It sure seemed like I had emptied the whole tank. But two hours later, when I woke up again, I had to pee again. And quite urgently. But just a little came out. It pissed me off!
My bladder can usually go for six, maybe seven hours between urination events. On some days, I can go longer than that.
I guess what I’m wondering is how much of the urge to pee is psychological? Did I really HAVE to pee two hours later, or was it my mind going into automatic, “this is what we always do upon waking, so let’s get on with it” mode?
Unusually frequent desire to urinate, but little or no actual urine? Doctor time, at any rate if it happens again. It could indicate a urinary tract infection, which in turn could have underlying causes such as a bladder infection or a kidney infection (less likely, but also more serious).
If it’s a lifelong thing, then maybe it’s just one of those weird things bodies do. My eyes water when I go to the bathroom sometimes, and I have no idea why. It’s not that I’m crying, I’m not sad. My eyes just water and it’s weird and bodies are weird.
But if it’s a new thing, that’s definitely one of the symptoms I get with a UTI/kidney infection.
I’ve noticed that if the bladder is very full it is difficult to evacuate completely. So, when you think you are done, there is still a significant volume in there. Of course, this does not address the urgency issue.
If this started in the last couple of days, it could be a UTI or even a kidney stone. If you notice blood in your urine or start feeling like crap, get yourself to an urgent care or ER, in the mean time, start drinking as much water as you can, I’ve managed to mitigate a few of them that way.
If this just started today, I’d just be planning on ending up at an urgent care before the day is up.
Is it painful when you pee?
OTOH, if this is a lifelong thing, ignore what I just said…probably, but it could still be very, very tiny kidney stones that flush themselves away unknown or mild UTIs that go away on their own…or just the way your bladder works.
I’ll throw this out there since it’s the beginning of allergy season: I have seasonal allergies, and none of the OTC meds work very well for me. Taking them avoids getting so congested I get a sinus infection, but unlike a lot of people, I see no real difference in taking claritin, zyrtec, or allegra since they all work about as poorly for me as each other.
Except taking zyrtec made me feel like I urgently had to pee every couple of hours. Of course, I didn’t really have much to pee out that frequently. Obviously I stopped taking that one once I worked it out. A friend who works in pharmaceuticals theorizes that it’s something in the filler, rather than the drug itself, that triggers “I need to pee!” but who knows.
Imagine an over-inflated balloon. When you let the air out it deflates most of the way, but if you look at the balloon 5 minutes later it’s even smaller.
If I hold it to extrme, after peeing I sit there and relax a moment and I can go a little more. I can physically feel my bladder slowly shrinking. But if I don’t do that, I’ll need to go sooner, and with comparatively less volume, because physically my bladder is smaller the 2nd time.
You should watch an ultrasound with a partially full bladder sometime, you can actually sort of see the swirlies of the urine emptying into the bladder and disturbing the liquid already there.
I would bet that you did have to pee the second time just because you woke up. Peeing is the very first thing, bar none, that I have to do when I wake up and it doesn’t matter how long I’ve been asleep or how recently I peed.
This is the most likely happening. Your bladder is elastic, but when it is full of urine or whatever it gets stretched out and begins to lose elasticity. So you pee down to where your bladder doesn’t feel stretched out and stop there, but it can still have quite a bit of urine or whatever in there. Then more comes down the pike at the same time your bladder is gradually regaining its normal elasticity, and BOOM you have to pee again, only not so much as last time. Once you are up your body is no longer producing antidiuretic hormone (ADH) that your body makes during sleep so you don’t produce as much pee at night, and this makes you have to pee more frequently too. So there.
Your bladder may have become stretched and lost some of it’s ability to contract, so without enough pressure a valve may not be opening long enough to drain all the way. Once your bladder is partially empty more urine will flow into the bladder and you’ll feel ready to go again before long. For some reason I think you are woman, so you at least don’t have to worry about prostate problems where you need to go 10 minutes after you just went 10 minutes after the time before that.
