Most of us older females don't want to admit it, but this can be a big problem for us. The causes are usually different than in men, but the results are the same--several fast exits from the tent in the middle of the night.

For women, there are two kinds of "incontinence": One is stress incontinence, often brought on by coughing or sneezing. It's due to relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles due to childbearing or just plain inactivity, and can be cured over time by doing lots of "Kegel" exercises (tightening of the pelvic floor muscles). The other is urge incontinence (celebrated in TV ads as "overactive bladder") in which the bladder, for some reason, decides on its own to contract. With this type, no matter how many Kegels you do, when those bladder muscles decide to contract, things happen. Yes, there are well-advertised drugs for it, but one of the complications is severe dehydration during exercise, so I won't take them. Instead, I wear pads. I haven't found that avoiding liquids in the late afternoon and evening helps very much, although I try not to drink a lot then. Avoiding anything with a diuretic tendency--coffee, tea, chocolate-- in the evening does help. But no matter what I do, I'm usually out of the tent every hour for the first two hours of the night and every two hours after that. Taking cranberry extract capsules does help a little. So, interestingly, does putting an electrolyte drink powder (Gookinaid) in my drinking water.

Men, I understand, should seek medical help for urinary problems because of the small possibility of prostate cancer. We females, though, other than keeping up with our Kegel exercises, have a choice of taking the drugs with their attendant complications or learning to live with this condition.