Help 8 year old dribbling

[Caz198]

So my 8 year old has been daytime dribbling and toilet urgency since being toilet trained I thought she would out grow it has she got older but it's just getting worse. I have taken her to see the family doctor and they said it sounds like an over active bladder so she got referred to the hospital and I received a letter to say the aren't taking on new patients at the moment which is no help to us.

It's starting to effect my daughter physically and mentally now, she limits what she does physically incase she wets she also doesn't like to go anywhere that hasn't got a toilet. It's also impacting her at school because she has to leave the classroom so often.

So basically I'm at a loss we have tried drinking less,drinking more holding it as long as possible we have done the no drink after the one she has with dinner . She doesn't wet the bed but she wakes 4-6 times during the night. So any advice would be greatful has no health professional can see her. Thank you in advance.

[Teddy500]

Hi, does she have a small bladder capacity too? Have you measured an average wee in a jug? My son is similar. We've recently seen an improvement by doing a 'bladder drill', pelvic floor excercises and focusing on making sure he is not even slightly constipated - for example swapping from Weetabix (insoluble fibre) to Oatabix (soluble fibre), I'm starting to think that the 'dripping' is caused by a full bowel pressing on the bladder. The ERIC helpline is definitely worth calling, best wishes 🦋

[Caz198 in reply to Teddy500]

Thank you for your reply. She definitely isn't contispated and i have not measured her urine. I do listen when she goes to the toilet and it never sounds alot even her morning toilet visit doesn't sound like there is a lot there. I'm definitely going to try getting her to do the pelvic exercise.

[Unicorn84 in reply to Caz198]

Our hospital had us measure my son's wee in a jug for a few days, he was doing lots of small wees and has never been constipated, but is now going less frequently and doing bigger wees. They advise drinking more to stretch the bladder, but this may take a little time. More drinks and spaced out throughout the day should help stretch the bladder so it can hold more wee. Definitely worth a try as it was on the list of things we were asked to try at home before they would even let us see a specialist.

My son keeps a note of his drink times to ensure he's spacing them out, he uses a timer at home set every 2 hours, he has 250ml cups to use to make sure he's having the correct amount, and he goes to the loo after each drink. He then keeps a diary in the bathroom to note all his toilet trips, times, an estimate of size, etc. which has been useful as I can check it to see if accidents have happened due to leaving it too long to go to the loo, and I can see when he's going because of his timer or because he felt the need to go.

[Unicorn84]

I can't believe the hospital would say that to you, that's just awful.

My son is now 8 and we are still on our journey to solving his bladder problem, its been 4 years now. He was never dry at night but was potty trained and dry during the day when he was 2. When the daytime wetting accidents started it was assumed it was related to starting school, a new baby on the way, etc. but it carried on and got worse. After visiting the GP we were on a waiting list to see the "school nurse" for nearly 2 years ☹ and she just went through a list of things we could try, all of which we were already doing, so we got a hospital referral. Another 9 months of getting appointments that were postponed or cancelled, then finally had a video consultation during the first lockdown. We have had several telephone appointments now, my son has been given medications to try, and these combined with all the things we can do at home have resulted in accidents decreasing from 5 or 6 a day to 1 or sometimes none, and nighttimes are now dry or only slightly wet.

We've been asked to ensure he has at least 6 drinks a day, 250ml each time, spread out evenly across the day. Drinks must be water based, nothing that can irritate the bladder (blackcurrant is a big no no), nothing with caffeine, etc - we tend to stick to squash at home and water at school. No drinks an hour before bedtime.

We've also been asked to ensure he goes to the toilet every 2 hours, so we make sure when has a drink he then goes to the loo so we can comply with both instructions.

Double voiding has been advised - they have a wee, count to 20 and try to wee again. My son does this every time he goes to the loo. They need to be relaxed on the toilet, no straining.

My son wasn't waking in the night when he needed a wee resulting in either a wet bed or him having to wear pull ups (which we're so full they sometimes leaked). We use a bedwetting alarm to help with that - but it might not be helpful for your daughter as she's already waking up to go. So I can't advise you on that, but if you try the above ideas perhaps she'll go less at night?

I know how frustrating, stressful and upsetting this can be, sitting on the waiting list I was getting no help at all and had to deal with it all by myself, I was at my wits end and the whole family was miserable.

I would go back to your GP and tell them that the hospital won't help, get them to push for help or find another avenue.

I hope you get some help soon x x

[Caz198 in reply to Unicorn84]

Thank you so much this has given me more advice then any one so far. She drinks alot we had bloods and urine samples done to check for diabetes because of how much she used to drink but everything come back fine so with this advice atleast I can try something with her and hopefully not feel so useless

[Unicorn84 in reply to Caz198]

You're very welcome, I hope this helps .

The school nurse was surprised that I had tried everything on her list, but I had been waiting for 2 years with no help so I was forever googling for advice! Basically, if I hadn't tried everything on her list she would have sent me away to deal with it by myself for even longer - I felt like the NHS just wanted to leave me waiting long enough that the problem might sort itself out.

We have a specialist on board now and she offered us medication, so we are using Oxybutynin and Desmomelt, but I am unsure as to whether the medication is helping, perhaps a little but I feel like most of the work that is helping is from all these things we've tried at home. The Oxybutynin is supposed to relax the muscles so they can fully empty their bladder, but a scan at the hospital showed my son still wasn't fully emptying his so to me that says the medication isn't working as it should. And the Desmomelts are supposed to work for 8 hours yet my son wakes to his bedwetting alarm before then so 🤷‍♀️

It is definitely worth trying everything you can do at home anyway, then at least you'll know if you definitely need that referral and can hopefully push things forward by showing them that you've tried everything you can so it's their turn to try something x x

[profyaffle]

I would go back to the GP and ask to be referred elsewhere - where do you live, there should be a continence nurse service you can access? Don't let them just fob you off, that's awful. Have you tried the school nurse, could they refer you on? You need to push the fact it's affecting her mental health.

More generally, it's worth charting her drinking and pees for a few days - so you have an official record of volumes and how often she's going - that's what the continence nurses will ask you to do first up anyway. There's a chart on the ERIC website here: eric.org.uk/pdf-intake-outp...

Then as Teddy and Unicorn have said, one of the key things you can do in the meantime is to schedule her drinking. My son is 11 and drinks 150ml every hour - he has a vibrating watch to remind him otherwise he'd go all day without a drink - and end up wetter as a result as the concentrated urine irritates the bladder.

Have you spoken to school about things that might be triggering it there? In my son's case he didn't start wetting until he started reception, and a lot of the problems were caused by him hating the toilets because they were dirty, not liking to ask to go in lessons, feeling like he'd lose his friends if he went at break, worried that people would come in while he was peeing etc etc.

Be kind to yourself too, it's so stressful when they have these problems, and it seems like it'll never end. My son is now 11 and in the last year or so has really started to mature and to engage with the treatment and regime and it's making a real difference. Before that he was in denial and too little to explain how he was feeling about it which made it look like he didn't care even when he did which I found very hard. Hang in there, it does get better!