an alarm. However he is still having a small accident before the alarm goes off. So I am changing his bed and PJs twice a night. Washing is crazy. Not to mention the broken sleep; we are all like zombies!

We are careful to limit drinks after 4pm and he goes to the loo before bed. Can anyone help with some advice? He was prescribed tablets from the dr but DS is a keen swimmer and after reading about risks of ingesting water, I want to avoid that if we can.

Both of my boys have had the same issue. The older one had desmopressin but even at the highest dose it didn't work. The local
Continence service lent is a malem alarm - one that there was a mat on the bed with an incredibly loud alarm. It took a few weeks before he was dry aged 11 or 12. My other son, now 12 has just become dry. We bought the astric medical alarm - again one that goes on the bed. For the time he was at scout camp last year, he understandably didn't want to wear pull ups. He had some lined shorts that could also have the addition of an incontinence pad. They look like black boxer shorts and did the job well. I gave him ziplock bags to put them in if he'd been wet to prevent any smell.

5 week wait for a GP appointment is irrelevant isn't it, given that you won't give him the tablets which will sort this out. For no good reason as others have pointed out. There is no magic non-prescription solution. So get the prescription poor kid.

@Abedchangaday we are trying to help you. Most children are prescribed Desmopressin, the details of which are online and state

Bed Wetting
If you are being treated with Desmopressin for bed-wetting, your fluid intake must be limited from 1 hour before until 8 hours after taking the tablets. You should avoid drinking water while swimming and you should stop taking Desmopressin if you are vomiting or have diarrhoea until your fluid balance is back to normal.

It does not say you cannot swim on Desmopressin just "Desmopressin should not be given on nights where your child has drunk a large amount of fluid, including during swimming" the key is large amounts.

The best resource we found was the https://eric.org.uk/childrens-bladders/bedwetting/ website

Have you asked if you can up the dose? Only the max worked for us but then it was like a switch tripped.

a) I had no idea there was any relevance in the fact DS swims until I read the leaflet. Doctor never asked. I will be sure to mention it on every future doctor visit as a precaution.

b) 5 week + wait to see a doctor round here.

My oldest was 16 and on desomelt for years before he was dry at night. He also hit puberty late and him eventually being consistently dry seem to coincide with him turning into a young adult. It was stressful and upsetting but he couldn't do anything about it. We tried everything.

We took my dd to the Dr when she was 9. She said before we tried an alarm or medication we should try waking her at night for the loo. If you have done this already feel free to ignore. We were to bring her to the loo before we went to bed, and repeat again once or twice during the night. I didn't think it would work tbh, but it did. It took a fair few weeks, but eventually we cut it down to waking her twice a night, then once and finally she slept through and was dry in the morning. I thought the idea was to train her to wake up to go to the loo, but the opposite happened, and as I say she just stopped needing to go, no idea why. Also, weirdly, we found that the days she drank a lot of liquid during the day, the less likely she was to soak the bed, so restricting drinks didn't seem to help. Whatever you decide to do, good luck.

That's because there is no relevance to the fact your son swims. Maybe if he was learning to swim and swallowing lots of water within an hour of taking it.
Try the meds. I wet the bed till 11 and it was so embarrassing. One day it just clicked for me that when I was walking to the toilet in my dreams, that meant I was going to wet the bed. I woke myself up and was dry ever since.

We had very similar issues with DS. It all started out of the blue when he was in Year 5. I took him to an Enuresis clinic and we were told that there seems to be some promising evidence from trials that there is a longer term training effect from taking regular Desmopressin. On average he would wet the bed about 7 times a month. We tried the alarm but it didn't work for him. His bladder capacity was tested and it was in the normal / large range. DS also had some accidents whilst on Desmopressin. He would take them for 3 months at a time, then stop and start again after the next wetting episode. We continued for approximately a year and a half and he became completely dry before he turned 13.

Just been through this with my just 8 year old. With the alarm, we put in her pants, and then a pull up on top. So if she did have an accident she just had to change the pull up not the whole bed. We've also got her drinking more in the day (she's got one of those ridiculous Air Up bottles which has made her a lot more willing).

5 week + wait to see a doctor round here.

Can't you just ask for a telephone appointment. It just needs a quick discussion that doesn't need to be F2F.

Unless your DS swallows large amounts of water when swimming why not try the medication now?

@JuniperBerry1 could you link to the lined boxer shorts please?

A pharmacist will likely be more informed about any side effects than the GP, you could go into the pharmacy and ask for advice tomorrow.

As pp's have said mainly either time of medication and as you have the option of medication (once you've spoken to pharmacist to confirm no problems) I can't see why you wouldn't try rather than letting it continue as it is currently.

