How To Control My Bladder At Night

Do The Right Exercises

High-impact exercise and sit-ups put pressure on your pelvic floor muscles and can increase leaks.

To strengthen your pelvic floor to relieve symptoms, replace high-impact exercise, such as jogging and aerobics, with strengthening exercise, such as pilates.

Pilates strengthens your core muscles, which is beneficial for stress incontinence.

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Essentials For Older People: Urinary Incontinence

Although incontinence is more common among older people, it is not a normal part of aging.

With aging, bladder capacity decreases, ability to delay urination declines, involuntary bladder contractions occur more often, and bladder contractions weaken. Thus, urination becomes more difficult to postpone and tends to be incomplete. The muscles, ligaments, and connective tissue of the pelvis weaken, contributing to incontinence. In postmenopausal women, decreased estrogen levels lead to atrophic urethritis and atrophic vaginitis and to decreasing the strength of the urethral sphincter. In men, prostate size increases, partially obstructing the urethra and leading to incomplete bladder emptying and strain on the bladder muscle. These changes occur in many normal, continent older people and may facilitate incontinence but do not cause it.

). These effects, such as constipation, dry mouth, blurred vision, and sometimes even confusion, can be particularly troublesome in older people.

Nocturia Treatment: How Can I Stop Excessive Urination At Night

Bladder leaks at night, or nocturia, can leave you with some wet clothes and sheets to grapple with in the morning.

If you have a sensitive bladder that spasms involuntarily, you may not wake up in time to use the facilities. Nighttime incontinence of this sort is best treated through lifestyle adjustments.

Use these tips and remedies to treat nocturia and frequent urination at night.

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How Is Enuresis Diagnosed

Your childs health care provider will ask about your childs medical history. Make sure to tell the health care provider:

• If other members of the family have had enuresis

• How often your child urinates during the day

• How much your child drinks in the evening

• If your child has symptoms such as pain or burning when urinating

• If the urine is dark or cloudy or has blood in it

• If your child is constipated

• If your child has had recent stress in his or her life

The health care provider may give your child a physical exam. Your child may also need tests, such as urine tests or blood tests. These are done to look for a medical problem, such as an infection or diabetes.

How Is Nocturia Treated

Nocturia is treated on a case-by-case basis under the direction of a physician. This treatment may contain lifestyle modifications, medication, or both.

Lifestyle modifications to improve nocturia include:

Nocturia Medication

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Nocturia: 7 Ways To Improve Frequent Nighttime Urination

Nocturia is the medical term for the need to awaken from sleep to urinate. Getting up once to relieve your bladder during sleep hours is usually not particularly troublesome. However, when it happens two or more times it can negatively impact ones quality of life because of sleep disruption, leading to an increased risk of fall-related nighttime injuries, daytime fatigue and an increased risk of fatigue-related accidents.

Oab And Your Sex Life

OAB can interfere with that other bed activity, too. Thereâs nothing that can shut down an intimate moment faster than realizing youâve lost control of your bladder — something that happens for many people with OAB. âSexual activity itself is irritating to the bladder, and you can lose urine during intercourse,â Sanz says. âAbout 15% of my patients report having incontinence during sex.â

âWhen youâre being intimate, youâre used to secretions and moistness, but the thought that itâs actually urine leakage is really upsetting and uncomfortable,â Denson says. âUsually itâs the female patient who has the leakage, and itâs actually more bothersome for her than for her partner.â

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What Else Can Be Done

For many people with IC, changes in diet can also help control symptoms. To learn more, check out the information about IC and food sensitivities. There are also over-the-counter products and prescription medicines that may help control symptoms of urinary urgency and frequency .

Revised Tuesday, May 26th, 2015

What Steps Can I Take At Home To Treat Urinary Incontinence

Your doctor or nurse may suggest some things you can do at home to help treat urinary incontinence. Some people do not think that such simple actions can treat urinary incontinence. But for many women, these steps make urinary incontinence go away entirely, or help leak less urine. These steps may include:

You can also buy pads or protective underwear while you take other steps to treat urinary incontinence. These are sold in many stores that also sell feminine hygiene products like tampons and pads.

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Im An Expert And Heres Why You Should Never Hold A Pee In The Night

• Vanessa Chalmers, Digital Health Reporter

• 7:08 ET, Mar 15 2022

ITS a nuisance when your bladder calls for attention in the middle of the night.

But the worst thing you can do is ignore its signals and hold in your pee, experts say.

Stephanie Taylor, founder of pelvic toner product website Kegel8, says the average adult bladder can hold two cups of urine before its considered full.

This can take up to 10 hours, so anything you drink in the evening could put stress on the bladder come 3am.

The bladder sends a message to your brain when it is about a quarter full.

