r/Incontinence

Ive wet the bed my entire life, during the day I cant hold it too long. Ive went from wearing diapers at night and just felt Id rather just diaper myself 24/7 incase and Im more comfortableusing my diaper then being discomforted holding it too long. . Ive dated regular women for some its fine others its a turn off. I wish I could meet someone who also wears diapers that totally gets it. Im sure there are some out there , question is where are you.

I am so sad.

I am so sad. I’m a twenty year old girl in university and I have bowel incontinence. I don’t know what to do, I am so embarrassed and scared about what this means for my health. It’s been this way since I was around 13, and everyone in my life knows I’ve struggled with some kind of intestinal problem but I really blow it off because it’s not something I (or anyone else) is comfortable talking about.

Recently I’ve been struggling more than ever, I’m laying in an Airbnb on a trip any young person my age would be blessed to have and I am paralyzed. I cry. I am so sad I can’t hold in my own shit. I feel horrible about myself and I just don’t want this to be me. Everything I see and look up is for seniors or people with serious medical issues. I want to die.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve spent today with my dad just horrible apologizing for needing to use the restroom every 30 minutes, especially on vacation. I feel so guilty.

Today hit a new low, my body hurts so much I feel like my intestines are going to fall out of me. I haven’t had a solid movement in what feels like years.

I don’t want this.

I feel alone, extremely. I need help.

Ok so to be clear im 5'3" and around 500lbs. Im looking for reusable adult diaper recommendations that can hold extreme urine leaks. Please help, I've been googling for a few hours now and im stumped. Thanks 😊 🙏

I am a high-functioning autistic male, a young adult in college, and I would like to share my story. I will preface everything I say with this: I have encopresis and wet the bed often. I wear diapers day and night to manage these conditions. Incontinence is a silent disability that often occurs jointly with preexisting disabilities. You may feel that because of incontinence you can’t go out anymore, or you plan trips with friends around where the restroom is, or maybe you just don’t socialize at all because you can’t imagine that people will accept all of you. I want to offer encouragement: personal reconciliation and acceptance are possible. However, this is a process that takes time. You have plenty of time to navigate your complex thoughts regarding this. Feel free to reach out if you are inclined to. 

This is a chronicle of my journey toward acceptance. My story begins at a young age. I developed encopresis as a child because I withheld my stool. In elementary school accidents were frequent and noticeable. My mom was incredibly proactive and tried many medical interventions. Each intervention, despite its well intentions, only pushed me further from the restroom. Everything about the school restrooms was hideous, sensorily speaking. The lights buzzed and flickered, the walls were ugly colors, and the stalls were like monoliths that closed in on me whenever I dared to go inside. No matter how much I tried to overcome it, the restroom was a scary place at school and at home. I know it sounds silly, but young autistic children often find the sensation of needing to go, the process of going, or the environment in which they go, unpleasant and thus, they withhold. It's a genuine concern among autistic youth and a large part of why many grow up with bowel dysfunction like I did.

My life became a vicious cycle: constipation, experiencing pain, relieving pain with laxatives, stopping laxative use after a month, wash, rinse, repeat. It continued this way into high school, then I entered college. My mindset changed at this point. I began to think critically about the shame and secrecy that were instilled in me from a young age. It was shameful to mess my pants, but it was worse to sit around and do nothing about it. What if… What if the best and most hygienic option was to wear diapers?

Here is a fun fact: Autism and bladder and bowel dysfunction are linked. Why is this? Well, possibly it comes down to reduced interoception. Interoception is the awareness of bodily signals like pain, hunger, the urge to void, and the sensation of a full bladder. All of these sensations are reduced or even absent in autistic individuals. This makes it incredibly difficult for people like me to maintain continence. Technically, I have bowel continence; if I focus hard on my body signals, they are present but extremely faint. However, I don't spend my day focusing on my body. After all, I have conversations to have, classes to attend, homework to do, and a complex life to attend to. Accidents happen. I have them infrequently because I am proactive in preventing them. But when an accident occurs, it's out of my control. What is the shame in using a tool that helps me manage that? 

Regrettably, it took me a long time to realize that this was the solution: not a complex relationship with the bathroom, but a healthy reliance on protection to catch what I cannot feel, and voiding in the toilet what I can control. I'm not completely incontinent, but I also realize that I'm not fully in control at times, and that's okay; I don’t have to straddle the world between incontinence and continence. I take Miralax because my constipation is chronic. If I don't take it, I get backed up. Unfortunately, Miralax also worsens my problems. Accident occur more frequently when I take Miralax, but its better than constipation. Furthermore, I have developed a healthy relationship with my body. I recognize that my interoception is broken and that diapers are the best way to be proactive and healthy when I can't control my bowels.

People like to fixate on the perception that diapers might stifle opportunity, when the reality is that diapers actually provide freedom from a bladder and bowels that are unpredictable. What is gained in return—freedom from worry, shame, and guilt—is worth whatever risk you weigh in your mind before you put a diaper on. Will people care? Maybe, but it is not likely. Surround yourself with friends who understand and accept you, all of you. There will always be pea-brained people who have something hurtful to say. But the most important way to combat that is to have many more friends who say better things about you and support the real you 100%. You are not alone.

I can only speak for myself regarding autism, but my experience with incontinence broadly reflects what many people who have incontinence or accidents feel. I don’t claim to be a spokesman for a group; take me as a representative of a minority that speaks openly about their experience. The lived experience of incontinence is far too varied for me to accurately represent, but I hope by presenting my story, other people who have similar lived experiences will speak out too. The benefit of openness is the ability to connect with people who relate to your experience. It is incredibly validating to have connect with someone who can say, “I know that feeling!” In those moments, you can deeply exhale and relax because you know you are understood and accepted.

That is what community is built on: shared experience. I hope that if we share our experiences without shame, we can work towards an environment that exists to support, inspire, and provide advice to each other. It is toward this end that I provide my story.

hey! i have urge incontinence, and after physical therapy and dietary changes, its gotten a bit more manageable, but recently my job has been extremely stressful and ive noticed my symptoms worsening quite a bit at the same time, losing progress i felt i had made over the last few months. anyone else have experience with mental health issues like anxiety and stress greatly contribute to incontinence issues?

Last night I went to bed mostly dry, but woke up about 3am ish to a wet feeling around me. Turns out I had leaked. I'm just annoyed as I couldn't change my bedding and was just basically stuck laying in a wet diaper and bed for the night. I tucked a blanket under me so I didn't have to feel the wet bed as much but now I'm awake I realise that I now have a mattress, blanket, and sheets to clean! I'm just annoyed at myself I guess.

The pattern I kept seeing wasn't a lack of motivation — it was a lack of data. People would say "it's been bad this week" but couldn't tell me what changed, what made it worse, or whether anything they were trying was actually helping.

So I built Qowa — a pelvic health app that tracks daily symptoms, surfaces patterns over time, and generates personalized insights. There's also a chat feature that answers questions based on your actual symptom history, grounded in clinical evidence.

I designed it specifically for people navigating things like urinary urgency or leakage, pelvic pain or pressure, bowel issues, heaviness or prolapse, sexual dysfunction, or just symptoms that feel connected but are hard to explain to a doctor.

We're keeping the early tester group small — around 50 people — so we can actually review the feedback and make updates without getting overwhelmed. Everyone who participates will get free lifetime premium access when we launch.

Comment below and I'll DM you access.

Short Post: M23, bought/received my first pair of cloth diapers from EcoAble today. Long time disposable user. Not quite sure how to get started or how to use. I’m mainly wanting to use them for nighttime use.

Any advice or recommendations for how many sets of everything you guys buy or if you wash immediately after taking it off. Honestly I’m not even sure how to put this thing on. My main reason I haven’t used cloth diapers to date is because I’m not sure how to handle the washing and storing a used diaper for any amount of time.

Excited to try them out tomorrow night. Hopefully no leaks. They are much thicker than I expected, they didn’t look this thick in the pictures, so I’m not sure if I’d ever use them for daytime. I only bought one to trial it but I am willing to buy more if this works out.

Thanks!

I’m a 26M living with a roommate in a 2 bed 1 bath apartment. I self catheterize 4-5x per day (roommate is aware, not trying to hide it) and I’m having a hard time figuring out where to dispose of them when I’m done. Right now I just have a garbage bag on the floor of my room I put them in.

Wondering if anybody has a good system for disposal in a situation like mine? In the past I’ve had a dedicated garbage in the bathroom but we share it so I’d rather not do that. Also any tips on cathing with a roommate would be appreciated. Thank you.

My wife has been trying to be more intimate with me since we had a sexless marriage for a few months. Lately she has been insisting on diapering me for bed after I get out of the shower. During diapering, I guess that's her segway to be super intimate with me. Does your wives change up her ways to be more intimate with your conditions too?

Nighttime routines can vary a lot. What approach best describes what you usually rely on?

