Last week
while flipping through a popular parenting magazine, I was shocked to see a
small notice warning parents about the dangers of the bedwetting drug, Desmopressin. A bedwetting drug? For real? Now I know for sure we are a nation obsessed with meds.
Bedwetting
is a part of my life right now with a six-year-old boy, who is working his way
slowly but surely toward dry nights.
So I have been reading loads of tips and ideas for helping him to get
through the night without his internal flood-gates springing a leak.
We’ve done the overnight “diaper” thing,
(they now try and disguise them to look like boxers for bigger kids…Truman
wasn’t fooled), the no-liquids-after-7:00 pm thing, and now we’re onto the wake-him-up-to-pee-before-we-hit-the-hay thing.
He’s
making progress, keeping dry more than not, and taking great pride in nights when he wakes up with the same
pajamas and sheets with which he went to sleep. We don’t make him feel bad when
he’s wet and we don’t over-do the praise when he’s not.
Has it
been fun? No. Has it been easy? No.
Am I tired of doing peed-in laundry? Yep.
But would
I drug my kid to avoid all of it? Uh, no.
According
to the FDA, the drug desmopression, when used to treat bedwetting can, in
“rare” circumstances cause seizures and possibly death. The drug causes the kidneys to produce
less urine at night, so if a child drinks too much water while taking the drug,
it can lower the salt content in his bloodstream, and lead to a seizure.
When I
googled the drug Desmopression I found this medication is primary used to treat
a special kind of diabetes called “water diabetes”, in which the body produces
an abnormal amount of urine. According to the information online, it’s in a
class of medication called hormones.
It works by replacing vasopressin, a hormone that is normally produced
in the body to help balance the amount of water and salt.
Desmopressin
is also used to treat people with bleeding problems after head injury and/or
surgery.
The side
effects list for this drug, as you can imagine, is huge and all of the things
listed including nose bleeds, genital pain, fast or profound heartbeat, and
loss of consciousness for awhile, sound far worse than a wet bed.
Kids have small bladders and less
control...they’re kids. And bedwetting is, well, just part of the parenting
package.
Modern medicine is a blessing for sure, but sometimes I think we all need to take two giant steps away from the pharmacy counter for a moment.
Now all we
need is a drug to help our kids sleep through the night at six months, potty
train by themselves, and learn to pick up their underwear off the floor.
Oh, wait,
I think I might be out of a job soon.