Waking Up Every Hour To Pee

[sickchick]

I too have the frequent urninations during the night. It began just recently for me. I do have that severe dehydrated feeling as well. But I can't drink lots of water it gives me diahrrea.

good luck

sickchick

[Miriam3]

I'll add one more "me too"! When I've been glutened I have to pee over and over for hours. In between my bladder is uncomfortable too, almost like having a urinary tract infection but it goes away on its own after the gluten episode. Sometimes this happens at night and it's hard to sleep (and very hard for my husband to sleep as I am shuffling into the bathroom all night!)

I've also had the other type of frequent need to pee-- just after I went gluten free I dropped a lot of water weight. It wasn't uncomfortable, but I peed frequently for a few days as the stomach bloat, swollen fingers and oversize legs deflated. This was the good kind I guess!

[jmd3]

Does anyone have this problem? I don't know if my body is getting rid of toxins or what.

Seems like I am up every hour or so until about 3AM. Then I sleep right up to 5!

Shari

Vermont

I had been complaining about this for about 8 months....my doctor told me the other day, it was because I am not sleeping, ---- so my system just keeps going???

Anyway, I am drinking fresh pressed, organic cranberry juice...it is very expensive, about $8.50 a bottle. (It is a bit sour since there is no added sugars, and all natural!!) I drink about 1/2 cup full every evening, and I have noticed a big, big change - I can go all night without getting up to go...it is amazing!! It took about 4 days before I noticed, and it keeps getting better. Last night I made it 7 hours - that was the longest ever!!!

My father takes the whole cranberry herb, and that helps him as well to get through the night without getting up.

[tom]

I was years into being gluten-free and still waking up 3 or 4x/night to pee. It wasn't just nighttime tho. I'd have to go every 30-40min all day too. Admittedly I WAS drinking a lot of water - but not at night!

All of it ended when I found my final food intolerance - that dreaded soy.

NoSoyBoy isn't always looking for a bathroom.

[Ursa Major]

I find that if I eat too many foods high in salicylates I feel like I have a bladder infection, and have to go to the bathroom all the time. Too much fruit or juice could be a problem with some of you.

I will get leg cramps when I don't get enough magnesium!

And I agree that soy could be a problem, as many people with celiac disease will eat a lot of stuff made with soy flour, or drink soy milk if they can't tolerate dairy.

Gluten will definitely have an effect on my bladder as well.

[arizona]

I too struggle with this issue. I have had celiac for so long now (abt 48 years) that I didn't connect the two. I just joined this forum because even after that amount of time I'm hoping for more current research on celiac and how to live well. I have mostly learned from trial and error and a very dedicated Mom!

[VioletBlue]

I had always read that two of the primary causes of nighttime muscles cramps are dehydration and not enough calcium. Judging by how much some of us go at night dehydration makes sense, LOL. And I wonder how many people here who experience leg cramps are also lactose intolerant so they're not drinking milk or eating chesse? It seems that as long as I faithfully take my vitamins and supplements and have some food sources rich in calcium every day the leg cramps stay away.

I haven't figured out what the peeing is about yet though. Some nights I get up three or four times and some nights I don't get up at all and sleep through the night. I have yet to put my finger on a common denominator for that.

Violet

[Ria-T]

Hi again

I wrote back in July about Diabetes Insipidus. I've just come out of hospital after having a second water deprivation test, this time for longer. The test was stopped as my serium sodium went too high, also my urine stiil wasn't concentrating (after 16 hours). I was given the DDAVP injection and after another four hours I was allowed access to the tap! So it certainly looks as if I have CDI. I'm going back in a couple of weeks to see the specialist. He did say an MRI would be next if I was diagnosed (back in July) and at that point he did suspect I did have it.

I have to say that I have found people on other forums with the same symptoms and who also have Coeliac. I also found people including children with a diagnosis of DI and people who were convinced they had it. I'm sure there must be a link. I will tell my gastro next time I see him. It seems a coincidence that most of my worst symptoms (including B12 deficiency) began two and half years ago and all at the same time. My problems did get worse just over a year ago and I'm fed up with not feeling normal. My balance is still bad and I easily get tired. I hope this diagnosis will help.

I think if anyone does have problems with thirst and too many visits to the toilet, then they should push for a water deprivation test, especially if tests for glucose are normal. You could also collect your own urine and see how much you do pee and how much you drink. Count how many times you visit the toilet as this was helpful to the doctor. My specialist said about 6 times was normal and I went 12 times plus and drank 3 litres on average. I also tried to do without water and could see that my urine still wasn't concentrating and it stayed a pale (ish) yellow. I quite often have a hangover feeling. Alcohol makes it all worse.

I also suffered cramps and leg twitching. My sodium was sometimes low (showed up in blood tests) as I overdid the water I think. I did add a little more salt to my diet as it is very low in salt, but only a little, which helped. I am lactose intolerant. There is supposed to be a lot of salt in cheese so eating more may help the cramps if the problem is low salt. I get my calcium (which is okay according to blood tests and bone scans) from soya millk with extra calcium and small amounts of mature cheese and parmesan.

