Freia

Age at interview: 63

Brief Outline:

Freia began to notice urinary incontinence in her early 60s. She is hopeful that her symptoms will improve after hip surgery, as the pain and resulting mobility loss have an impact on her continence. For now, she has to rely on pads and rubber sheets.

Background:

Freia has worked in a range of occupations, including procurement, and is currently not in paid employment. She describes herself as White Scottish.

Condition: urinary incontinence

More about me...

Freia had two “big babies” in her late 30s. She remembers that in her antenatal classes the mothers were advised to do pelvic floor exercises. However, she feels that she wasn’t very consistent with carrying these out long term. Because Freia had “good bladder control” until her early 60s, she feels that she overlooked the importance of pelvic floor exercises. She now feels scared, annoyed with herself, and worried that the situation is not repairable.

At first she thought the incontinence was “just a temporary thing”, but has now been having issues for several months. Freia has problems with bed-wetting, which she finds “really embarrassing” and makes her feel “like a young kid again”. She has also been having accidents and struggles with urinary frequency.

Freia’s other health conditions have made it more difficult to manage her urinary incontinence. She lives with osteoarthritis in her hip, which significantly lowers her mobility and causes her chronic pain. Freia is currently awaiting surgery but has been told she needs to lose weight first. Since starting lithium for her bipolar disorder decades ago, Freia has watched her weight steadily increase. Freia worries that her incontinence is made worse from body fat applying more pressure to her bladder. However despite watching her diet, she has found it difficult to lose weight. It has been a “raw nerve” for her family and doctors to assume her health problems are all weight related.

Freia has had two GP appointments and was given medication to reduce incontinence at night time. However, she did not notice any immediate difference and wonders if her inconsistency in taking the medication might have limited any positive results.

Freia has also had a telephone appointment with a physiotherapist who talked to her and sent her some pamphlets in the mail. She feels that any benefits from this have now gone and wonders if she should revisit this information. Freia now wishes that she had been more consistent with following guidance and taking her medications.

Currently, Freia is using incontinence pads and sleeps on a rubber sheet. She finds these inconvenient as she has to do a lot of laundry and it also wakes her up during the night. Freia typically wakes up every three hours, though she says that this is manageable as she is not working and doesn’t need to wake up at a certain time. Moving forwards, Freia hopes that having hip surgery will help with her mobility and incontinence. Recently, she has started to notice mild faecal incontinence, which has raised concerns for her of things getting worse in the future. Freia has had additional issues with cellulitis, which she worries is associated with exposure to urine.

Freia feels “embarrassed” about her incontinence and finds that it complicates her social life and relationships. She struggles with feeling “dirty” and avoids letting anyone into her bedroom out of concern she would be “exposed”. While she would like to stay with friends or family, she now avoids this. Freia is worried about how the hospital will accommodate her incontinency needs when she goes for her hip operation: for example, changing sheets and moving around as she recovers from surgery.

Freia also worries about sharing a bed with a future partner. She is currently single and feels sad that she might remain single because of her incontinence.

Being incontinent has made Freia feel “vulnerable” and more aware of her mortality. She feels that she has seen a “different side to life” since living alone and not working. She describes her health problems as being “like a boil” that “builds up in your head”. While she was working in retail, Freia found the lack of breaks to be a burden for those with incontinence. She is retired but worries that the expectation of standing for hours without using the toilet could be “really bad for people”. Freia has discovered that although there are many other people who suffer with incontinence, they will only talk about it once you have disclosed it.

Freia has generally found healthcare providers to be empathetic. Freia encourages women with incontinence to speak openly, do their research, and “get mobile”. She also thinks women should find a way to make pelvic floor exercises part of their routine, such as doing them while brushing your teeth. To younger women, she advises to keep on with their pelvic floor exercises and be careful about weight gain.

Freia’s urinary incontinence has got worse and she now sometimes wakes up soaked in urine after 3 hours. She worries about having accidents when visiting other people.

I thought it was just a temporary thing, but it hasn’t been. What, what I’ve been finding in the last six months really is that I’ve got the problem during the night that before I never had to get up in the night. I’d go to my bed, I would wake up go to the loo, that was fine but now I wake up after three hours and I’m soaking wet and it’s really embarrassing. I’m a single, I’m a single woman and I can see myself being that for the rest of my life because of this problem but it’s so embarrassing and so I feel just like a young kid again and it’s so out of my control and I can’t really think I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of liquid and I don’t have an in-, I don’t have a an infection. I’m running to the loo more often during the day now. It could be every hour and sometimes I’m having accidents. It’s horrible, when I’m out that I’m scared I’m gonna have an accident like in a shop or at a function or even if I’m out visiting people if I spill when I get up from my chair. I’d be really embarrassed, I don’t want to stain anybody’s furniture.

Freia fears losing control of her bladder when she is with others and away from home, and it stops her visiting family.

I fret getting up off a bus seat it’s affect-, I mean there’s me fretting I’m in somebody’s house about and I know different settees, it’s like my daughter, the flat she’s in, the settee that’s there, I think ‘Oh god I can’t get out of it.’ I can’t get out because it’s so painful but I’m also going to maybe wet myself just with the exertion so ‘Is that the hip again?’ you know, this is all my-, [sighs]. It’s really difficult to say to people, I’ll go back to that one, why you can’t go away with them that you finally have to say, the only, the only thing my sister wanted to take, my sister, I know she cares a lot about me and she wanted to take, wanted me to go and stay with her for a month and I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ I thought, so I thought, ‘God I couldn’t even handle the incontinence thing on its own and I thought ‘Well I can’t’ because she’s so-, she’s got a pristine house and everything, how can I say that “You’ll need to wash my, I’ll need to wash the sheets, you know, twice a night”?

