What causes frequent urination at night?

Many middle-aged and elderly people always have symptoms of frequent urination at night, which seriously affects their sleep quality. Experts say this phenomenon is directly related to drinking a lot of water at night; it may also be caused by some mental factors that lead to frequent urination at night, but the amount is not large; this phenomenon will also occur if kidney function is impaired.

1. What causes frequent urination at night?

1. Physiological nocturia: drinking a lot of water before going to bed, accustomed to drinking strong tea, coffee or taking diuretics.

2. Mental factors lead to increased nocturia: the main feature is an increase in the frequency of nocturia, but the amount is generally not large. Strictly speaking, an increase in the frequency of urination without an increase in urine volume does not fall into the category of nocturia.

3. Drainage nocturia: Due to water retention in the body, especially when heart function is poor, the amount of blood returning to the heart increases after lying down at night, and the renal blood flow also increases accordingly, and the urine volume also increases. It is common in patients with various heart diseases accompanied by heart failure.

4. Nephrotic nocturia: Kidney damage caused by various reasons leads to decreased renal function. The kidneys cannot completely excrete metabolic products from the body during the day and need to continue excreting at night, resulting in increased nocturia. Common in patients with chronic renal insufficiency.

2. How many times should you get up at night?

Experts explain that the best ratio is to urinate 8 times a day, 7 times during the day and 1 time at night.

One reason for getting up too often at night is drinking too much water before going to bed. This is normal. There is no need to deliberately reduce the amount of water you drink at night in order to avoid getting up at night, unless you are a patient with congestive heart failure and hypertension, who need to control their water intake throughout the day. Don’t worry about drinking too much water at night and having swollen eyes and face when you wake up in the morning. This only happens to people with kidney problems. Healthy kidneys will metabolize normally and will not cause edema.

In order to reduce the need to get up at night, many elderly people dare not drink any water. Over time, this will make their urine very concentrated and lead to diseases such as bladder stones.

Another situation is that you don’t drink much water at night but always get up to urinate. This is the same as frequent urination during the day. If the amount of urine is large each time, it means you have an internal metabolic disease; if the amount of urine is small each time, it means there is a problem with the bladder and urethra.

3. Symptoms of various urine diseases

1. Urinary urgency: Generally refers to the urgent need to urinate as soon as you feel the urge to urinate, which is difficult to control.

2. Frequent urination: Generally, a normal adult urinates 3-6 times during the day and 1-2 times at night. An increase in the number of urinations per unit time is frequent urination. Of course, if you drink more water, the weather is cold, or you are nervous, and there are no other symptoms, it is likely to be physiological frequent urination.

3. Dysuria: It refers to pain or burning sensation in the suprapubic area, perineum and urethra during urination.

If these three conditions occur at the same time, it is most likely urethritis. These symptoms are common in many urinary system diseases and should be treated with caution, especially if combined with other conditions such as hematuria, polydipsia, thin urine stream, etc. You should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible.