What is Considered Frequent Urination?
Learn what is considered frequent urination and the reasons it may be happening.
Frequent urination is something that has been quoted to affect up to 40% of women. Often times people interchange the terms frequent urination and urinary urgency or overactive bladder, however the conditions are very different.
What is considered frequent urination?
Anytime that someone urinates more than 8 times per day, and more than 1 time at night, we would consider that frequent urination.
What are the causes of frequent urination?
There are many factors to consider when stating that a patient has frequent urination. The first is that we must rule out any pathology like infection, condition like interstitial cystitis, and conditions like malignancy of the bladder.
Once serious pathology has been ruled out, we have to investigate the cause of the frequency of urination.
The four main reasons that someone may be experiencing frequent urination include:
1. Increased urine production
Increased urine production can occur because you are over-hydrating (drinking too much), are on a medication that makes you urinate more, or that you may have a condition such as diabetes mellitus or diabetes insipidus
2. Incomplete bladder emptying
Incomplete bladder emptying could be due to conditions such as constipation, prolapse, fibroids, scar tissue from a previous abdominal surgery, or due to bladder hypotonicity due to chronic opioid use, neurological disorders like Parkinson’s or MS, or bladder trauma
3. Low compliance bladder
Low compliance bladder results in the decreased ability for the bladder to stretch due to conditions like endometriosis, bladder trauma or could be the result of pelvic radiation for malignancy
4. Fear of urinary leakage or you are peeing just in case
Fear of urinary leakage can occur in those with a history of stress incontinence, or fear of not being able to find a bathroom. This in turn results in patients constantly trying to keep the bladder empty in order to prevent leakage
What is the difference between frequent urination and overactive bladder?
Overactive bladder is defined by the presence of urinary urgency, or an urge that is so strong that it makes you run to the bathroom. Some people with overactive bladder do have urinary frequency, where they get a strong urge AND they are urinating frequently, but urinary frequency isn’t a defining characteristic of overactive bladder syndrome.
If you are experiencing frequent urination, and are unsure of what to do next, please touch base with us!
Vivid Women’s Health is a women’s health physical therapy practice located in Newtown, PA and Doylestown, PA. We provide unmatched pelvic floor physical therapy to help women resolve pelvic floor symptoms.
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