Nocturia: When Your Bladder Won’t Let You Sleep

Urinary control problems affect millions of people worldwide. Bladder dysfunction can occur at any age, but it happens far more frequently as you get older. Bladder dysfunction can affect many areas of your life, but perhaps most frustrating is when your sleep is disrupted by incontinence and nocturia.

Urinary incontinence occurs when there is loss of bladder control. The loss may be complete or the leakage may be slight, but the end result is that an accidental discharge occurs. There are four types of incontinence, which include stress incontinence, urge incontinence, overflow incontinence and functional incontinence. Stress incontinence occurs when there is an increase in pressure in the abdomen, placing stress on the bladder. This can occur when you laugh, sneeze, cough or exercise, and it is generally caused by weak pelvic floor muscles. It is often treated with targeted exercise.

Having an overactive bladder, or urge incontinence, means that you frequently have to urinate, and you may not be able to reach the bathroom in time resulting in urine leakage. Retraining the bladder frequently treats this type of incontinence. Overflow incontinence, occurs when you are not able to empty all of the urine from your bladder. More common in men due to an enlarged prostate, this type of incontinence is treated by addressing the underlying cause, as is treatment for functional incontinence, which occurs when physical or mental decline prevents a person from being able to reach the bathroom in time.

Another common bladder problem is nocturia, which is the term used to describe getting up to relieve yourself more than once during the night. This condition is not the same as incontinence in that no leakage occurs; rather, the person wakes up to go to the bathroom at night several times. Both men and women can experience nocturia, and diabetes, urinary tract infections, kidney problems, infection, childbirth, menopause or a prostate problem can cause this condition. Generally if you are being awakened frequently enough during the night for nocturia to bother you, it is time to seek the advice of a medical professional.

Usually during the night the amount of urine that your body generates decreases and becomes more concentrated, allowing most people to sleep undisturbed for six to eight hours. If a person is suffering from nocturia, they may be getting up to the washroom to urinate several times a night, which often affects the quality of life by depriving them of sleep. This may then display itself the next day as memory loss, being easily distracted, unsafe driving, lack of energy and a sensation of being unwell.

Frequently, modifying your behavior can improve episodes of nocturia. For example, limiting fluid intake before bedtime and reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption may enable you to enjoy an uninterrupted night’s sleep. There are also medications that cause nocturia as a side effect, and sometimes adjusting the dose or taking it at a different time of the day may be enough to make a substantial difference in getting a good night’s sleep.

While bladder problems can be inconvenient, they can also be harbingers of underlying problems that are in the early stages of development. Discussing the problem with your medical professional may help you head off true disaster before it has a chance to strike.

Dryforlife.co.uk understands the problems that you may encounter when dealing with bladder dysfunction and weakness. For discreet advice visit us at http://www.dryforlife.co.uk.

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