Hi everyone,

I have suffered from paruresis to varying degrees my whole life. I mostly have it under control now. What I find helps is just being completely honest and open about it, for example, if I am out with friends I will say to them ''I need to wee, don't wait for me or I won't be able to go, just walk ahead'' and then I am able to go. Just to be encouraging this condition used to ruin my life all the time now I have it mostly under control and it is usually a non-issue, it is 100% definitely possible to improve.

However there are certain situations I am not able to go, 'high pressure' situations, you know the kind I mean.

Recently I have been thinking of immigrating to Canada and as part of the process you have to have a medical examination which includes giving a urine sample. I am about 90% positive I wouldn't be able to produce one on demand. I have read various scenarios one is they give you just 4 minutes to produce one, I would find that impossible.

Has anyone else been through this kind of thing and if so what happened? Was anyone able to get an exemption or anything like that? It is so frustrating. I understand it is to check for gnooreha which I am 100% sure I don't have so it is annoying that this stupid condition could literally prevent me from immigrating.

I have already emailed several panel doctors who carry out the exam but haven't recieved a reply yet, I was just wondering if any of you guys had dealt with this and what happened. Can you get an exemption from the urine test?

Hope you are all well, many thanks.

Hi there

Very frustrating for you. I guess you did not receive a reply because the recipients could not understand the issue and so binned it.
The critical thing is what you send them. It has to have validity and not read of as a one-off oddity. I suggest you look on our website at two sections:
a) the one on Resources and
b) the one on Professionals, below which you can choose Drug Testing.

You may find something there that carries enough validity to be useful.

Another thing you could try would be to arrange for an interview at the embassy, and take along the material that validates the condition, and which shows how UK agencies accommodate the condition.

You could make reference to the Disability Discrimination Act; however this may work against your application so best not to mention it in the first instance. After all you want to come across as someone who can be a full productive Canadian.

Try to think from their point of view. For instance, this may sound extreme, but you could offer to strip fully, so you have no pockets to carry a false sample, and to be left as long as it takes with no one hanging around.

Does this help at all?

Andrew

Hello! Thanks for the reply. That's a good idea about contacting the embassy I didn't think of that, I'll do that for sure. Also I will print out the resources you have provided. Thanks for the help. This isn't going to be for a while before I apply to live there, I can just see this being a problem down the line so thinking about how to deal with it now!

Thanks

If it isn't going to be for a while, get yourself onto one of our workshops; whether the one day online one, or the weekend residential.
You may well get to the point where you can manage giving a sample, so removing the obstacle altogether.
Cheers
Andrew

Hiya.
Fluid loading could be a great help for situations like this.
In the paruresis workshops we are taught to drink one-two litres of water before practicing using toilets. This builds up a level of urgency & we are taught to use the gents, let some urine out, hold some in & then repeat this whilst topping up with water. It maintains a high level of urgency which makes you urinate easily & I can tell you that everyone at the workshop were back and forth to the gents having to relieve themselves & successfully did so at urinals.
You can practice this at home & mark your level of urgency on a scale of one to ten & go to the toilet on a level of around 8 & upwards.
Hopefully you will control this & be able to use the method when required to give a sample.