Hi there and welcome back to my blog. How are you? I hope you are well. Today I’m going to talk about diabetes insipidus and how I learned to control it. Diabetes insipidus is what happens when you have a tumour on the pituitary gland. The symptoms of diabetes insipidus are a constant dry mouth, drinking a lot of water and going to the bathroom a lot.
As I mentioned in a earlier blog post, I’ve been suffering for a long time. At 2013, I would take 4 bottles of water, buy another big bottle of water and I would refill my big bottle for the train ride home, and I would still feel thirsty. When I spoke to my family about this, my sister said that you could drown your organs. When I spoke to my GP about this, he said that I was low on vitamin D. When I spoke to my consultant about it, he then put me to another department in the hospital and they were the ones who diagnosed with diabetes insipidus.
These days I only drink either with food or to take a tablet. And on a bad day, I would drink 2.5 litres and I would go to the bathroom 6 times or less. So how did I do it? Here’s how:
- Track everything that you eat and drink
- Go decaf
- Listerine mouthwash
- Wear loose underwear
- Wear man braces not a belt
- Stay warm but not too too warm
- Kegels
- Hyperbaric oxygen chamber
Track everything that you eat and drink
Since September 2016, when I was told by my consultant that I needed to cut down on the amount that I drink or they were going to up my dosage. The next day, I started to use my phone’s calculator to see “on paper” how much I was actually drinking. Ever since then, I’ve been slowly cutting down the amount that I drink.
When it comes to going to the bathroom, tracking what you eating and drinking helped me. This time last year, I would drink a lot of Irn-Brw. Once I saw that I was going to the bathroom, right after drinking it, that’s when I decided to stop drinking it.
Go decaf
Irn-Brw, like most fizzy drinks, has a lot of caffeine in it. Caffeine makes you go to the bathroom. That’s why I only drink decaf tea, water, juice and hot coconut milk.
Listerine mouthwash
When I told one of my uncles about my constant thirst, he recommended me to use Listerine Cool Mint Mouthwash
Wear loose underwear
Last month, when I had convinced myself that I lost enough weight to try on these boxers that were far too tight when I bought them, I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I had pain in my bladder throughout the day. As soon as I swapped my boxers, the amount of times that I go to the bathroom went back to normal.
Wear man braces not belts
Just over a year ago, I decided to wear man braces. In a similar reason to my last point, tight clothing around the waist, makes you go to the bathroom.
Stay warm but not too warm
It’s a known fact that the cold, makes you to the bathroom. And being hot makes you drink more. So stay warm, but not too warm.
I learned how to stretch my bladder by doing an exercise called kegels.
Kegels
Kegels are not just for pregnant women, they definitely helped me controlling the number of times that I go to the bathroom. Here’s how I do it. Firstly, make sure that your bladder is empty and then squeeze your bladder for three seconds and then release for three seconds. Do that ten times, three times a day.
To be honest, I don’t do that anymore because in September 2017, I’ve been using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
Hyperbaric oxygen chamber
As I mentioned in my first blog post, the hyperbaric oxygen chamber fixes the body from radio and chemotherapy. I will go into more detail in my next blog post.
So that’s it. To recap, track everything that you eat and track the amount that you drink, switch to decaf, Listerine Cool Mint Mouthwash
Once again, I just want to thank a few people. Firstly, I would like to thank my mum, dad, sister and my uncle, for being by my side, throughout everything. I would like to thank Louise from BTS for sharing this with the community. I would like to thank Kanika, Shirley and everyone at Carers Trust for giving me the confidence to sharing my story and I would like to thank Joe for motivating me to getting back on the horse. And I would like to thank everyone at the hospital, my family and friends and everyone who I’ve met on this journey.
The next time, I’m going to talk about in more detail about the hyperbaric oxygen chamber and it’s benefits.
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Thanks and I will speak to you soon.
