The technology has advanced far beyond the days of simple pieces of cloth. You really don't feel it that much. It does feel like your carrying something heavy around, but not as damp as you'd imagine. Dampness promotes rashes, which can develop into infections. So the better dampness control you have, the better it'll be for the patient. That's one key feature that got a lot of focus while developing the technology currently available.
See I have heard the adult ones don't work as well as children's nappies though.. basically what Baby Duck said.
And by 'not as damp as you imagine', basically I want zero damp. Does it feel damp at all?
I'm sure there's plenty of suitable hiding places in your dwelling. And if they find them, you can always tell them, "wtf, why are you snooping around my things"
But the damage has been done!
I always carry a spare change of clothes in case I get flooded. I carry the "nappies" in the bottom of the small clothes bag. I carry the bag with me when I go take the last peeing before suiting up. After the last peeing I install the "nappies". I only use one per dive trip day -- usually two dives per day.
Yea I do the same (in case my suit or p-valve fails on a dive). But yea I still think it sounds icky to wear a nappy. I mean I don't care if other people do it but it just seems... gross to have a nappy on.
You dispose of them in the same place where bathroom paper waste goes. Just bunch them into a tight ball (no liquid will squeeze out) and use the adhesive strips to keep the ball in shape. Because it's heavier it usually goes to the bottom of the waste basket. I don't know much about this, but I suspect it's not any more complicated than disposing of womanly period absorbing devices.
Well see putting them on and taking them off would be a problem. I often dive in places were there may be no places to change or places to dispose of rubbish. It all goes in a bag in the car to dispose of when I get home or somewhere civilised. I imagine nappies would get smelly. With a cath, I put it on before I leave for a dive and leave it on all day (I could have it on for 12 hours, and be in the water for five hours of that). I don't know how much capacity nappies have or whether it is realistic to leave one on for an entire day.
Cath also allows me to pee standing up, which is another good thing especially if I am in the middle of a paddock or somewhere with no discreet places to pee.
I can just turn my back, tell my buddy to avert his eyes and pee anywhere. Or at most public toilets it is handy, as they are disgusting.
It's not just the hole punching. In the men's version, if you get an unbalanced one you may end up suffering painful squeezing.
I'm female and I have had squeeze in my balanced valve. Basically I was doing a shallow dive (<10m) and I forgot a drysuit hose to attach to my regs. I just hooked up my BC, planning to swap if squeeze was an issue and I left it too late and ended up at 8m strangled by my suit. I got squeeze in my pee valve. This has never been a problem other than when I have misused my drysuit. But I just ascended a bit, all good.
I imagine it would have been worse for a man though... :shocked2:
If you get a balanced one, the balancing chamber could become a bacterial haven and end up causing infections.
I'm up to about 100, actually maybe more, dives in my p-valve and I take the whole valve out and soak it in disinfectant *religiously*. I do the same with my she-p, no infections so far. I think the risk is minor but it is a valid concern for sure.
Then, there are the hoses that can disconnect without the diver knowing about it and result in a wet surprise. There's even "public relations" challenges: a friend of mine was adjusting his P-valve while facing some bushes. To the untrained eye, it appeared he was committing a public urination "crime". The site just happened to be in the middle of a controversy because a few local residents wanted to ban diving activities due to the alleged public urination divers were doing...
Sure. But that's just getting pee on you, so no different to using a nappy right?
Tell your friend to adjust it in the car or something
Anyway, I'm not trying to talk you out of using nappies or whatever but given you said alternative methods should be discussed (I agree) I figured it might be useful to flesh out the pros and cons of both methods. I'm still not convinced about nappies...
