As if I have not been trying to do this since I was about 10 years old. Like everyone else, my bladder capacity and my holding endurance improved as I grew up, but relative to my peers, it remained the same, fairly pathetic! Yes, I have tried making my bladder holding muscles work every day, (it is a very good day when I'm not bursting to pee at least once!) and all the other things suggested, but without any significant effect.
I am now resigned to always having the smallest bladder in any group, and normally being the first one to want to wee. I may not have managed to improve my holding capacity significantly, but I have got very good at finding loos if there are any available, I probably know every technique there is for holding back my wee, either discretely or openly and at least I have no hang-ups about asking for directions, being the only one of a group to pee, or squatting to pee behind a bush if there is nothing better available.
My friendship with Marion, the first person who I have been able to talk openly to about weeing, waiting, panties wetting, and desperately holding on, brought out one interesting point that may not be obvious to some of my large bladder ed advisors. We had been out together one evening, Marion had drunk a lot of beer and not been to the loo and on the bus home, she described herself as desperate to pee. I commented that she was not even crossing her legs all the time, she replied that it didn't help much, if at all and she wasn't yet at the stage where she would be fighting to hold it in. She described her feeling as being very aware of how full her bladder was, it was aching painfully and she longed to be comfortable again by having a wee, but she was not having to make any effort to hold in her wee. Only when she was getting frantic would she have to make a conscious effort to hold in her wee. Otherwise, she likened it to having a headache, if you could take an aspirin to cure it you would, if not you kept going feeling miserable, making more effort to get an aspirin the worst it got. Similarly, when she wanted a wee, she would go if she could if not hold on, feeling more and more uncomfortable until she could pee. Only in the most extreme cases had she ever reached the point when she had to really struggle to hold back her wee.
For me, it is completely different. When I want a wee then it's not very long before I am having to make a real effort to hold my wee back. If I can't sit and cross my legs, or better sit on my foot, then I will be really clenching myself shut with all my strength to avoid wetting my panties. Both of us had thought that everyone else in the world was as we were. Marion had never before been able to understand why I got so agitated when I wanted to wee, I had never understood how she and others, were able to walk about bursting to pee for so long. We have concluded that the lucky people who can wait for hours are all like Marion and just feel full and uncomfortable, while the small bladders are more like me, though I may be an extreme case. Would anyone reading this like to comment on this? It seems to me that if you are a Marion type then its relatively easy to make yourself wait for hours as bladder training, whereas if you are a Nicola type, holding out for a single hour is almost impossible unless you can sit on your foot or hold yourself. So please, when you write to me and suggest I make myself wait for a long time to train my bladder, remember it might not be so easy for me as it is for you. (You lucky thing!)
Nicola Steel.