I hope this isn't too much information

Ria

[kozmosz]

Until I saw this post, I didn't realize I was peeing less since going gluten-free. But thinking back on the last couple weeks, I'm pretty sure I am peeing less frequently during most days and sleeping through the night most nights as well.

I am new here only a few months gluten free and I have to urinate sometimes every half hour and nightly 3 or 5 times. It is a problem since years of course. I am frightened, mostly the doctors do not find anything (and prescribe valum or other such calming stuff which I wd not tolerate anyway)- but now there was some blood in my urine (tested). I must go back to check. There are so many factors in this condition...it is way too dificult to control everything around me, my family eats only gluten...still I am thankful, since my depression and my obsessivity has diminished indeed so it seems sometimes it is worth suffering...And I do get cramps in my legs...and I do take magnesium too..But I forgot if that is connected to the symptom of frequent urination. some people say they go less frequently since de-glutenizing...So probably I was unsuccessful maybe there is gluten hidden somewhere...Dunno.:-)

[Joanne11]

I had the same problem when i went gluten free. I was peeing all the time. I had to get up two or three times a night and i never had to do that before. About 5-6 months after going gluten free it slowly started to resolve. Now I am back to my normal amount and do not wake up in the middle of the night.

[Littlejen]

I experienced the same problem and was getting up to pee every 2 hrs. at night. After I had been gluten free for 4 or so more days- I slept through the night for the first time in months. Then, a few days later, I again started getting up to pee in the night but I was eliminating water that my body was holding onto and was finally being allowed to release. My chiropractor said water can be stored in all sorts of pockets in the body; like tissues between the organs and such. A week of this and I was/am 2 sizes smaller- no peeing in the night, either. (Been on the diet for 2 1/2 months-self diagnosed.)

[Ria-T]

Hello again!

Well, it's now been a few months since I have been diagnosed with Diabetes Insipidus (cause unknown). I take desmopressine tablets once at night and once at midday (the spray caused me to feel ill). I can't take any more tablets as I don't tolerate them well, but it's great not to have to pee every hour. When they wear off in the morrning I'm peeing every half hour until I take another one. But it's great to be able to go out and not have to locate the nearest loo. and to go for a walk that's longer than half an hour (after I've taken the tablet).

If anyone has a severe problem with peeing more than normal and it doesn't seem to be to do with being glutened, then I would have it checked out further. I had no urine infection problems, was careful with my diet, but suffered this problem for three years before my GP (who was great about it), checked it out. The internist didn't quite believe I had it and tested me twice. I now sleep for at least six hours without waking, and most nights do not have to pee even once.

I have come across other forums where children and adults have both coeliac and DI. So worth considering if you have an ongoing problem.

[gluten15]

Two things that came to mind as I started to read this topic. In my reading about trying to find out certain things I found out that eating too much protein or consuming too much caffeine can cause the kidneys to work overtime. Hence peeing a lot and dehydration.

There are so many things and these two may not mean anything..but I am just always amazing at what I read when looking up something.

[MyMississippi]

Just throwing this out there------- excessive urination is one of the classic symptoms of diabetes.

[greendog]

Hi, I am new to this list, so please excuse me while I get used to the system. I wanted to reply to the post about frequent trips to the bathroom at night. I have had this for a long time. Lately it has not been as severe, but I have been taking a lot of vitamins and I think it has helped alot. I was wondering if anyone has experienced cramps in the legs. I frequently get a "charlie horse" which is quite painful. I have to get up and walk it off. I am newly diagnosed and trying to go gluten-free, but as you know it seems that Gluten is everywhere! Hope this may help someone.

If I eat or drnk the wrong thing I have a lot of problems with incontinance; and not just a night. Certain vinegars really tear me up. The cramps you are experiencing are nocturnal cramps. The precise cause of these cramps is unclear, but your frequent urination could be causing dehydration and that is one cause. Low levels of calcium and/or sodium can cause cramps Also, not getting enough Vitamin D can impair calcium absorption. Like they said in X-Files, "We are not alone:.

[TestyTommy]

For those of you who have a problem with frequent urination, think about whether you might have a vitamin D deficiency. Apparently, if your vitamin D is low, your body leeches calcium from your bones, and you pee a lot to get rid of the excess calcium in your blood.

Celiacs have a high risk for vitamin D deficiency because we have trouble absorbing vitamin D in our intestines, and a lot of us have to give up milk (the main dietary source of vitamin D) because of allergies.

The only other way to get vitamin D is from sunlight, but for those of us in the northern part of the world (Northern Europe and the Northern parts of the US), the angle of the sun is such that our bodies can't make ANY vitamin D between September and May, even if we spent all day outside naked!

