The hardest part is usually the first sentence in the room, and the Doctor Brief is a one-page sheet that says it for you: what the condition is, how common it is, and three things worth raising. Print it or open it on your phone, and pass it across the desk. Every line on it is tied to a named source your doctor can check.
Shy bladder syndrome
You are in a public toilet, someone walks in behind you, and your body simply stops. Nothing comes, however badly you need to go and however hard you try.
That has a name: paruresis, or shy bladder syndrome. It is a recognised medical condition, not a failure of nerve. It affects women and men, and it can be treated.
If there is a flight or a test coming
Three pages, for the three occasions that arrive with a date on them: a flight, a test at work, a sample asked for in a clinic. Each one quotes the published rules in the words of the people who wrote them, and each one says plainly where nothing is published at all.
If you want to know what can be done
The things that come up when paruresis is treated, and the check that comes before all of them. The first has the most evidence behind it, and after that it thins out fast. Nothing on the page is a recommendation; it is an account of what exists, so that you can ask for it by name.
If you want to know you are not the only one
A real account of living with this: a cubicle works and an open room does not, what that cost him in travel and in company, and what changed when he was finally taught another way. It is one person's experience rather than a template for yours.
If you have already gone looking on your own
People who have waited years for an answer sometimes order medical tubing from a marketplace and try to manage it themselves.
How to tell a real catheter from a dangerous one
If that is where you are, this is the page to read first. It sets out what the regulators and the manufacturers themselves say, so you can judge a listing for yourself. It is not instructions, and it is not a reason to skip the appointment.
How to check any of this
No clinician has reviewed these pages yet. Each claim the site makes about the condition is listed on the sources page with a link and the exact words behind it, so you can open the original and decide for yourself. Nobody's name is on this site, and the reasons are written down.
Nobody is paying as much attention as you are. This site is trying to end in a consulting room rather than on a web page.
This page was last checked on .
Hand this to a doctor