No, seriously.
I suffer from a severe kidney disorder (bilaterally) and as such have to pay more attention to my waterworks than the average bear. That's how I got around to considering this matter, just in case anyone wondered.
Anyway, I was in the car last night and as often happens to me, I started to need a pee miles from home. The thing that got me thinking was that the urge to go tends to go like this over the course of the time between onset and relief:
Hm, could do with a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> Need a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NEED a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> OMGWTFBBQ I'mgonnapeemyself. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NOW! NOW!...
That got me thinking. What on earth is the purpose of the gaps between urgency? You either need to pee (and clearly you do), or you don't. Why the pauses in the urge? I figured out loud to the Mrs (who thinks I need help, or else a job in science) that evolution-wise, we'd have peed where we stood on the first instinct. Holding it in served no real purpose; that only came with 'civilisation' later. In that case the bladder and nervous system isn't actually geared towards prolonged urgency/failure to relieve and so it compensates the best way it can.
So perhaps the excitation of the nerves in your bladder simply wanes after x amount of time, only to renew once the system 'resets'? Does anybody actually know? I could ask my surgeon, but I'm not due to see him until next year now.

Anyway, I was in the car last night and as often happens to me, I started to need a pee miles from home. The thing that got me thinking was that the urge to go tends to go like this over the course of the time between onset and relief:
Hm, could do with a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> Need a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NEED a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> OMGWTFBBQ I'mgonnapeemyself. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NOW! NOW!...

That got me thinking. What on earth is the purpose of the gaps between urgency? You either need to pee (and clearly you do), or you don't. Why the pauses in the urge? I figured out loud to the Mrs (who thinks I need help, or else a job in science) that evolution-wise, we'd have peed where we stood on the first instinct. Holding it in served no real purpose; that only came with 'civilisation' later. In that case the bladder and nervous system isn't actually geared towards prolonged urgency/failure to relieve and so it compensates the best way it can.
So perhaps the excitation of the nerves in your bladder simply wanes after x amount of time, only to renew once the system 'resets'? Does anybody actually know? I could ask my surgeon, but I'm not due to see him until next year now.