This article is about people who do not need to medically wear diapers. This is NOT about anyone who medically needs to wear diapers. Anyone who is incontinent and needs to wear diapers should wear diapers. But those adults who have been taught to be lazy and pee and poop in their diapers just because it is easier for nurses and doctors to handle that ---these are the patients that this article is addressed to. (See disclaimer at the end of this article).

All over the world, at this very moment, there are nurses, staff and attendants who are trying to convince fully healthy, continent individuals to wear diapers when they do not medically need to wear diapers. All over this is happening. And this is making the patient more and more unhealthy.

Here is why it is important that your family member or you do not wear diapers inside a nursing home or inside a physical rehabilitation and care center:

* Once you begin wearing diapers, you will become in the habit of just pooping and peeing whenever you want to simply because you have a diaper on and because your clothing will not get wet or soiled. The diaper will protect your clothing. You are told to go in your diaper because that is what they are for. So, you begin to get accustomed to pooping whenever you feel like it. Wow. Think about it. You do not even have to get out of bed. No more nighttime trips. You just poop and pee whenever you want to do so. But what is happening to your body while you do this? Here is what happens. Eventually, you will lose control of those muscles that you are not using and you will make yourself incontinent. Yes, you, yourself, with the help of nurses and staff who are being paid good money, are helping you lose your muscles. Soon you will not be able to control your muscles and then you will indeed be incontinent. If you do not use those muscles to hold it in, you will lose the power those muscles still have. So you are actually making yourself sick. You are making yourself to have signs of being an invalid, when you came into the place a healthier person who was fully able to urinate and defecate in a toilet bowl. But for the convenience of staff, imagine that, for the convenience of staff, you become more ill and more dependent on the staff in a nursing home or in a hospital.

* Now, if you are in such a mind that you think this is okay, think again. You are in the nursing home or in the rehab and care center --only temporarily. Yes, you are there temporarily, and after you leave there you will go home to your family. What happens when you get home? You will be there and you will be dependent on your family and also on temporary home care -to change your diapers. What if your family does not agree to changing diapers on you ---because you put yourself in diapers when it was not necessary? What happens if your family tells you that they will not change your diapers because you put yourself in that condition? (Of course this will be settled long before you leave the nursing home or rehab center). But I am trying to give you some ideas, some brainstorming of what your future might look like. Your future looks different if you are in or out of diapers, very different.

* Once you are at home now, and you are still in diapers, you will be sitting in soaked diapers for long times, just like in the nursing home. Since you are in diapers no one has to change you immediately. Get the picture? You wait. And yes, you wait. You might be under the impression that you will soil a diaper and wet a diaper and then someone will come immediately to change you --but you are mistaken. Once your family knows that you did this to yourself, once they know that you could have avoided being incontinent, do you think that they are going to drop everything they do and run to change your diaper? Do you think that you will have your diaper changed any quicker than the nurses will do it? Perhaps it will take longer, since there are many nurses and great number of staff but perhaps only one or two family members. Yes, you will wait. And you will wait in a soiled diaper or wet diaper, just the same way that you waited in the hospital . No one says that the minute you pee or poop that someone must or someone will imediately come running to change your diaper. Your family member might be in the tub or they might be out to work or to school or to a volunteer job, and if that is the case --that they are out, you will wait for them to return. And upon their return, they will have to catch their breath, sit a few minutes and then when they are able to change your diaper , then they will change it.
* So, you sit there smugly thinking that your home care attendant will change you promptly because that is what she is being paid for? Take the smug grin off your face and welcome yourself to reality and to the real world. When you have a home care attendant, you will have that person in your home only for short periods of time. You will not have someone there 24/7 . They work their own hours. So if they are there they can change your diaper. But what if you have a home-care attendant who hates her or his job? What if they are not happy people? What if they are not good workers? If this is the case, you can wait, yes , hours and hours to have your diaper changed, if at all. Your family member might say, that the attendant will be here soon to change the diaper and you might wait and then they might call in sick or not show up at all. And, there you sit in a messy, uncomfortable diaper until someone can change you. Remember, now, you put yourself in this position by volunteering to go in diapers when you did not need diapers. When I say volunteer, I mean that you did not insist that you be taken to the restroom but happily let the attendants put diapers on you when you were not medically incontinnet. You did this to yourself with the help of highly-paid staff at nursing homes and at physical rehabilitation and care centers.

* What about depression? If you are a patient who has ever been depressed in your lifetime, once you submit to wearing unnecessary diapers, your depression will come back to you and worsen. You are making yourself more unhealthy by submitting to unnecessary diapers. Depression is banished most times, by action. And when you sit all day in a diaper, to even a normal human being who has no depression that is depressing. There is no one that can honestly tell you that sitting in soiled diapers , soaked diapers, diapers with diareahh is not depressing. So by making yourself more physically unhealthy, you are also making yourself more emotionally unhealthy. Depression comes and comes back and worsens when a person is wearing diapers if they do not need to medically wear diapers.

