Adult male incontinence?

I have a friend that every once in a while will wake up and realize he had wet the bed. His age is 22. This started a few years back. Any suggestions as to what could be wrong?

Wetting the bed happens to a lot more people than you would think, even young adults! The popular myth is that children who have this problem will “grow out of it” eventually, but unfortunately not everyone does.

Lots of different things could be causing it, depending on exactly how many years back the problem goes. If he’s always done it (even off and on in spurts) since childhood, or if he did if for several years as a kid, “stopped” for awhile and started again, he probably just has a slightly small or immature bladder that never quite developed enough to cope with a full night’s worth of urine. He might be OK on most nights, but every once in awhile he might be really tired, stressed, or just sleep more soundly than normal so that he can’t feel his bladder getting full during the night, and an accident results. Especially if he has a history of bedwetting as a kid, if he has to urinate more frequently than average during the day, and/or he often has to get up and urinate during the night on his “dry” nights, there’s a good chance that an underdeveloped bladder is the problem. In that case, it may not go away entirely, but there are things he can do to help at least increase the chances of a dry night. (That’s really a separate question though…)

If he NEVER did it as a kid and just started recently, and if his bladder capacity seems fine during the day, then it’s possible that he has neurological problems or something of that nature. Diabetes is probably the most common cause of adult-onset bedwetting, but if he had diabetes he would probably have other symptoms as well. He could also have a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea that could cause his brain and bladder to mis-communicate during the night. If it’s a (relatively) new problem and his bladder does NOT seem to be the problem, he may want to see a doctor to find out what else may be going on.

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