Daytime wetting issues for 12 Y.O. boy w/ AS..

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DW_a_mom
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08 Apr 2009, 12:50 pm

I know the others will be able to say a lot more, but I am wondering if the change following the illness is a bit like me and earthquakes.

For years, I knew every small earthquake immediately before it became obvious. I felt it. I felt them ALL. But after the 1989 quake, while I was experiencing an almost constant flow of after shocks, it turned off. I now almost never feel any earthquakes, even those others around me do. It's like my body choose to turn off whatever alert system it used to have.

The illness could have been so overwhelming in it's sensations that the body began turning certain signals off.

A theory, anyway.


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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).


sparkler22
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08 Apr 2009, 1:13 pm

DW, that is an interesting idea indeed.

And no, he hasn't seen a urologist. Just the family GP.



0_equals_true
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08 Apr 2009, 2:00 pm

Does he shake properly? That last bit can be difficult to get out. It will come out later one you relax your muscles.

Maybe he likes the uric smell. People sense differently. It could be sweet smelling to him.

Also partial wetting is extremely common especially with females. You don not have to have UTI of disease to get it. Just weakness in the muscles. Men have longer urethra, so it should be better. However if he is physically unfit this might be at issue.

@DW that is an interesting idea but I would not give it a high priority as a hypothesis because it has to much circumstance/assumption enchained, instead I would break it down into components:

Sensory
Disease
etc



sparkler22
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08 Apr 2009, 2:23 pm

I don't know about the shake-off factor. I doubt he does, given the fact that he doesn't even get it into the bowl properly half the time.

But given what we've experienced with it and what he ways, I'm inclined to believe it's a pre- rather than post- issue.



2ukenkerl
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08 Apr 2009, 5:55 pm

I doubt that the "shake off" factor is meaningful. AS for the PC muscle, MINE got strong because of reflexes I assume most boys have, and a situation that most boys have in the morning. that situation can wane as males get past their 20s or 30s. Anyway, it has VARIOUS purposes in males. Better control of it means less need to go, as well as limiting where you do. So that CAN definitely be a help.



Zonder
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08 Apr 2009, 7:13 pm

sparkler22 wrote:
I have a couple other questions for you all who have some experience with this.. Is it common for it to begin at a later age? I ask because my stepson did NOT do this when he was younger.. it became a problem after he had an episode with encopresis (if you don't know, it's basically not being able to hold your poop and pee in because of blockages- it's caused by stress and poor diet) when he was 8. It went on for months and he's been doing the pants peeing ever since. He was living with his birth mother at the time, moving from place to place every few months, changing schools frequently and eating very little.. and what he did eat was pretty much skinless weiners and Ramen noodles. He came to live with us when he was 9, and th encopresis has never been an issue again.

He also aburptly began wetting the bed at about the age of 5. We worry that something may have happened to him to have brought this on.. his mom's place is not safe, to say the least. She always had random people staying with her. We hope that it was just caused by the stress of her continuous moving.. but we worry about it. He's been in counseling and has never spoken about any molestation or anything. But still...

If he's not getting the signals from his body that he has to go, why does he do peepee dances and hold his crotch when he has to go, but still not go? It's always rather disconcerting to see a kid his age doing this. Especially when you're at the grocery store with him or something...


Sadly, I know all about encopresis, too. Stress certainly doesn't help those neural signals to register. The last time I wet the bed, when I was in high school, was during a very stressful visit to my uncle's house. He was not a nice person, much of the time. All the things you mentioned, might have contributed to your stepson's system having some developmental glitches, but he was most likely predisposed to having the problem. It turned out that my dad had similar difficulties, but he didn't tell my mom until she rather harshly punished me one day. When she found out that my dad was developmentally similar, I wasn't punished again.

I seem to remember thinking that going to the bathroom was such a bother - I was busy concentrating on interesting things, and it's like my brain didn't want to be interrupted in what I was thinking about/concentrating on. By the time my brain registered GO NOW, it was too late.

When I was an adolescent, there was a movie about TV actor Michael Langdon's boyhood. He wet the bed, and his mother purposely embarrassed him. Seeing that movie helped me a lot - I needed to know that someone successful outgrew the problem. Not long after watching the movie, it mostly wasn't a problem for me, either.

I know that it is frustrating to have a kid that wets, but the more attention the adults in his life focus on it, the more anxious he will be, and possibly the longer it will take for him to improve. I don't know if he is at the point where he is starting to care about caring for himself, but you might make it convenient for him to have a place to to wash his underclothes when he has an accident - that seemed to help me understand that ultimately I was responsible for keeping myself clean and smelling good.

Z



sparkler22
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09 Apr 2009, 8:24 am

Thank you Zonder! Your second paragraph is my stepson to a T!

We've actually tried the underwear-washing thing before, for a long period of time. Didn't seem to have an effect. Stepson is definitely not concerned with his appearance or smell or anything at this point. While he IS almost 12, I'd say his interests and maturity are in the range of an 8-9-year-old. Girls are still very much an "ewwww" subject with him, and in my experience, awareness of and caring about girls' opinions provides the impetus for caring about appearance in most boys.