- Midnight bathroom trips can disrupt sleep, cause daytime fatigue, and affect your health over time.
- Nocturia has many different causes, so it's essential to pay attention to other health symptoms.
You're tucked into bed, sound asleep and enjoying sweet dreams, when you wake with a $4 — for the second time that night.
If you have to urinate in the night, you have nocturia, says $4, board-certified urologist, and professor of urology at $4. It doesn't matter why you have to pee, or the number of times you get up.
In the United States, about $4 live with nocturia. Roughly one in three adults above the age of 30, and about half of all adults older than 60, wake up $4 to pee.
Nocturia doesn't just disrupt your own sleep, it can disturb anyone you sleep with — making it tough for either of you to get the rest you need. This lack of sleep can then have a number of consequences, from daytime $4 and difficulty focusing at work to accidents, falls, and other $4.
Read on to learn more about nocturia's causes — from drinking too much liquid before bed to underlying health conditions — potential consequences, and treatments.
Causes of nocturia
Factors that may contribute to nocturia include:
- Age: As you get older, you're $4 at night for a trip to the bathroom. This happens due to natural bodily changes related to the aging process.
- Pregnancy: During $4, your uterus grows and presses against your bladder, reducing its ability to hold large volumes of urine. As a result, you're likely to pee more frequently during pregnancy, both day and night. Current research suggests $4 experience nocturia.
- When — and what — you eat and drink: If you eat or drink large $4 or fluids close to bedtime, you will make more urine at night. Drinks containing $4 or caffeine are more likely to make you pee, as are salty or $4 like soups and fruits.
- Medication: Some drugs $4 you make, increasing your bathroom trips at night. Examples include diuretics, lithium, $4, phenytoin, and cardiac glycosides.
- Difficulty storing urine: $4 and other conditions that affect your bladder's ability to store urine can $4 at night.
- Trained behavior: If you have a $4 at night to pee, that could affect your sleep — leading you to wake up even when your bladder isn't full.
- Physical inactivity: A small study involving 35 older women linked a $4 with low levels of physical activity to $4.
Nocturia can also happen as a symptom of many different health conditions, including:
1. Urinary tract infections (UTIs)
When bacteria get trapped in your urinary tract, you may develop a $4, which can cause frequent urination at night and during the day.
Other $4 include:
2. Type 2 diabetes
Diabetes causes $4. The excess sugar is removed in your urine and draws more fluid from your body, making more urine than normal.
Other $4 include:
- Extreme hunger
- Increased thirst
- Sudden weight changes
3. Sleep disorders
Conditions like $4 and $4 can make it $4. If you're lying awake in bed, you may feel the need to make a bathroom trip — even if your bladder isn't full.
High blood pressure
Experts have linked $4 with getting up to pee at night.
$4 often causes no symptoms, but you may also experience:
Note: Uncontrolled high blood pressure can cause $4 and sudden death, so it's important to get treatment right away for these symptoms.
4. Bladder diseases
Any conditions that cause $4 can lead to nocturia.
Examples include:
- Overactive bladder
- Bladder infections
- Bladder obstruction
- Bladder cancer
5. Venous insufficiency
If your veins don't function as they should, blood will collect in them instead of returning to your bloodstream. When you lie down, the blood returns to your bloodstream, $4.
Other symptoms include:
- Swollen legs
- Skin discoloration
- Wounds on your legs
6. Congestive heart failure
With this type of $4, your heart can't pump blood efficiently, causing blood to pool in parts of your body.
At night, your body tries to improve your circulation as you rest, which may $4.
Other symptoms of heart failure include swollen legs and fatigue.
7. Prostate diseases
Health conditions that affect your prostate can make it harder to empty your bladder fully. $4 include prostatitis, enlarged prostate, and $4.
Common symptoms of $4 include:
- Straining to pee
- Feeling like you can't hold your urine
- Dribbling when you pee
8. Pelvic organ prolapse
Your pelvic muscles and ligaments can weaken due to age, childbirth, or connective tissue disease.
As a result, organs like your uterus and bladder $4. This can make it harder for you to empty your bladder, causing frequent urination.
Other symptoms may include:
- Feeling your uterus bulge from your vagina
- Urine leaks
- Heaviness in your groin
9. Obesity
If you have $4, you may make more frequent bathroom trips during the night.
Some $4 this may happen due to:
- Increased urine production
- Increased pressure in your abdomen
- $4 and drinking
10. Depression
If you have $4, you $4 to wake up to pee at night.
But having nocturia may also increase your chances of developing depression symptoms — which may relate to the $4 on your mood.
How to get a diagnosis
If you frequently wake up to pee at night, a good next step involves reaching out to a healthcare professional.
To help determine whether your nocturia may relate to an underlying illness, your doctor will ask some questions, such as:
- How long have you experienced this symptom?
- What do you drink in the evenings?
- How much do you drink each day, and when?
- Do you pee a lot or just a little?
- Do you feel pain or a burning sensation when you pee?
- Do you take any medications?
- Have you recently changed your diet?
- Do you ever wake up wet?
- What other symptoms do you have?
- What treatments have you tried?
They may also ask you to keep a bladder diary. This record of your $4, urine, fluid intake, and current medications can help you notice things that trigger symptoms — and how your symptoms affect your sleep and daily life.
Your doctor will typically also conduct a physical exam to check your:
- Blood pressure
- Heart and lung function
- Nervous system function
- Legs and abdomen for signs of swelling or tenderness
They may also recommend specific tests to detect any underlying conditions. Examples of these tests include:
- Blood tests: A $4 can help your care team detect conditions like diabetes, kidney disease, and infections.
- Urinalysis and urine culture: $4 help detect abnormalities in your urine and identify any bacteria present so your doctor can prescribe antibiotics to treat them.
- Cystoscopy: $4 involves looking into your bladder with a small camera to identify signs of disease.
- Bladder scan: $4 involves an ultrasound to check how well your bladder holds urine when it's full and whether you can empty it completely.
- Urodynamic testing: $4 can measure your lower urinary tract function, including any leaks, nerve damage, and obstructions to urine flow.
Treatment
Waking up at night to pee repeatedly can $4 of unwanted effects, including falls, traffic accidents, and $4 at work or school.
Experts have $4 between nocturia and increased risk of poor health and higher death rates.
That's why it's a good idea to get prompt treatment for nocturia.
Treatment generally begins with pinpointing the cause or triggers — since identifying and addressing the underlying cause may relieve your symptoms without the need for additional treatments, according to $4, a board-certified urologist in Chicago.
The right treatment for you may depend on why you have to pee so much — but treatment will generally aim to reduce your symptoms, address any underlying conditions, and $4.
Common treatment options include:
Medication
Your doctor may prescribe:
- Diuretics: $4 like furosemide and spironolactone can $4 and the way your body produces urine, so you pee less at night.
- Topical vaginal estrogen: This medication $4 that happens after $4.
- Botox injections: If your overactive bladder doesn't respond to other medications, $4 injections $4.
- Hormones: Drugs like desmopressin and vasopressin act like hormones naturally produced by your body, and they may $4 at night.
- Anti-spasmodics: Medications like darifenacin, oxybutynin, and tolterodine can $4 in your bladder and may help treat overactive bladder symptoms, including nighttime urination.
- Alpha blockers: Drugs like $4 can $4 the urge to pee at night, especially for men.
Your care team may also prescribe medications to help treat any underlying conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, or any infections. Treating these conditions can help reduce nighttime urination.
Important: If you believe one of your current medications is causing your nocturia, let your doctor know. They may recommend switching to another medication or changing your dose.
Lifestyle changes
Before you make an appointment with a doctor, you might consider a few modifications that could reduce how often you pee at night, Weiss says.
Changes that may help reduce your symptoms — or help you adjust to them — include:
- A last bathroom trip before bed: If you $4 before you sleep, you're less likely to pee during the night.
- Limiting drinking, especially in the evening hours: Limiting your consumption of liquid or water-rich foods in the evenings $4 you make, thus reducing your need to pee at night.
- Limiting salt in your diet: A $4 can make you $4. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends consuming no more than $4 a day, or just under a teaspoon, to ease nocturia.
- Exercising regularly: If you can, aim for $4 a week. Exercise $4, including $4.
- Managing your medication: Aim to take any medications that cause increased urination $4 before bedtime.
- Relieving fluid buildup in your legs: If you have swollen feet, try elevating them or using $4 to help fluid return to your bloodstream. This $4 nighttime bathroom trips.
- Taking brief naps: $4 can $4 if your sleep is regularly disrupted. Just keep in mind that taking long or frequent naps can compound the problem by making it harder to sleep well at night.
- Improving sleep habits: Improving your $4 could help lower your chances of waking up at night. A few helpful changes include sleeping at a set time each night, avoiding $4 at bedtime, turning down the thermostat, and using blackout curtains.
- Consider Kegels and pelvic floor muscle training: If your nocturia is associated with weakness in your pelvic floor, you may benefit from $4, such as $4.
- Reduce your fall risk: Using a bedpan, opting for low-level lighting in your bedroom and hallway, and removing rugs or obstacles that can trip you can lower your risk of falling during nighttime bathroom trips.
Insider's takeaway
Nocturia can disturb your sleep — but it can also increase your risk of work and traffic accidents, falls, and poor health overall.
But there's a lot you can do to address nocturia on your own, including limiting fluids at night, getting regular physical activity, and improving your sleep habits.
If these changes don't seem to make any difference, it may be time to reach out to your doctor. A healthcare professional can help you determine if your need to pee during the night stems from an underlying health condition or natural changes in your body. They can also offer more guidance on steps to ease your symptoms.