Bed-Wetting and Sickle Cell

In the list of complications I named in Section 01) Know Your Illness, I failed to address one issue that is common among Sickle Cell patients, that being, bed-wetting.  The link to the website below has good information about the issue.
      •   Bed-wetting, Information about Bed-wetting

For a child living with this, it can be a stressful and embarrassing issue. You don’t have to have Sickle Cell Anemia or some other health issue to be a bed-wetter. I have three family members, all of whom were healthy, who wet the bed as children. I was twelve or thirteen when I stopped wetting the bed. I remember just waking up one day having not wet the bed, and I never did it again. It was an issue that resolved itself in time.

I’m the only one in the family with Sickle Cell. In spite of this, my mother knew what it was like to be a bed-wetter. She had the issue until age six and her sister had the issue until age twelve. My aunt dreaded spending the night at her grandmother’s house because her grandmother made a big issue out of it and made my aunt feel bad about being twelve years old and wetting the bed.

Because my mom had this childhood experience, she knew that wasn’t the right approach. Wetting the bed isn’t something a child can control, so putting pressure on them to stop, and making them feel bad about it, is the wrong way to handle the problem.

Growing up, I lived in a rural area, so I only had one friend whose house I spent the night at. I remember my mom talking with his mom about my problem. I also remember that I did wet the bed at his house. Jeremy was a true friend. He never gave me a hard time about it.

If I went on campouts, my dad always went with me to make sure I didn’t get too cold. I usually wet my sleeping bag, but my dad was careful to keep it from the other boys so I wouldn’t get teased.

I know some parents try to limit water intake before bedtime. With Sickle Cell children, that is an approach I wouldn’t recommend. Water and hydration are vital to our health. Training the child to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom may be a wiser approach, though it was something my parents didn’t do with me.
My parents never put any pressure on me to stop wetting the bed or made me feel bad about doing so. They knew it was out of my control and it would resolve itself in time; which it did.

If any young person is reading this, I would say to you, “Don’t worry. One day you will wake up, be dry and never wet the bed again. You aren’t alone. Other children have this same problem. It doesn’t matter if they have Sickle Cell or if they are healthy, other children have the same problem. You WILL grow out of wetting the bed. I promise.”