So where have we gotten on this matter. I just brought it up to friends to see if they had ever noticed it (they hadn’t). I am female, and I do experience it occasionally. Yet my female friends do not, so I am curious as to whether or not any progress has been made in this arena?
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” --Whitman
Hey sorry guys, but when I posted this I forgot to add the link to the original column, so here it is: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/940722.html
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” --Whitman
I have experienced it too. I am male though. Sometimes I will get a shiver before the urine leaves me, so that kind of rules out the loss of warm fluids theory.
How about: bare feet on a cold tile floor makes you cold?
I will also sometimes get a muscle spasm or something in my left thigh just before the
urine exits. This only seems to happen in
the morning.
Sometimes my (groin?) muscles will contract
a couple times just before the urine exits.
It feels like my penis is getting
confused and thinking it’s having an orgasm.
In fact, I know this is what’s happening, as it never happened until immediately after I
first experienced masturbation.
Has anyone else noticed these urinary oddities happening to them?
I’m replying to this because I’ve asked my friends about it. It does seem to be mostly male-oriented, but many of my women friends do report experiencing it every once in a while. I experience it every single time I go to the bathroom. It’s odd, I’ve wondered about this phenomenon since I was a child and never really had an answer to it. The closest I can come to an answer is that it relates to the bladder itself, for me the emptying of the bladder is directly tied to the shiver itself.
among my group of friends it is called
“pee chills”
My guess its the way the nerves run thru the body. And which are stimuated then. David Feldman in his books describes some of the things that happen because of the ways the nerves are in the body.
This is pretty off-topic, but does anyone else sometimes get this painful cramp of the pubbocoxygennus muscle (the muscle you would contract to interrupt ongoing micturition) when you sneeze? I mean this really hurts.
SPAM–God and Satan’s
compromise. Evil conduit in a grace shroud.
–Tbone4
You’re not kidding, PatronAnejo! The last time I experienced pain like that was an excruciating jolt to the mandible when I tried to use pubbocoxygennus and * micturition* in the same utterance.
Well, since Unca Cece was so kind as to repost this question, I am hoping it spurns some more debate on the topic because I am extremely curious about this. (I also want to know why I get walking induced hiccups. I am guessing it is because I am not efficiently using the oxygen I am taking in, but I dunno.)
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” --Whitman
Since the “piss shiver” doesn’t occur every time one urinates, perhaps it has something to do with the chemical composition of the urine at that time? Perhaps if the concentration of one chemical is higher than usual, or if a certain chemical is present at all, it can cause muscles to contract causing the piss shiver. This means the piss shiver would only occur after certain things have been eaten.
Or perhaps it has to do with an abnormally high volume of urine being expelled.
“What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?” --W.C. Fields
I may have found the answer. While myself and my very pregnant wife were in baby class, we learned about the Kegel exercises which are used to strengthen the vaginal muscles before childbirth. They involve a contraction of the muscles in the anus and pubic region identical to stemming a urine stream in midflow.
I noticed that I almost always did a “Kegel squeeze” after urination to squeeze that last little drop out. I remembered this column and hypothesized that “piss-shiver” might be some kind of involuntary “Kegel squeeze” to clear the urethra after urination. The next couple of times I peed I purposefully left the squeeze out. Twice I was rewarded with Piss-shiver. The other times I just got wet underwear.
More clues:
Relax. Now do a Kegel squeeze. Hold it for as long as you possibly can. Concentrate your entire being on holding that squeeze. Don’t let ANYTHING stop you holding that squeeze. Just keep holding it. When you can’t hold it any more, hold it some more. And some more.
If you’re built like me, this will eventually result in an involuntary exhalation of breath, accompanied by what feels EXACTLY like a piss shiver. No micturation required!
Passes the time on the bus… 
Personally, I think it’s all down to pressure on the prostate (aka the male g-spot). The mini-orgasm theory rings true for me.
Well, not to fight for bragging rights, but here’s my experiences with this! First, I have noticed the piss shiver, but only prior to deficating (great topic, huh?).
Also, in the family, we’ve come to notice that our dog, a yellow lab, appears to experience the same piss chill, too.
We prefer to call it the Heebie Jeebies!
It must be nature’s little joke!
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy - Hawkeye 4077th
I heard a doctor discuss this on NPR about 2 years ago. He claimed that the shiver is a result of the bladder rapidly decreasing in size, causing the surrounding organs to shift a little. The organ shuffle is felt by the nervous system and results in the shiver. My guess is, maybe the shiver is more likely to happen after a big pee session. Guys have bigger bladders, drink more beer, and therefore, shiver more…ya think?
Why should this shiver be any different than any other shiver? What causes you to shiver when someone runs his or her fingers lightly up your spine?
Whatever causes that, I suspect it’s the tactile affect of the urine through the eurethra that triggers the shiver / ticklish feeling.
And since women have shorter eurethras than men (or so I am told) that may explain why the feeling is rarer among women.
Babies with bitsy ureters/urethras shiver both male and female. Micturition & micturating both very complicated and the why should we be surprised that something odd like shivering goes along with it now and then.
It sounds to me like it’s the body’s way of opening that second sphincter. There are 2 sphincters that control urination, one we can control voluntarily and one we can’t. Maybe that shiver is the nervous system “resetting” to allow the involuntary sphincter to open.
I don’t even think they’re actually called sphincter but what can you do?
Cecil wrote that it may be caused by, “Heat loss due to several ounces of warm fluid leaving the body.” Since the body can’t detect heat (only temperature) I can’t really see that this makes any sense.
How about this: anyone see a cat spray? They do a bit of a shiver at the rear end, presumably to scatter then scent a bit better. Maybe it’s a holdover from that?
Let’s get away from what causes the shiver (though I think my answer on 1/5/2000 is correct). The let’s talk about how Uncle Cecil didn’t even answer the question in the first place. Very LAME. He just tossed out some crummy theories, then threw his hands up…AMAZING!
I think that pqlier is onto something. The experiment worked for me…
Also, what’s up with feeling like I have to pee after sex? Anyone else get that?