 

Freia has worked in jobs where she is entitled to only a short break each shift, which is not enough time for a toilet break amongst everything else.

Now this is a, this is law so you can check into that, so this they’re going by the law so if you work five hours, yeah, you get a break that’s quarter of an hour, that’s all and that’s from the time you log off your, your till getting through to an accessible bathroom, you might need a cup of tea or something and then get back to your till, that has, that time all has to be within fifteen. Now for me you had to go upstairs as well and I’m thinking, ‘Oh’ my hip was starting to be sore then, so I had to get to the loo, get upstairs, get yourself drink of water, get back and hope that no customer stops you on the way.

 

Freia uses environmentally friendly pads. While she is glad they are reusable, she worries about things like the energy cost and people noticing them in the laundry.

There’s, there’s and there’s also maybe the pads that we’re using, I know there’s the throw away ones but oh my god what’s that doing to environment as well. At least my ones would go in the wash but God knows how much my electricity’s going to be, I haven’t, I just shut my eyes to that but I’m now washing every day. I never did that before, especially living on my own, it’d be once a week and that maybe sounds disgusting but I’ve got enough clothes to do that. But now, you know, and it’s like I don’t, I think my kids must notice this when they’re staying with me, they’ll be saying, “What’s the washing machine on again for?”
 
But that’s my fear if they can see my pads out, my blanket pads outside and I’m thinking ‘oh what if the gardener sees them or-?’, that I’m in constant [ugh] anxiety that somebody might spot this or if I’ve got them over the radiator, they’re washed and all that and I’m thinking, ‘oh this is maybe not hygienic for drying’ but they take quite a while to dry for me then to go through two in a night and they’re expensive.
 
I mean they’re maybe too expensive for people as well, that’s a thing that I don’t know how older people, again especially women who are not getting their pensions they cannot afford this, all these things. This is an extra charge, you know, apart from the winter allowance, an allow- that some people need, nobody’s saying, “Well actually she needs, she’s spent a lot of money on incontinence pads”.

 

Freia has purchased cycling shorts with nerve stimulation that are advertised for people with incontinence. She struggles with feeling “guilty” about not using the device regularly.

I’ve also I’ve bought this friend, the friend who had the birthday yesterday who told me about this who also told me about these other pants they’re advertised, it’s, they’re like cycling shorts but they’ve got like pads inside.
 
They have like TENS pads on it and there’s a front and the back and it’s supposed to direct the signals to your pelvic thing so I’ve used that about three times. I did spend quite a lot of money on that because I thought, I have this mentality if you buy enough stuff and everything like that but you don’t actually have to use it, you’re one step there. So I do have them in my hall cupboard which I should dig out and I should do again and that should be and that’s when I then feel guilty that I haven’t done this to help myself before I go and ask for more help because I’ve got to pull my weight on it.

 

Freia would give her nurse a ‘gold star’ for being so caring.

The nice one, the nice one was so pleasant, and I just felt relaxed with her and she was will-, she was willing, I mean I was in the same amount of time but I got such a different, she had care she was a really nice person and she gave me a waste, she says, “No I’ll get that, no just stay there, I’ll get that” and “No that’ll be fine. Have you got another appointment?” You know, the first time I saw her, she said “Have you got more appointments?” I said, “What do you think? I said, “No,” I said, “you’re the only person that, you’re the first person that’s kind of like been nice to me,” and I said, “Oh,” I said, “I’m just being, well-“ yeah the first time I’d I had seen her that’s when she said, she was the one that was saying, “Have you got more the appointments set up?” I said, “No,” I said, “No, anyhow, just seeing your colleague last time,” I said, “She was-,” I made a comment and she just, she smirked and said, “No comment.” So, I thought ‘Oh that’s really diplomatic’ and I kinda felt like it was bad of me, but I also wanted her to know that she was doing a good job for me, that she was being a good nurse and that I appreciated her nursing skill and yeah, she sticks in my mind, know her name. I’m really awful with names, I know her name, but she was lovely and I felt safe with her, and I felt listened to and I felt like she cared that she was gonna do, that she was gonna help me, I actually felt relieved and that something could be done and so there is, yeah I’d give her a gold star.

Freia worries about letting her daughter into her bedroom because she is embarrassed about the smell of urine.

You feel dirty, you feel dirty as well, that’s what, you know, you feel really dirty. You’re scared in case you might be smelly, and, you know, I feel embarrassed about my bedroom. I don’t want my kids to know and yet, you know, it’s only, we’ve all got the same type of bodies and all that that I need, I need my daughter to, I know my daughter does kinda know but we had an incident. It was actually, I think it was like Christmas Day of all days and our relationship has been a bit fragile at times for various other reasons I will not go into but she’d come into my room but I felt exposed because I was in disarray because of the bedsheets and everything and she wouldn’t get out of my room and that’s really bad and normally there wouldn’t have been and later and I know she was hurt but I just needed her out of the room because I was embarrassed but later when I told her she said, “Ah that explains, that explains, oh that explains it” and I said, “What?” and I said, you know, “Christmas?” and she said, “Yeah.” And so yeah, it’s just you don’t want to, people generally don’t want to share that but I am blabbing it but then to just certain people but then I find that they’re agreeing and it’s almost a bit like you’re in a different club that it’s all, “Yeah, yeah we’re having this, do this, do that.”