He was ashamed and embarrassed. He wore the big boy pull-ups for a while but after I realized it was adding to his embarrassment, we tossed those aside and I just started changing and washing sheets every day. Then he had two accidents within a week at school during the day. Our pediatrician sent us to a pediatric urologist and he gave us our sanity and confident little boy back. Landon was diagnosed with Overactive Bladder (OAB) and given medicine that worked like magic!!! No more accidents, no more bedwetting, and his frequency and urgency decreased.
The urologist described the bladder as an emotional organ. Things like stress, excitement, etc. can trigger OAB "episodes" so he said to try the medicine for a little bit, stop it, and see how things go. If he is still bedwetting, get back on it and try again later. After a year of medicine (all of 1st grade), we were able to stop.
He's been good to go (all of 2nd grade) until recently. Right before 3rd grade started, his bedwetting started again (4-ish times per week) and I also noticed an increase in frequency/urgency during the day. We went back to the pediatric urologist yesterday (we were due for his annual check-up in the next few weeks anyway). He made sure that he didn't have an infection (apparently I don't hold the urinalysis cup as good as daddy does and that's why he misfired all over the office toilet seat and wall) and wasn't constipated - those are two big reasons for bedwetting! No infection, no constipation. So, he's back on the medicine for OAB. We'll try it for a few weeks, then stop to see if it resets the bladder. We'll keep up the stop-and-see method until we're able to take him off again. And who knows...he might be good to go forever after this episode or we may have to keep with the medicine resets every so often.
Landon's confidence takes a beating when the bedwetting starts up. Like I said earlier, he feels so embarrassed and ashamed. Except for the grumbling by me in the middle of the night when I'm stripping a bed of wet sheets and relocating boys, we don't say much about it. It is what it is and we know the poor kid can't help it. The urologist was so sweet to Landon (I was almost in tears in the office). He talked to him about how he has many patients just like Landon every day and that he's not alone, And also that he's not going to wet the bed forever. He also had on a Winnie the Pooh tie, which made him the authority. :)
So medicine and a pep talk from the coolest Pooh tie-wearing doctor, we're good to go!
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