Stephanie said: However, if you leave it too long, harmful bacteria can build up which can cause a urinary tract infection.

If a UTI is left untreated and the infection spreads, it could turn into life-threatening .

UTIs are agonising, causing pain during urination and a constant urge to go to the toilet. It is treated with antibiotics.

Stephanie continued: Ignoring your bladder for too long can also reap havoc with your pelvic floor, cause uncomfortable dryness and incontinence where you pass urine without meaning to.

Similarly, holding in your pee too often can cause the muscles in your bladder to lose the ability to contract when you need them to.

Medical Treatments For Nocturia

Your doctor may prescribe medications when preventive measures and lifestyle changes fail to reduce the frequency of your nighttime urination. Doctors prescribe a class of drugs called anticholinergics to treat symptoms of OAB, if thats the cause of your nocturia. They reduce bladder spasms that create the urge to go.

Your doctor may suggest you take a diuretic for regular urine production. A diuretic can itself cause nocturia. But if you take it early enough in the day, it may help you get rid of excess fluid while youre awake. This should decrease your urine production at night.

Other drugs that may help are:

• desmopression in cases of diabetes insipidus to cause the kidneys to produce less urine
• tamsulosin , finasteride , or dutasteride to treat prostate enlargement
• antibiotics if you have a urinary tract infection

Your doctor may also adjust your diabetic medications to lower your blood sugar if theyre causing nocturia.

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Final Thoughts On Treating Nocturia

Lifestyle changes and quality all-natural supplements are an excellent strategy for when you want to urinate less often at night. While these strategies are likely to help, there are people for whom these steps are not enough. Be sure to speak with your doctor about any bladder problems so they can help identify the cause of your bladder troubles and determine if you need any medication.

How Soon After Starting Kegel Exercises Will Urinary Incontinence Get Better

It may take 4 to 6 weeks before you notice any improvement in your symptoms.10

Kegel exercises work differently for each person. Your symptoms may go away totally, you may notice an improvement in your symptoms but still have some leakage, or you may not see any improvement at all. But even if your symptoms dont get better, Kegel exercises can help prevent your incontinence from getting worse.

You may need to continue doing Kegel exercises for the rest of your life. Even if your symptoms improve, urinary incontinence can come back if you stop doing the exercises.

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Maintain A Healthy Weight

Excess weight increases the risk of many health problems. A growing body of evidence confirms being overweight or obese puts you at a higher risk of nocturia. The risk between the two is present, even if other parameters are eliminated, e.g., age, gender, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Since being overweight or obese puts you at a higher risk of nocturia, one way to manage this medical condition is to slim down or maintain weight in a healthy range. This isnt a quick fix but an important measure for the long-term management of this problem.

Living With Bowel Or Bladder Incontinence

There is no single, right way to cope with bladder or bowel incontinence. The challenge is to find what is best for your situation, so you can get the help you need and return to a normal daily life. Talk with your health care team if you notice a change in bowel or bladder habits, and about the best ways to manage incontinence, if it is a problem. You might find it helpful to talk with other people who are dealing with incontinence, too. Ask a member of your cancer care team about support groups in your area.

Here are some things you can do that may help make incontinence less of a problem:

• Empty your bladder every 3 to 4 hours while awake, to avoid accidents.
• Empty your bladder before bedtime or before strenuous activity.
• Limit drinks with caffeine, or and avoid alcohol and citrus juices, which can irritate the bladder and make you have to go more often.
• Avoid hygiene products that may irritate you Women should avoid feminine spray or over-the-counter vaginal suppositories.
• Because belly fat can push on the bladder, avoiding weight gain or losing needed weight sometimes helps improve bladder control.
• Avoid tobacco use which can cause coughing and bladder irritation due to harmful substances in tobacco products.
• Talk to your doctor about all medicines, vitamins, herbs, and supplements youre taking. Some may affect urine control.

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How To Empty The Bladder

This article was co-authored by Robert Dhir, MD. Dr. Robert Dhir is a board certified Urologist, Urological Surgeon, and the Founder of HTX Urology in Houston, Texas. With over 10 years of experience, Dr. Dhirs expertise includes minimally-invasive treatments for enlarged prostate , kidney stone disease, surgical management of urological cancers, and mens health . His practice has been named a Center of Excellence for the UroLift procedure, and is a pioneer in non-surgical procedures for ED using his patented Wave Therapy. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University and was awarded honors in pre-medical studies, urology, orthopedics, and ophthalmology. Dr. Dhir served as chief resident during his urological surgical residency at University of Texas at Houston / MD Anderson Cancer Center in addition to completing his internship in general surgery. Dr. Dhir was voted Top Doctor in Urology for 2018 to 2019, one of the top three Best Rated Urologists in 2019 & 2020 for Houston Texas, and Texas Monthly has named him to the 2019 & 2020 Texas Super Doctors Rising Stars list.There are 15 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 85% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 390,268 times.

