Nocturnal Enuresis; My Bedwetting Story and How to Overcome Bedwetting
We have this slang in Nigeria and it is called "Village People". It becomes evident that your village people is after you when as an adult, you still bedwet (so they say), but is it really your village people? A lot of us have been in that position at one point or the other in our lives, for instance myself. The tale of my bedwetting is one that isn't sweet, and I think I should share a little before we discuss the cause of bedwetting.
At 12 years, I was at the boarding school in my junior secondary school. I was known for one thing which was bedwetting. Although I was not the only one in this whatsapp group as people would refer to it, mine was constant. My house master would tell me to sleep a little late so I do not wet the bed but I would still wet the bed. While others would do their at night, mine was both at night and during my siesta time and this made me very unique even in my league of bedwetters. That said, so what causes bedwetting?
Medically or Scientifically, Bedwetting is referred to as Nocturnal Enuresis which is an involuntary release of urine while sleeping.Before you start to think it happens to kids only, it happens to both kids and adults. While I was in the University, a friend of mine came to spend the night at my hostel and he betwetted. When he woke up, he felt bad but then I who already had a share of such embarrassing experience while growing up quickly close the topic and cover up the event.
Nocturnal Enuresis could be as a result of certain things including hormonal imbalance, stress, small bladder capacity, and sleep problem.I am sure that from my shared experience at the beginning of the post, you can confirm that bedwetting isn't only associated with night sleep alone, but it can also happen during the day. From a personal point of view, the earlier a person starts to train their bladder to hold urine while sleeping, the better because the psychological effect can be damaging especially when there are no people to help around instead they castigate you. It can lead to low self-esteem as a result of being embarrassed all the time.
Some people can go to the extent of taking certain medications because they want to stop bedwetting, but then the results are always temporary and using them are not always the best first step to take. For myself, my mum asked me to do a lot of traditional superstitious things including peeing on a hot red charcoal in a coal pot, tying a beetle to my genital to sting me once the liquid from my bladder touches it but it looked like I slept on the beetle and killed it even before it could do its job, and so many other traumatic acts just to stop betwetting.
While I want to explain how to overcome this, I want to discuss that dream toilet. Some people understand what I am saying. You see, if you are bedwetting, the first thing to work on if you do experience them is try not to urinate in your dreams. Never use any type of toilet in your dreams, no matter how clean it might be. That said, let's begin the help process.
Ensure not to take water before going to bed. You see, water between 1 to 2 hours before bedtime is a no for people who are bedwetting. To do this, it is advisable not to eat late at night as well because when you do so, it increases the chances of drinking water which could cause the bladder to be full and you bedwet as a result of low bladder control. Taking caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime is a bad idea for people who are bedwetting and this is because they force the kidney to filter more water which will actually need a passage to leave the body and the bladder is the right passage, and with little to bladder control while sleeping, the bed will certainly be wet.
Bladder training is another way to stop bedwetting and this was what saved me at the end. Waking up at interval to pea either when you feel like peeing or not. My grandmother did this a lot for me. She would wake me up at intervals and ask me to go pee even when I didn't feel like peeing. There were cases where she would set a loud alarm close to my ear so I would wake. She would set the alarm for 1 hour interval and I would wake grumpily to use the toilet. Funny enough, I didn't have a good sleep initially which was the both of us not having a good sleep but at the end, it was very helpful because I stopped peeing.
Te final thing that you should do is to see a doctor. Ensure to see a doctor so that the causes of this can be checked, also underlying conditions can be looked into in case if there is any. For children, Betwetting is normal, and they will usually grow out of it with your help and this help is needed more for older children.
READ MORE
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3348193/
https://www.urologyhealth.org/urologic-conditions/bed-wetting-(enuresis)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545181
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15075-bedwetting
https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1014762-overview
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