Bedwetting in older child - have you experienced this and how did you get help?

[lisalisa]

My 11 yr old son is bedwetting and we need to get some help.

It is on and off and can be off for months before it returns for a solid 2 or 3 weeks. Each time we have decided to get help it more or less stops till it returns. No trigger really and he feels of course humiliated and helpless.

Thought of trying GP for referral but if I can do something quicker - privately or just purchase something would rather do that.

I was a bedwetter myself and remember using the buzzy alarm mats with great success at approx the same age so thinking of just buying this.

Alternatively does anyone know of any bedwetting clinics either NHS or private that you can self refer to ?

My GP is very slow and difficult and referrals take ages and appointments are nearly impossible to get hence the desire to go elsewhere/do this myself. In addition I am giving birht in about 5 weeks so want to get it sorted soonest.

Thanks eveyrone

My son is 10 and has only ever had a handful of dry nights. He was referred to a bedwetting clinic at about 8 because they don't seem to regard as a problem until then. He's tried various medication and alarms but no success yet. He's just about to start on some new medication so fingers crossed.

The nurse always emphasises drinking lots throughout the day - 8 drinks. The bladder should be a certain size at each age. It's x ml (forgotten the x but sure you can google it multiplied by age). He'll need to measure his wee to calculate it. If it's really small this info could perhaps be used to get a referral.

The ERICwebsite has alarms, etc and good advice. I know for some medication is pretty instant success - not for DS2 unforunatley!

Good luck

Thanks - great name by the way! So did you get your referral through your GP?

I wish your son best of luck with his new meds. I think its about this age - 10/11 as our sons are that it tends to become a bit more intense as they do care much more.

Do you put your son in pull up pants?

I don't know if this'll be any help, but we've recently been referred to the enuresis clinic for dd(8), having had no advice whatsoever from Dr's. (who seemed more intent on telling me that her bedwetting could easily carry on into adulthood, and couldn't give me any practical tips at all)

Included with the referral appointment was a drinks timetable, and she now has to have a drink (200mls) at breakfast time, 10am, lunch time, 2pm, 4pm and a last big drink at 6.30 (an hour and a half before bedtime). This can be water, milk, fruit juice/squash, but no fizzy drinks, or tea/coffe/hot chocolate.

They also suggest that we don't use pull up pants, but use something like this instead, so the child can feel that they've wee'd, and are more likely to start to wake up, rather than sleeping through it.

Sorry, this is probably all obvious stuff, but it wasn't to me at all , and I really wish we'd been given these bits of advice ages ago, because, where it hasn't completely successful, within a couple of weeks, dd is drier than she ever has been before.

in our area the school nurse team have been helpful with day time wetting (DS1 is fine at night for some reason). And I think they may even be able to loan out alarms etc. You can probably get their phone number from the school or via the health visitor team . I would also recommend the ERIC website.

It's interesting that he has periods of being dry and then periods of wetting, have you checked with gp that he doesn't have a urinary infection?

faverghoulles and spoooookyhedgey ( hoep i put enough "o"s in your name!) thankm you both very much. I did think of urine infections but don't think he could be having them this frequently - would amount to at least 6 or 7 bedwetting episodes lasting about a week each per year and ther's otherwise no symptoms of UTIs ( I suffered with them myself for year as a child so know the symptoms).

Thanks for link to ERIC website - waiting till they open at 10 to see what the helpline suggests.
Thank you also for the timetable faverghoulles that is really intersting and insightful. I guess in some kids more "control" is needed in fluids but how to refuse a child who is thirsty after 6.30pm? Ds is 11 so doesn't sleep till 9.00pm.

The last drink should be an hour and a half before bedtime, so 7.30 in your case.

For the first week or so, dd got quite upset at not having a drink nearer bedtime, so we let her have a little bit, but started to up the amount she had at teatime and the run up to bedtime. I think in her case, she was doing the majority of drinking in the evening.

She had her first completely dry night last night :o

Oh well done your dd faverghoulles. I rang the helpline and have made contact wtih a clinic held in a local hospital so ds shoudl have an appointment shortly...

good luck with the appointment, hopefully you and your DS will get the help you need

I totally relate o this. My ds hardly drinks in the day and then stocks up from 5 onwards and therefore wets.

I've got an older dd with issues. She first saw the enuresis specialist at about 7, had alarms, was cured, replased many months later, was then medicated until about 6 months ago when she seemed to have finally grown out of it :) in reality we still have occasional accidents (a couple a month) but they're down to mismanagement as much as anything else.

As faverghoulles says you really need to encourage more drinking earlier in the day, then hopefully it won't be as much of an issue later as he won't be so thirsty

I think it's worth getting his urine checked too. So easy to get a sample when they're older! and it's something the GP can do, so easy to arrange.

We were told no dark coloured drinks as well as no caffeine. So blackcurrant etc is banned. I've a friend whose daughter has an issue with orange squash too though, so water or milk might be safer. They also recommended that dd should pee, brush her teeth then pee again just to make sure.

I've found as she gets older we've had issues with bedtimes. She gets sent to bed but doesn't actually go to sleep, just stays up reading very quietly for ages before going to sleep. So her bedtime wee sometimes ends up an hour or more before she sleeps and that doesn't end well!

I've also found she's much more likely to have an accident if she's overtired, has gone to bed later than normal, has something else wrong (cat on the bed / duvet fallen off / has a cold) or if it's the end of the school holidays! (my best guess is that it's pre-school nerves if that makes any sense!)

Sorry that's so long! try to reassure your ds that he will grow out of it. Puberty has a huge surge in all hormones, not just the sex ones, hopefully then his bladder and kidneys will get things better co-ordinated :)

DS 12 has never been dry at night. He has HFA, so it is linked to that, but we'd been seeing the enuresis clinic since he was 6, before his HFA was diagnosed.

The clinic recommended at about age 10 that he should have to wake up and change his own sheets when he wet them. That didn't work at all for DS who is quite unco-ordinated due to his AS - it may work better for your DS.

He takes desmopressin medication now to stay dry at night which works well and has no side effects. If it is really distressing your DS I'd ask for a referral and ask them about this. Not sure if a GP can prescribe it or if it would have to be through the enuresis clinic.

Tel me more re the no blackcurrent drinks. I am trying to work out what the trigger is and that is a new one.

catherine what is HFA?

I'm guessing HFA = high functioning autism

Changing her own sheets didn't work for NT dd either! she was just too sleepy to manage and all the 'encouragement' required for it to happen woke up her sisters who share the room!

The blackcurrant ban was for any dark coloured drinks, so vimto, mixed fruits etc whatever is dark coloured. Also no coke, hot choc, tea or coffee. I don't know what it about them, but enuresis specialist said no. dd didn't drink any of them by choice when we first started, so I didn't question it!

Now several years later she loves coke, so we have to really limit that too or she has problems :(