Wearing diapers is a comfort ONLY to those who NEED to medically wear the diapers. They are not a comfort to continent people. Do not let any staff convince you otherwise. Do not let any staff scare you with the threat of falls or scare you with the threat of "accidents". Insist on your rights if you are not medically incontinent.

The bottom line is that once you PUT yourself in diapers when you are not medically incontinent, you are putting yourself in a world that you have never known and you are making more problems for yourself and even making more medical problems for yourself. How? Well, as you sit in dirty and soaked diapers, you might begin to develop rashes, or problems or sores, especially if you are diabetic or especially if you have a skin problem to begin with. Everyone knows that diapers bring rashes sometimes. And most likely you will have your share of diaper rashes in your lifetime when you choose to be in diapers.

Now all these things are only possibilities, that is all, but they are possibilities that you have not thought of, correct? But they are all possibilities, depending on the staff, home attendants and the families, and depending on their attentiveness and their availability. What I am trying to say to you is that your life will be so much easier for you if you just grow up and keep yourself out of diapers when you are medically able to not wear diapers.

When you put yourself in diapers and you do not medically need to be in diapers, you are killing a part of yourself, you are humiliating yourself for no good reason. If you are a person that is not incontinent, and if you are a person that does not medically need to wear diapers, then you should make the decision yourself and demand to be out of diapers immediately. If you do not medically need to wear diapers, there is no reason for you to wear diapers.

What about the doctors and nurses in diapers? Here is what about them. Think about this:

When a surgeon or nurse needs hospitalization, or when a lawyer or judge or someone of high importance needs hospitalization or a nursing home or rehab stay, do you think that these dignified people would allow anyone to put them in diapers for the convenience of the staff? Probably not. No lawyer, judge, or doctor or surgeon or nurse would permit themselves to poop and pee in a diaper for the mere convenience of the staff of a facility.

They would protest. They would demand that the staff do their job and they would insist that no one put a diaper on them. So that is why you will not see lawyers in diapers any more than you would see doctors, surgeons or nurses in diapers. Why? This is why:

* It is not medically necessary --in their cases.
* It is an embarrassment even though staff insists it is not embarrassing. Sure, it is not embarrassing to them because it is not their bare but that is being wiped of poop. It is only embarrassing to the patient that is all. And staff spends time to reassure the patient that this is not embarrassing. Lie!
* Lawyers, doctors and nurses have more recourse to argue the point and the staff knows that they had better not go against a surgeons words if that surgeon is insisting on NOT wearing diapers.
* The nurses know that it will come out to the public, if not to the news stations when a surgeon is put in diapers unnecessarily because that surgoen will do everythying in his power to stay out of diapers.
* That is why you do not see surgeons, doctors, lawyers or nurses in diapers. You will only see those patients who have been hoodwinked into thinking that they need diapers just in case or so they do not fall. It is all a lie. No healthy , continant patient needs diapers, EVER!

What about falls?

This is a big argument that staff has. Staff will insist that you have a diaper so you do not fall. Everyone knows that falls are dangerous. The fall is not the result of wearing a diaper or not wearing a diaper. You will not fall more if you do not wear diapers. You will only fall if you insist on net getting help to and from the bathroom. You will only fall if the staff is negligent and not paying attention and not coming when the bell rings. You will only fall if the staff ignores you.

So there you go, you have the fall situation solved. Your staff where you are should be attentive and should come when you call them. There is no excuse for negligence in any nursing home or rehab facilitiy. Do not worry about falling if you follow instructions.

To Avoid Falls do This:

Always ring the bell and do not get out of bed unatttended.

Always ask for help and get help.

This solves the fall problem.

And here is the biggy. If you are in a place where the staff is negligent and is not attending to you, you have many legal recourses and many organizations that will help you solve these problems. But the solution is not to wear a diaper for the convenience of the staff.

And yes, at this moment as I type and as you read this, hundreds if not thousands of patients are being forced into diapers just for the convenience of the staff. I wish Geraldo Rivera would do some kind of investigation into this diaper mess because it is a really big diaper mess. What are your thoughts?

I created this article on May 25, 2008. DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, nurse or any other type of medical practitioner. If you need medical advice or professional advice you should call your own doctor, lawyer or other professional for that advice. This article is for basic social information and for basic behind-the-scenes information that the public should be aware of. Do not do anything that is not safe for you to do and before making any medical or professional changes,consult your doctors, lawyers or professionals. Never ask your attending nurse/ or attendant if you should be in diapers because most will tell you yes, and most times they are saying that for their own convenience. Consult your medical doctors, lawyers and other professionals.