Do you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night because you need to use the bathroom?
Once can be annoying.
Twice can leave you feeling frustrated the next morning.
And if you're getting up several times every night, the problem can go far beyond inconvenience. Repeated bathroom trips can interrupt your sleep and leave you tired during the day.
The medical term for waking during the night to urinate is nocturia.
And while nighttime urination can become more common with age, it isn't something you simply have to accept without looking into it. Nocturia can have many possible causes, ranging from evening drinking habits and medications to bladder problems, diabetes, sleep disorders, and conditions that cause excess fluid to accumulate in the body.
The good news?
Once you understand why it's happening, there may be practical ways to reduce those nighttime trips.
First, How Often Are You Getting Up?
There's a big difference between occasionally waking once to use the bathroom and routinely getting up several times every night.
For some adults, waking once during the night can be common, particularly as they get older. But frequent or bothersome nighttime urination deserves attention, especially when it is new, worsening, or accompanied by other urinary symptoms.
Ask yourself:
- How many times do I usually wake up to urinate?
- Has this pattern recently changed?
- Am I drinking a lot in the evening?
- Do I drink coffee, tea, cola, or alcohol late in the day?
- Am I taking a medication that increases urine production?
- Do I have swelling in my ankles or legs?
- Do I have unusual thirst or frequent urination during the day?
- Do I experience burning, pain, urgency, or blood in my urine?
- Do I have trouble starting or completely emptying my bladder?
- Am I waking for another reason and then deciding to use the bathroom?
These questions can provide useful clues, but they can't determine the cause by themselves.
What Actually Causes Nocturia?
Nocturia doesn't have one single cause.
In some people, the kidneys produce an unusually large proportion of the day's urine during nighttime hours. In others, the bladder doesn't store urine effectively, the bladder doesn't empty completely, or something else is waking the person up.
Here are some of the most common possibilities.