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Coping With Overactive Bladder At Night

Its a big problem for many people the urge to urinate at night. Youre trying to get a good nights sleep then you wake up with the intense urge to pee. When it happens night after night, possibly more than once a night, its time to talk with your doctor.

You may have overactive bladder, a medical condition that affects an estimated 33 million Americans, according to the Urology Care Foundation.

When you have OAB, you have a sudden urge to urinate that is uncontrollable. You may leak urine when you feel this urge, and might not make it to the bathroom. This leakage is called incontinence. When the bathroom trips are multiple during the day and night, you likely have OAB.

If your urine leakage occurs when you sneeze, laugh, cough, or exercise, you have another common bladder problem called stress urinary incontinence , which is different from OAB.

People with OAB find themselves looking for bathrooms in any new setting, cutting back on water, and being very aware of when they last urinated. All this is to prevent the dreaded accident. Unlike urinary tract infection, there is no pain, burning or blood in the urine.

OAB is a frustrating, embarrassing medical problem. The urge to pee at night is especially troubling, as it can result in bed-wetting. But take heart, because this condition is treatable.

Keep reading to learn more about the disorder and steps you can take to prevent this uncontrollable urge to urinate at night.

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How To Retrain Your Bladder

You sneeze or cough and feel the quick, uncontrollable rush between your legs. For some women its not a big problem, but it can be an embarrassing one all the same. For others, the desire to urinate comes on so quickly theyre never quite sure if they will make it to the toilet in time.

Urinary incontinence the loss of bladder control is a common problem for women and the severity ranges from occasionally leaking urine to having the urge to urinate come on so suddenly and intensely that its followed by involuntary urination.

There are various types of incontinence but whatever the cause these tips from pelvic floor physiotherapists Sue Croft and Fiona Rogers should help you get to grips with your bladder control.

EVERY BIRTHDAY, KEEP A BLADDER DIARY FOR 24 TO 48 HOURS

Make a note of what time you go, measure how much you produce, if you had any leakage, possible triggers, the degree of the urge, and how much and what you drank.

Someone with a healthy pelvic floor and no urge incontinence issues should urinate around eight times a day, no more than once at night and produce around 350ml to 500ml each time with no leakage.

URINE SHOULD LOOK LIKE A GLASS OF WHITE WINE, NOT BEER

Concentrated urine irritates the bladder so not drinking enough water will make you feel the need to urinate more.

If your urine looks like water, youve got far too much fluid on board. You need around 1,5-2L of water a day depending on your size, activity level and how much you sweat.

Pelvic Floor Exercises Can Help Immensely

You cant see your pelvic floor muscles however, just like other muscles in your body they lose their strength if they are not put to use.

Pelvic floor exercises help strengthen the pelvic floor when done consistently at least twice a day. How are they done?

• Imagine you are holding back gas or urine.
• Squeeze and lift the rectal area without tightening your buttocks or belly. Try and hold it for a count of three before relaxing. Repeat this cycle 10 times. Do 10 sets of Kegel exercises, at least 3 times a day.
• Increase your contractions as your doctor recommends.
• Do not hold your breath when you do Kegel exercises. Keep your stomach, back, and leg muscles relaxed.
• Don’t use Kegel exercises to start and stop your urine stream which can lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder and an increased risk of a urinary tract infection.

Review our information about Kegel exercises for both women and men to learn more about the techniques.

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Tips For Sleeping Well

Many doctors and urologists will recommend that people restrict the amount of alcohol and caffeine they drink throughout the day.

Even if these substances are not the cause of the disorder, both are diuretics and may make symptoms worse. Doctors may also suggest that people with nocturia drink fewer liquids during the evening and before bed.

Foods that are rich in liquids and foods that act as diuretics can be avoided as well. Examples include:

• artificial sweeteners

Keeping a food diary is a helpful tool for many people. Writing down what is eaten every day can help identify a link between symptoms and problematic foods.

Some people also benefit from training their bladder to help regain control of its contractions. If the bladder is used to contracting every hour to tell the body it is time to urinate, it will often continue this habit.

Over time, it may be possible to train the bladder to pass urine every 2-4 hours instead, or to hold it in overnight. This is best done under the guidance of a doctor.

OAB is caused by early and uncontrolled spasms of the bladder muscle, which makes a person have to urinate when their bladder is not actually full. This means regular urination throughout the day, and often during the night.

While people with OAB may experience frequent urination at night, people with nocturia tend to only experience frequent urination at night.

Many people with nocturia produce a normal amount of urine overall, but simply produce much more urine at night.