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Science of a Wet Night


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Since I've consistently wet the bed for the past months, I was inspired to build a sensor that would record when and how much I wet during the night, just out of curiosity. I used my Arduino and

To help calibrate your volume measurements, you could take the actual weight of the diaper dry, and then wet, and use the weight of water to see how close your volume calculation based on that assumed

It would be interesting to pair this data with one of those phone apps that track your sleep cycles - figure out during which cycle the wetting is happening.  If it's happening during REM, for example

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You've covered volume and duration, maybe start tracking conductivity, or PH? Might tell you something about the concentration, which in turn might give you a clue as to what your kidneys are up to.

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Here's some more data I dug up from the other nights I wore the sensor. For all the nights, I went to bed around 10pm and woke up around 6-7am:

It recorded two wettings, the first at 12:15am, lasting for 24 seconds/432ml, and the second at 3:39am, lasting for 17 seconds/306ml, totalling 738ml. The heaviness of my abena this morning supports that conclusion.

Two wettings, one at 12:25am for 20s/360ml, and one at 4:08am for 16s/288ml, totalling 648ml. Also, I had to go fairly bad when I woke up this morning.

The first night I wore the sensor, it recorded one wetting beginning at 1:49am and lasting 22 seconds, so 396ml. It lost power somewhere after that. I don't know exactly when, because the sensor just registers 0 when it has no power, and the controller doesn't record anything below the threshold. 

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1 hour ago, Ronyo said:

Sounds like your bladder is quite active o,o

To make this experiment more concrete you should plot some graphs once you have a good amount of data!

Sexy science >:D

I'm a heavy wetter. :/ I have to drink some water before bed, or else I can't sleep.

I'll definitely wear the sensor for a few more nights to get some more data, and plot it!

 

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41 minutes ago, TheIrreverend said:

I'm a heavy wetter. :/ I have to drink some water before bed, or else I can't sleep.

I'll definitely wear the sensor for a few more nights to get some more data, and plot it!

 

I know it causes problems, but I find it sexy and adorable! (I refuse to not be honest with my perversity).

I look forward to seeing you plot out your accidents :3 it will be a most interesting read ^^

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37 minutes ago, Ronyo said:

I know it causes problems, but I find it sexy and adorable! (I refuse to not be honest with my perversity).

I look forward to seeing you plot out your accidents :3 it will be a most interesting read ^^

Aww, thanks! It's definitely a problem sometimes, especially when I'm travelling. This latest wet period has lasted for a year now, so I'm kinda used to it, though. I'll be honest with my perversions, too: I really, um, enjoy waking up wet sometimes.

32 minutes ago, KozmoFox said:

oxy-omo-ron if I've ever seen one

Less than you might think if you're me and wet almost every night! :P

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First: Patent your invention, this would be incredibly useful for testing bedwetting and other incontinence.

Second: Produce your invention.

Third: Donate a % of your massive profits to Omo.org :) 

But seriously, this is a rather ingenious way to study wetting patterns. All the methods I've seen out there involve highly invasive urodynamics, or imprecise diaries or pad measurement/weighing. None of these methods, baring urodynamics, tell you when you are wetting, something which could be very useful to know by bedwetters. For example, if I know I wet (or my bedwetting child wets), at around 3 am consistently at night, then I'd wake them up around 2:30 am (or set an alarm to wake up) to pee before the wetting incident. 

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19 minutes ago, rachelkirwan said:

First: Patent your invention, this would be incredibly useful for testing bedwetting and other incontinence.

Second: Produce your invention.

Third: Donate a % of your massive profits to Omo.org :) 

But seriously, this is a rather ingenious way to study wetting patterns. All the methods I've seen out there involve highly invasive urodynamics, or imprecise diaries or pad measurement/weighing. None of these methods, baring urodynamics, tell you when you are wetting, something which could be very useful to know by bedwetters. For example, if I know I wet (or my bedwetting child wets), at around 3 am consistently at night, then I'd wake them up around 2:30 am (or set an alarm to wake up) to pee before the wetting incident. 

I actually got the idea from a paper I read on the urodynamics of bedwetting in children, where the researchers did this sort of thing with a temperature sensor and diaper to see when and how much the children wet.

It still has got a few kinks, though. The temperature sensor can't really differentiate between you dribbling onto it and full-on peeing, so the volume estimates may be off for some people (I know they're more or less right for me because my diaper really feels like it has 700ml in it on the wet mornings). Also, the apparatus isn't exactly comfortable to wear. I hope to make the sensor wireless in the future to help with that.

What I really got from this is that it takes about 3 hours for my bladder to fill from empty before I wet. Unfortunately, setting alarms doesn't work too well for me, since I'll either sleep through them or groggily turn them off without actually going to the toilet.

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To help calibrate your volume measurements, you could take the actual weight of the diaper dry, and then wet, and use the weight of water to see how close your volume calculation based on that assumed flow-rate is to the real weight-based measure from the same night.

Edited by HPattern (see edit history)
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19 minutes ago, HPattern said:

To help calibrate your volume measurements, you could take the actual weight of the diaper dry, and then wet, and use the weight of water to see how close your volume calculation based on that assumed flow-rate is to the real weight-based measure from the same night.

I'll definitely do that. Of course, it won't help me learn about the actual urodynamics of the wettings (ie dribbles, spurts, continuous?) but that might be asking a bit much from such a simple setup.

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20 minutes ago, TheIrreverend said:

actual urodynamics of the wettings (ie dribbles, spurts, continuous?)

I'm not too familiar with the variety of off-the-shelf Arduino parts available, but perhaps a sound pressure meter to get readings of sound level in dB, which might show spikes indicating spurts, or long periods of high noise that correspond with full releases?

Also, an accelerometer+gyro module on the board would show if you move around a lot before/during/after wetting.

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20 minutes ago, HPattern said:

I'm not too familiar with the variety of off-the-shelf Arduino parts available, but perhaps a sound pressure meter to get readings of sound level in dB, which might show spikes indicating spurts, or long periods of high noise that correspond with full releases?

Also, an accelerometer+gyro module on the board would show if you move around a lot before/during/after wetting.

I do have both a microphone in my kit. I can probably get the microphone to do something similar to the temperature sensor, with a low level of noise correlating to a slow wetting, and so on. As for the accelerometer, it might be simpler to see if there's any off-the-shelf smartphone apps to record that data.

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30 minutes ago, TheIrreverend said:

As for the accelerometer, it might be simpler to see if there's any off-the-shelf smartphone apps to record that data.

There definitely are. An insomniac friend of mine uses one.

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A warning to those considering this.  Most Arduino temperature sensors have good insulation and can be used with both battery and "transformer" power to the Arduino.  Many other sensors (conductivity especially) should be used only with entirely battery-powered arrangements.  I have tried the conductivity method with a battery-powered analog system.  Either I wouldn't fall asleep or my outlet would slip away from the sensor before my wetting.  This thread may inspire me to try the temperature method.

Another way to check your flow rate:  Time your stream while peeing into a measuring cup of at least one liter.  The volume divided by the time to pass it is your flow rate.  According to medical papers I've read (but lost references), normal females differ in rate by at least 4 to 1.

Record actual temperature every 15 minutes or so.  Set the threshold toward the low side.  Program the Arduino to record temperature every two seconds for two minutes or so after each threshold trigger.  Having the actual temperature profile may help.  (International radiologists sometimes use this method to estimate whether a blood clot has dissolved to an extent therapy can be discontinued.  In that case a second method (such as ultrasonic flow measurement) should be used as a check.)  With bed wetting, cooling rate may indicate whether peeing has completely slowed, stopped, stopped and restarted, etc.

Uh. . . for that matter I'm sitting in a hospital cafeteria in which a doctor working across the street uses Arduinos to introduce medical instrumentation basics before turning the students loose on expensive instruments.

The Arduino had not become generally available when I did my masters degree in environmental physics.  But your description of actually obtaining useful information, beat most informal proposals I've seen in this research field.

A link to or post of your software and wiring would be interesting.

 

 

Edited by Stanley79
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Unusually, the sensor picked up three wettings last night. I went to bed around 9pm, and the sensor picked up wettings at 12:09am for 20s/360ml, at 3:17am for 12s/216ml, and 4:38am for 11s/198ml, for a total of 774ml.

At some point during the night, I also has an omo-related dream. I was wandering around an immense, deserted building in my nightie and diaper when I realized I had to go. Not seeing anywhere I could peex I ended up wetting my diaper.

Edited by TheIrreverend (see edit history)
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