If You Always Wake Up To Pee At Night, You Could Have This Health Condition

Getting up to pee in the middle of the night may seem normal since you do it so often, but it turns out you might have a legitimate medical condition.

It's called nocturia, and it entails not being able to sleep for six to eight hours without getting up to pee.

According to Good Housekeeping, more people experience nocturia as they age, but it is more common with older men due to their tendencies to develop enlarged prostates.

Many other medical conditions, however, can cause nocturia. The most common conditions are urinary tract infection, overactive bladder syndrome, diabetes, pregnancy and edema, which involves the swelling of the lower legs, according to Healthline Networks. Those first two conditions can respectively be treated by antibiotics and medications such as desmopressin, which allows the kidneys to produce less urine.

Neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease or spinal cord compression can cause nocturia as well. If you don't have any of these conditions, there's a chance your nocturia is caused by anxiety.

Alternatively, some nocturia patients simply developed habits of waking up to pee, turning the act into an almost robotic, psychological command. Other common causes of nocturia include diuretic medications, like blood pressure treatments, and diuretic beverages, like alcohol or caffeine, both of which cause the body to produce more urine.

In general, drinking a lot at night can cause you to wake up to pee, so you should definitely stop drinking at a point earlier in the day to treat nocturia. If that doesn't help, you could start a diary to determine any daily drinking patterns that may be responsible for your nightly habit.

If you suspect a serious health condition is at play, you should go to a doctor since the nocturia will usually cease once the underlying condition is treated.

Citations: THIS IS WHY YOU NEED THE TOILET DURING THE NIGHT (Good Housekeeping), Excessive Urination at Night (Nocturia) (Healthline Networks)