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So I've been having incontinence issues, wetting the bed at night. 37 Female, if it matters. It got bad quickly, over 2 ish months. Last night I got into with my husband (my fault) and after many tears im laying in bed in an adult diaper. I have super supportive family, my mom and my husband. I can't help feeling humiliated and depressed. Sorry rambling, im kinda stoned too to help with the tears.

Hi everyone, the moderators have kindly given me the go ahead to post here.

My name is Mark and I'm based in the UK. I'm researching the day-to-day experience of men living with urinary incontinence, specifically the gap between how common it is and how little seems to be designed with men in mind. I've been speaking with GPs and continence nurses over the last few weeks but the most valuable insight I can get is from men who actually live with this.

I'm looking to speak with up to 10 men based in the UK about their experience. If you'd be willing to have a 20–30 minute chat by phone or video call I'd be really grateful. Alternatively if a call doesn't suit, I'm happy to send some questions you can answer in your own time.

If you're interested please DM me directly or drop a comment below.

As a thank you I'll make a £20 donation to Prostate Cancer UK for each conversation, up to 10 donations in total.

Thanks, Mark

I (40F) am autistic and also have several issues that make me incontinent. I have had pelvic floor dysfunction and overactive bladder since I was very young, and have always had mild stress Incontinence. I also have urological pain with urge and voiding. A couple years ago I started receiving Botox injections into my pelvic floor to help with the pain associated with my problems there and they help, but made my mild stress Incontinence go to moderate and I started wearing pads. This year I had a surgery and also was diagnosed with kidney disease, and now it is pretty severe. In order to treat the kidney disease I must drink far more than I used to, and the pain is constant even after voiding. Pain has been my primary signal to let me know that I need to go to the bathroom.

I also struggle quite a bit with transitions and interroception (recognizing body signals) which make things worse. I don't recognize that I need to go and so when I have an accident the volume tends to be quite large. I wear pullups and a booster and most of the time don't leak. When I am forced to have regular transitions where I have to get up throughout the day I will have much smaller accidents or actually make it to the bathroom without one. But, without that structure like classes or tasks throughout the day I fail to impose the transitions on myself. Check-in alarms get ignored and are extremely distressing, although I have some success with having my caregivers periodically prompt me.

All things considered I manage it okay. My partner is super supportive and nonjudgmental. I can change and clean up after myself. It can be frustrating that my body doesn't tell me that I need to go until it's going, and the need to drink so much more than I used to makes it so much worse. I don't think there is much more I can do about it, the oab med helped before the fluid intake increase and the transition structure is really hard for me or my caregivers to impose upon my day. Most days I don't leak and that's a win for me.

My family wants to go to the beach soon, but I have urinary incontinence and need to wear padding. I’m worried it’ll be noticeable in swimwear or when it gets wet.

Does anyone here have advice on how to hide it at the beach, or what people usually do in this situation? Are there better products/options for swimming?

I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences.

I’m physically disabled to beging with and none of my muscles work right, and on top of that i have urge incontinence and am under a lot of stress. So for the next little bit im going to be wearing protection, which is fine and not something i feel any shame in by myself, but im worried that my housemates can tell, and id rather they couldnt you know.

Ive looked in the mirror and i cant see any outline or anything but like, i have OCD so you know, does anyone have any advice for dealing with this anxiety?

hi, 21f and my body is already letting me down - PLEASE give me more optimistic advice than my doctor and urogyno. i've always had night troubles and for the past 5 years it's been getting worse and worse no matter what i try. i do the keagles and limit my water and eveyrting. i've tried all the meds. i set timers and pee regularly when they say to. ive had all the scans and being poked at and hated it. i cant accept what the medics say that its looking like i have to wear diapers every night, and anyways these things cost a fortune!

what can i do i don't want to be in diapers at 21 when i want to have a bf and am usually social and into art and stuff?

nobody but my mom knows about my nnight leaks and i just can;t face the idea of telling a guy! what chance have i got on the dating scene or evr being intimate even ... ... ... this is ruining my life when its only just starting!!

thoroaway account for obvious reasons but will check back here often

I have been dealing with mild incontinence issues most my life, 42 now. Been to a hand full of urologist most were pretty dismissive specially when I was younger. Had another cystoscope done yesterday and was surprised when the urologist immediately pointed out my intestines were intruding on my bladder and was showing me on the monitor. Going to do further tests and MRI as well. Says it could anatomical since it’s been a lifelong deal or bowel issues. Kind of nice to get somewhat of an answer!