My Badly Behaved Bladder
Does your bladder let you down as well?
Sometimes you just want your MS problems to go away. I know the severity is different for everyone but there are times when the niggles just get to be too much. My badly behaved bladder has been around for over 35 years. Slightly longer than I have been married.
My badly behaved bladder
Its not a record to be proud of. My bad bladder has embarrassed me too often. I remember I always used to look out for the gents sign in case I needed to make a mad dash to strain the potatoes. Then pills would ease the bladder problems but it would always win in a fight to the death.
Introduced to intermittent self-catheterisation
This put me back in the driving seat, I had found a way of keeping the pesky problems under control. My life changed providing I remembered the catheters.
It gets worse
A few months ago I started to wake up after about 5 hours sleep. I couldn’t understand why I had woken up and I could’nt go back to sleep either. Then it dawned on me I needed to go to the loo. This meant I had to leave my nice warm bed.
Going to the loo is not as easy for me as it is for most people. I have dreadful drop foot so no balance. I need to concentrate or else I fall over.
Add to the complication
There are two steps from the bedroom landing down to the loo. OK this last problem has gone because we now have a wet room right next to the bedroom.
So I get to the loo. I catheterise and then stagger back into bed. By now I am a wide awake bunny that does not want to go back to sleep. I tried reading but that woke up The Wife, not a good idea.
Five or six hours sleep a night is not quite enough for me. Seven is just about OK. No good going to bed earlier cos I would still wake up in the night wanting a wee so I have a power nap which sort of works.
BOTOX
Eventually I realised this problem was not going to go away. In fact it is just another feature of MS 🙁 I spoke to someone who knows about these problems. He looked straight into my eyes and said ‘You need Botox!’.
Now I am waiting for the NHS to welcome me onto the BOTOX ship.
Oops!
It is horrendous isn’t it?
I have to have a bottle – with female attachment for early morning wees, standing up is about all I can do without my orthotic boot on! I can only stand if I hang on to my zimmer with one hand. There is no way I would have time to put my boot on for the short journey to the loo….
Hello Jane,
Sometimes life can be a real uber shit. Do look into getting BOTOX it really does work.
Patrick