world continence week 2022

“Let’s stop believing in myths – time to get busting!”

What and Why?

World Continence Week occurs annually in June. This year, we worked with Hollister Incorporated to do some serious myth busting! Helping us all get a bit more comfortable with catheters, bladders and most importantly of all help us feel more comfortable living with our bladder conditions. We collated some common myths surrounding catheters and got to work. One of our keys focuses was on ISC – not only because this is usually one of the first types of catheters you’ll come across in your journey as well as one of the most daunting in my opinion but also because it’s considered the gold standard of catheter care.

This year, World Continence Week fell on week between the dates 20th-26th June. By focusing on the emotional needs of a catheter user, we really felt this week should highlight the importance of mental health support when managing any long-term condition, but especially one that focuses on such an intimate area of your body. With ostomy products related to bowel being more well known by the generally public, being more spoken about online, having more funding within the charity sector, we really wanted to get into the nitty gritty and break the stigma that bladder conditions hold – why is wee more taboo than poo?!

Our aims

For me, this WCW was all about relationship building, confidence boosting and myth busting. 

I’m so happy to be able to say that by the end of WCW 2022, we have successfully connected a larger community of catheter kings and queens with all of us being united in our catheter super-power.

After collating data from poll questions put to our Instagram audience both at the start and end of June (post CCW and post WCW), I am pretty confident that people’s attitudes towards catheters, bladders and ISC in particular have changed! Change is also evident from an increase in particular hashtag uses across Instagram and TikTok and an increase in our following here at B is for Bladder! I am grinning like a Cheshire cat typing this paragraph as I really am filled with nothing but hope and pride for what we have achieved this June and for the future of bladder health!

People are talking, people are sharing and people are finding the tribe they vibe best with – success!

Myths were busted 

Working with Hollister Incorporated on this project, we were able to bring our real-life pro-patient experience to the table, we felt it important that B is for Bladder played a part in choosing the seven myths for the seven days of WCW. We remember all too well the anxieties and unknowns that faced us at the start of our bladder journeys and more than anything we wanted to help someone in the position we have been in realise that it is more than possible to live a wonderful life with a catheter and hopefully one day see it as your super-power.

Planning meetings, content creating, editing and proving that each myth could be busted were our missions in the weeks leading up to WCW.

 Like the myth-busters we are, we got to work across all our social channels giving our community the hopeful reality that isn’t often felt or shown to you when you first start to use catheters – but we promise you there are wonderful days ahead all including your plastic pal. 

Both myself and Corin have used ISC for substantial periods of time, as have the wonderful Hollister’s Hollistars, so the hands-on experience we have all built up is invaluable and can give a much more practical perspective than you typically get from your brief sometimes one-off appointment with a urology nurse who’s unlikely to have ever had to ISC before.

We can give ‘practical, on the job’ day to day advice as opposed to medics who are bound by the constraints of facts and textbooks. I recognise that there is a place for both but equally feel our pro-patient expertise gives us a top trump when myth busting.

Want to see what myths we busted? Check out or Instagram grid – B is for Bladder or click on our Instagram highlights button, WCW2022. We also busted myths via TikTok! Click on the TikTok logo at the bottom of this page to access.

Our findings

We conducted a poll via instagram (sample size, 250) at the start of CCW and at the end of WWC - the poll effectively ran for the month of June. Although the poll consisted of 16 questions, and it should be noted an increase on all 16, we created a graph to show the questions which sparked substantial amounts of growth in confidence and awareness of our audience. Never has a bar chart made me feel so happy - look at them soar toward the sky!