All About Pee

How the Body Works - From Drinking to Peeing

When you drink something it goes down into your stomach (your tummy).

From there it goes to your intestines and into your blood.

When your blood gets filtered by your kidneys the water that is no longer needed gets turned into pee and is sent to the bladder.

The bladder looks like a small balloon. It is small when it’s empty but it grows in size when it fills up with pee.

When the bladder is full it is time to go to the bathroom.

From the bladder there is a tube called the urethra which the pee comes out of when you go.

Why We Need to Pee

Think of your bladder like a sink. When the plug is in you can fill a sink with water from the taps. If you keep pouring water into the sink, it will fill up. If you leave the taps on without taking the plug out, it will fill up so much it overflows onto the floor.

If you keep filling your bladder, it will get full and can overflow. This means that the pee either goes back up to your kidneys, which can make you sick, or it may force its way down, which will make you wet.

You need to pee many times a day to stop your bladder overflowing.

Different problems

A lot of things affect your body’s ability to keep pee in the bladder or to empty the bladder.

Usually if things don’t work the way they should, it’s because of you have been ill or you may have been hurt.

It can happen to anyone, kids or grown ups.

Incontinence is a word that means you pee yourself and you can’t help it.
Retention means you aren’t able to do a pee even when you need to.
You might have one of these problems, or you might have them both.

For you to be able to pee, your bladder and brain need to be able to talk to each other. Without talking to each other, the brain doesn’t know that you need to use the restroom, so it can’t tell your bladder to squeeze your pee out. Catheters help you to get your pee out when your bladder and brain are not able to talk to each other.

Sometimes you may get an infection, which can make you feel poorly, but your doctor can help and using LoFric catheters should mean this doesn't happen very often.

Different Ways to Pee

There are different ways of getting to school – some children go on their bikes and some walk to school.

There are different ways to pee. Some people go straight into a toilet, some pee with the help of a catheter. There’s nothing odd about it, it’s just the way some people do it.

What is a Catheter?

A catheter is a little tube which you can put into your bladder when you need to go to the bathroom, and it will get the pee out for you. The times you need to do your catheter can be fitted around your day, you can do it before and after you go to school as well as during play time and lunch time. Sometimes you might need to be reminded by your teacher or parents, but usually you’ll be able to remember by yourself.