“I stopped feeling like a complete woman.”
Incontinence might not be a very common problem, but it can happen to anyone at any point in their lives. Whether it is through a medical condition or pregnancy, incontinence can happen to anyone. If you are someone who suffers from it, there are a lot of things that you can do to manage it.
It might not be easy, but there are things that you can do to deal with it. This blog is a personal one, it is about my experience with incontinence, the struggles it brought, and how I learned to deal with it by using attngrace.
I am a 35 years old woman who is currently struggling with urinary incontinence. It was caused by cystitis, which I got when I was 18. At that time, I didn’t pay much attention to the disease because many women experienced it. So I actively engaged in self-treatment and drank various herbal tinctures, which my friends recommended.
After a few months, I realized that the situation was only getting worse, so I decided to see a doctor who prescribed me a diet and medication, which I strictly followed. For a while, the problem disappeared, but then the bladder pain and frequent urination resumed. Then I tried another gynecologist. I was prescribed antibiotics and colloidal silver injected into my bladder, with which I had to stay for 2 hours.
Naturally, I couldn’t stand that time because I wanted to pee every half an hour. And at the eleventh visit, I refused such a treatment because of unbearable pain. After that, I could no longer get out of bed, and the pain was enormous because the colloidal silver burned my bladder mucosa. I was about 26 years old at the time.
I had to quit my job. The pain made me almost lose sleep and become nervous, and my relationship with my husband worsened. My life was falling apart before my eyes. At that point, I wanted to forget this nightmare, to imagine that all this was not happening to me. I even tried to paint again, and it did help a little. And then came the worst year of my life.
No treatment helped. I didn’t want anything anymore, didn’t leave the house, took painkillers and antidepressants, and was very depressed. Later, my husband insisted that I arrive in Israel for treatment because that country is one of the first in the world in terms of advanced technical equipment and medical innovations.
I had no strength to resist him, so I decided to try it. I found a perfect clinic and a qualified doctor. I was given medicine injections into my bladder. I was relieved, and my life began to play with new colors again. But there was only one thing that dampened my mood: the doctors told me that I would probably have surgery to remove my bladder in five years. Well, I had five years to bear that thought. And that moment had come.
I had an operation to remove my bladder and form a new bladder from my colon. So now I haven’t sphincter, and my urine is not holding. I was terrified of what would happen when the urethral catheter. With the catheter, urine was coming out, but I couldn’t feel the urge to pee. I lived with that annoying feeling for years, and it was gone. However, I now had to wear incontinence briefs and incontinence pads, And constantly control their wetness and change them, which isn’t very comfortable.
In addition, sometimes embarrassing situations began to happen when I was visiting my friends. For example, after drinking tea or coffee, the urological pads leaked, and my pants got wet. So I had to be too careful to avoid such situations, which was tiring. So how has my life changed since the surgery? Because of those terrible pains and urges to pee every 2-3 minutes, for the better, of course.
But I still don’t feel like a complete woman. I always have to wear loose dark clothing. I look at other girls wearing beautiful dresses or tight pants, and it makes me very sad that I always have to walk in baggy clothes. As a result, at 35, I feel much older than in my years. In addition, I have many scars after surgery. Because of this, I don’t feel beautiful and embarrassed in front of my husband.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I see how I could be but did not become because of my problem. I can’t get the most out of life that I could have, and I feel disappointed. Also, unfortunately, my husband and I cannot have children. Because of all these complications, the doctors don’t advise me to get pregnant and have a baby.
But, of course, the most troublesome thing is the urological underwear and pads, which have to be changed all the time. Plus, the urological underwear didn’t fit all pants. So it went on until my mother told me about ATTN: GRACE underwear. And I decided to try it. There was no limit to my happiness when I saw what the model looked like. ATTN: GRACE underwear was very different from what I was wearing before.
I liked the design created for active women and ATTN: GRACE incontinence briefs fit snugly against the body. So even under tight pants, it is not visible. In addition, the protective underwear absorbs moisture much better than pads. And now I can finally breathe easily and not think about constant leakage. Life seems to be finally getting better, and I learned to survive incontinence.
My husband and I are considering different options with surrogacy or adopting children. I have one more surgery ahead to put in an artificial sphincter. And I hope that my life will become better and the feeling of discomfort, insecurity, and shame that haunted me for a long time will be gone forever.