IT WAS ONLY MINUTES

FINAL

Desmopressin Acetate or DDAVP nasal spray does work to help control bedwetting. Both Josh and I received all the information about it from our parents prior to actually giving it a try. Josh was drying up for the most part because he could go several nights in a row without wetting and even to the point of some nights going to bed not wearing his diaper. Me, on the other hand continued to wet every night and consequently wearing a diaper every night was as second nature to me as putting on regular underwear during the day.

When we heard of the “wonder drug”, our parents, both being physicians fully explained how the drug worked and that it was sprayed into the nostrils just before bedtime. Well now, that was good news to Josh and me and so we needed to try some even though our mother told us it could cause some sores in our nose, but then “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Mother brought some of this wonder drug home with her soon after our discussion and both Josh and I put it to the test. Per instructions, we sprayed two times in each nostril. The first few times, the drug caused a little sting but nothing serious. Even though I continued to wear diapers at night, on those nights using DDAVP I stayed dry. Waking up in a dry diaper was sort of novel to me and it actually seemed strange at first. The first morning I woke up dry, I actually felt that I had not gone to bed yet and so I felt tired, something really strange to me as I usually woke up every morning ready to go.

Josh was the lucky one for he was nearly dry every night and so he used the spray only when we would spend the night at a friend’s house or when we went on a vacation or traveled with our parents.

On the other hand, I used the spray every night and in a three week period, the inside of my nose had some very tender areas and it actually hurt to blow my nose. In fact, nose bleeds were becoming common and I was getting to the point of not wanting to use the medication. Dad told us to continue and perhaps in a short while the tenderness would go away and I’d be okay. He was right as the tenderness did go away with time, however, it seemed to take forever.

With Josh not wearing diapers every night, any extras were put in my room. There was a goodly supply of disposable diapers, cloth diapers, diaper pants, and plastic pull on pants. Any of my friends who were at our house could have easily seen them if we were in the bedrooms but thankfully we had a huge room between our bedrooms where we entertained our friends, unless of course one were to be staying over to our house. As mentioned earlier, a few friends and a couple of our cousins knew that Josh and I wet the bed and wore diapers. Most of our friends did not know this and there wasn’t any reason for them to know.

Using DDAVP was good even though it did cause some really sore nose situations. For one thing, wearing a diaper at night continued for as long as I used the spray. During that time, for the most part I stayed dry all night long. My mother told me I could stop wearing diapers if I wanted to give it a try and so at the age of nearly 17 I started to go to bed without a diaper. Was that strange! Not having a diaper on made me worry that the bed would get wet. So long as the spray was used, the bed stayed dry nearly all the time. I still had a rubber sheet on my bed, Josh did too, and it’s good because on a few occasions the mattress on my bed would have been soaked.

I soon discovered that using the DDAVP did help in controlling bedwetting but there was a price to pay. I also learned that staying off DDAVP for a short period of time resulted in accidental bedwetting and in nearly all situations like this, I was not wearing a diaper and my bed got soaked. Being totally dependant on DDAVP became the norm. Unlike Josh who used it only if we were going to travel, I needed to use it every night. Medical literature suggests two percent of all kids with primary enuresis will go on wetting the bed until their late teens. Guess where I fell into the mix.

At any rate, by the time I turned 18 years old, I could pretty much count on using DDAVP only when I traveled overnight and that was usually when we went on family trips. We were very close to college and the dry up came just in the nick of time so far as I was concerned.

From the early pre-teen years, up to and ending the teen years our family was subjected to my twin brother Josh and I wetting the bed nightly. Diapers, external catheters, extra sheets, waterproof sheets, disposable diapers, bedwetting pads and medications were used extensively and probably most aids had a place in the scheme of things, however, when all is said and done, simple use of a diaper and having a waterproof sheet and bed soaker is all that was really needed and necessary during all that time. Our parents never ever made a big deal of our situation and with their laid back approach to our problem, we were able to survive the nightly wetting. Wearing a diaper was no big thing and both Josh and I knew the protection afforded by the diaper resulted in a good nights sleep without waking up in a cold wet bed.

Now Josh’s son, my nephew wets his bed and nothing more is done of it other than his wearing a diaper at night. Nowadays the diapers for night resemble daytime underwear and one would never suspect the disposable pants to be diaper pants.

My advise to any parent or bed wetter would be only to use some form of protection, a diaper or diaper pants, and to make no big deal out of the situation as the problem will abate over time, or the person with the problem will learn to discreetly deal with it. Bedwetting isn’t a taboo, many, many people are faced with the situation to some degree and in our country, there are several good, no, excellent ways to deal with it.