This is literally what a pharmacist is for. Go and talk to one about the medication + swimming, they’ll be able to talk you through it.

My nephew is 9 and still not dry at night

He was started on Desmopressin a few months ago and it has made a huge difference for him, although not dry every single night

At this age, he needs the medication to help

It is a matter of time but he needs the meds to get through it in the meantime

Speak to your GP for a review, for your child's sake

Nothing worked for my DS for years - even Desmopressin. We eventullay spent £200 for https://www.bedwettingtherapy.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvYHSnZfp_gIVzfV3Ch1KEAJCEAAYASAAEgLC9PD_BwE and it worked in 3 weeks with the alarm and logging the incidents. Yes it’s expensive, might not work for everyone, but honestly was a life changer for us

Healthcare X-Large Black Boys Padded Incontinence boxer amzn.eu/d/gXkTpay Boys incontinence boxer

I agree that the desmo should be fine after speaking to a pharmacist (this can be a phone call) but jeez I don’t know why some people are being so aggressive about it.

OP you could ring the ERIC charity tomorrow for help. You also need to go back to the GP and get referred to a specialist for this.

Bowel Bladder UK is also another charity that would help.

Both have lots of information online plus helplines.

It's not something to try & resolve by yourselves & to be honest not drinking after 4pm sounds like it could be a real problem for him & potentially counter productive.

No liquids after 6pm but drink 2 litres during the day before that (school should help)

Only water and milk at all times - other thing can irritate if they have a sensitive bladder. Definitely definitely no Vimeo blackcurrant etc as mark you wee more

No pull-ups as they need to be woken by bedtime wetting

No lifting when asleep - body will think okay to wee when asleep. if you do get them up which isn’t recommended be sure they are fully awake before toilet

If boy before bed need to sit down to wee on the toilet - the position helps to empty the bladder fully.

As soon as awake it in the morning go to the toilet.

desmo melt not a long term solution, they don’t fix the issue just prevent wee being released by the body. Whatever the problem is will still be there, whilst taking them it might be fixed naturally but it wont be “cured” by desmomelt

if walking getting too much consider cheap sleeping bags - much easier and quicker to wash.

ask to speak to school nurse - they should have someone who can assist. Depending on where you are might be able to self refer. They generally run a clinic.

Oh and GP generally not going to do much for 7 year old - it isn’t a medical problem and isn’t uncommon at that age as upsetting as it is. At least 1 in 10 still do it but no one talks about it so seems rather than it is.

keep a diary of dinner food evening snacks see if there is a trigger. Dairy late at night (eg cereal at supper) can be a trigger for those with an irritated bladder.

If you won’t let him be medicated and the alarm doesn’t work I’m afraid it’s simply a waiting game. It will click eventually, but it’s not something that can be forced.

A small thing, but I’d try to allow him a bit of independence - at 10 he’ll be more than capable of changing his own pyjamas and bedsheets if he wets himself in the night.

Sorry got age wrong - don’t know why I thought he was 7! Generally threshold for support on this is 8 years but I would still speak to school nurse before GP

You aren't giving your child the medicine that will help, because you don't think your 10 year old can be trusted not to deliberately swallow large amounts of swimming pool water. Most 10 year olds can understand this but if yours is a bit slower on the uptake that won't be forever, especially if they understand that being able to cope with that is the only thing keeping them still having to cope with the indignities of pull ups, alarms and midnight sheet changes.

We are beginning to get occasional dry nights without medication at age 13.5 (we try a couple of med-free nights every 2-3 weeks) but there may be a regression. In the vast majority of cases puberty sorts it out if it's not sorted before. The tiny number of people this doesn't happen for just need to take the medicine longer-term. At what age do you think your child will be able to cope with the safety warnings?

Ds is 12 and it's only in the past few weeks she's not wet several times a week, but she is still not consistently dry. She's never been dry at night, and it runs in the family, and is hormonal, so we're just waiting until she grows out of it.

She gets anxiety about the Desmomelt and not having a drink, so only uses it for holidays and sleepovers and just stuck with pull ups. The alarms either didn't wake her, just me most times, or upset her, so she didn't want to use them. And one of them even corroded from being left wet all night. We tried 3 in the end. The dryeasy one worked the best of the ones we used, it was louder than the others.

One of the things that seemed to help with the alarm waking was to tell her a 4 digit number before she went to sleep and she had to tell you it back when she woke with the alarm, to make sure she was properly awake. That helped, as she would otherwise still only be half awake even with the alarm going off and going to the toilet. She's a really deep sleeper but struggles to fall asleep, and I think that hasn't helped.