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Comment by niels_olson | Hacker News Reader

Beyond a certain capacity the bladder is no longer contractile and must be catheterized to urinate. Happens every day in the OR or PACU.

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Really? What happened before modern medicine? I'm not being snarky: I believe you.. but a burst bladder would be lethal without access to modern medical knowledge. That seems like a epic fail by evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe#Death

Now I have something to be paranoid about and will be going the bathroom as much as possible.

Alcohol is a double-whammy because it induces a degree of transient paresis, allowing the inebriated to hold it longer than they should. Just don't fight the urge and you'll be fine.

You should do that in any case. Putting it off is not good for your prostate.

There are lots of epic fails by evolution, is more about quantity than quality so to speak.

An extreme outlier is hardly an 'epic fail'.

Before modern life, we had plenty of opportunity to urinate well before it became a serious problem.

If we were intelligently designed, after all, I think God would call holding it for hours a "user error" and mark it "won't fix".

You died. A burst bladder is quite fatal.

wow! I learned something today.

So just to confirm, you're saying that if (for example) I hold my pee for whatever reason, after a certain point, I might not be able to pee unless they catheterize my bladder?

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