system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Presently stuck in a meeting. Drank too much water at lunch. What happens to my body as I hold my pee? Is there a point I will reach where I won't be able to contain it? Can my bladder burst? Oh god.

What's the longest someone can hold it in? How bad is that for the body?
gpt
There's five questions here, so let me answer them one by one:

* 1. As your bladder fills with urine, its wall is stretched. This is detected by special nerve cells in the wall, and transmitted to your brain as the 'need to pee'. Urine enters the bladder from the kidneys via the ureters, which enter at a special angle such that when the bladder expands enough (i.e. when it's full) the ureters close and the bladder cannot fill anymore.
* 2. Yes. The strain of keeping the (voluntary) sphincters closed will eventually become too much (this could take a while though). It's also worth noting that any movements that stretch the bladder wall anymore will trick the stretch nerves into thinking it's *even more* full, and will probably override your instructions to hold it in.
* 3. No, not from just holding your pee. You'd piss yourself before that would happen.
* 4. No idea; dependent on too many factors (amount drunk, size of bladder, levels of certain hormones e.g. ADH/Aldosterone, activity etc. etc.).
* 5. Probably not very. Long term you may damage the elastic tissue of the bladder, but this would require *a lot* of pee holding.

Source: student paramedic, just sat through an A&P exam with a surprising focus on pee.

I hope you made it through the meeting.