Nocturia: Urination at Night Symptom of Heart Failure, Not of the Bladder

Shared by Dr. Abdul Razzak Ladha, Toronto: Nocturia means that urination at night is a symptom of heart failure, not of the bladder. Dr. Bansal, the famous doctor of Shivpuri, explains that nocturia is actually a symptom of blockage in the blood flow to the heart and brain.

Adults and elderly people suffer the most because they have to get up frequently at night to urinate. Elders shy away from drinking water before going to bed at night for fear of disturbing sleep. They think that if you drink water, you will have to get up again and again to urinate. What they don’t know is that not drinking water before bed or after urinating at night is an important cause of frequent early morning heart attacks or strokes in adults and elderly people. In fact, nocturia means frequent urination is not a problem of bladder dysfunction. This is due to decreased heart function in the elderly with age, as the heart is no longer able to suck blood from the lower part of the body. In such a situation, during the day when we are in a standing position, the flow of blood is more downwards.

If the heart is weak, the amount of blood in the heart becomes insufficient and the pressure on the lower part of the body increases. That is why adults and elderly people get swelling in the lower part of the body during the day. When they lie down at night the lower part of the body gets relief from the pressure and thus a lot of water gets stored in the tissues. This water comes back into the blood. If there is too much water, the kidneys have to work harder to separate the water and push it out of the bladder. This is one of the main causes of nocturia.

So it usually takes about three or four hours between when you lie down to sleep and the first time you go to the toilet. After that, when the amount of water in the blood starts increasing again, after three hours one has to go to the toilet again.Now the question arises that why is it an important cause of brain stroke or heart attack? The answer is that after urinating two or three times, there is very little water in the blood. The body’s water is also reduced by breathing. This causes the blood to become thick and sticky and the heart rate slows down during sleep. Due to the thick blood and slow blood flow, the narrowed blood vessel gets blocked easily…This is the reason why adults and elderly people are always found to have a heart attack or paralysis around 5-6 in the morning. In this condition most of them die in sleep itself.

The first thing to tell everyone is that nocturia is not a malfunction of the bladder, it is a problem of aging. Another thing to tell everyone is that you should drink lukewarm water before going to bed, and again after getting up to urinate at night. Do not be afraid of nocturia. Drink plenty of water, because not drinking water can kill you. The third thing is that to increase the efficiency of the heart, you should do more exercise in a normal time.

The human body is not a machine that will deteriorate if it is overused; on the contrary, the more it is used, the stronger it will be. Do not eat unhealthy food, especially high starch and fried foods.