[Ria-T]

For those of you who have a problem with frequent urination, think about whether you might have a vitamin D deficiency. Apparently, if your vitamin D is low, your body leeches calcium from your bones, and you pee a lot to get rid of the excess calcium in your blood.

I'm glad this was brought up as I have also read about this. I am slightly Vitamin D deficient but in my case wasn't when I was first having my frequency and thirst problems back three years ago, and this only came up recently. The first thing that I had tested though was diabetes and I am tested frequently, but remain negative. I'm sure there are other reasons for frequency too, but not all are connected with Coeliac (like with me and the Diabetes Insipidus). Sometimes we can actually have more than one complaint (and related conditions to that). Unfortunately, sometimes these are ignored or brushed off as being accidental ingestion of gluten or something else to do with the coeliac and aren't investigated further. We should all bear this in mind. My balance problems, vertigo and tinnitus are not related to coeliac either, and I'm still being investigated for yet more problems.

[Beagle]

Does anyone have this problem? I don't know if my body is getting rid of toxins or what.

Seems like I am up every hour or so until about 3AM. Then I sleep right up to 5!

Shari

Vermont

Shari,

I have found a miracle for solving your insomnia problem - melatonin. It is natural, there are no side effects and works great! I take 2-3 mg every night (my husbands daughter normally takes six, each person is different) and I sleep all night with no drowsiness in the morning. My husband and his daughter also take it. One time for two nights in a row, my husband didn't take it ( I normally give it to him with other vitamins, but these two nights I missed both) and he asked me if I'd given him the melatonin. I said no, I forgot and he said that he figured that was the case, because he didn't get a good nights rest both of those nights!

For more information on melatonin, read "Your Body's Natural Wonder Drug - Melatonin" by Russell J. Reiter, Ph.D. and Jo Robinson.

Our body produces melatonin from the pineal gland in our brain and some of us just don't produce enough of it. It is a fabulous anti-oxident, so it does more than just help you sleep. If anyone else that reads this has a sleep problem, please check out the above mentioned book. It sells for approximately $23, but you can also get it in your local library. I borrowed a copy from a celiac friend of mine and I am so grateful to her for sharing this with me.

Good luck with this Shari & sweet dreams!

[Beagle]

Shari,

I have found a miracle for solving your insomnia problem - melatonin. It is natural, there are no side effects and works great! I take 2-3 mg every night (my husbands daughter normally takes six, each person is different) and I sleep all night with no drowsiness in the morning. My husband and his daughter also take it. One time for two nights in a row, my husband didn't take it ( I normally give it to him with other vitamins, but these two nights I missed both) and he asked me if I'd given him the melatonin. I said no, I forgot and he said that he figured that was the case, because he didn't get a good nights rest both of those nights!

For more information on melatonin, read "Your Body's Natural Wonder Drug - Melatonin" by Russell J. Reiter, Ph.D. and Jo Robinson.

Our body produces melatonin from the pineal gland in our brain and some of us just don't produce enough of it. It is a fabulous anti-oxident, so it does more than just help you sleep. If anyone else that reads this has a sleep problem, please check out the above mentioned book. It sells for approximately $23, but you can also get it in your local library. I borrowed a copy from a celiac friend of mine and I am so grateful to her for sharing this with me.

Good luck with this Shari & sweet dreams!

Oops! I guess I didn't read this from the top about frequent urination, but I think the melatonin will still help by helping you have a deeper sleep than normal, that way your urination problem might not wake you up as often. This doesn't resolve the problem behind the frequency, but like I said, it may help you get better sleep in the mean time.

[geokozmo]

I was wondering if anyone has experienced cramps in the legs. I frequently get a "charlie horse" which is quite painful. I have to get up and walk it off. I am newly diagnosed and trying to go gluten-free, but as you know it seems that Gluten is everywhere! Hope this may help someone.

[imouse1]

I urinated less frequently for the first couple of weeks. Then I had one piece of delicious, delicious homemade Irish brown bread and got sick for a week. I have since returned to a gluten-free way of living and eat the same things I did in those first two weeks but I'm having to wear a sanitary napkin because I can't always hold it all the way to the bathroom. It's not like I feel it coming, either. It's, "Oh, thank God" relief when I go then "Holy Jesus, WHY?!" an hour later. Thank God my classes are only an hour-fifteen a piece. I have been tested for diabetes and am not even approaching the stats for it. All I know is that I start my internship in six weeks and I can't keep getting up every hour throughout the night to keep doing this. I've even stopped eating and drinking after 6pm just in case. I take a full-spectrum enzyme with three meals a day, calcium with dinner (because I have to take it opposite my thyroid meds), a gluten-free multivitamin with lunch, and drink a glass of water on both ends of my two workouts and three meals. I tried not drinking water around meals but the thirst got outrageously worse. If anyone knows how to make this go away, I would greatly appreciate it!

[imouse1]

Shari,

I have found a miracle for solving your insomnia problem - melatonin. It is natural, there are no side effects and works great! I take 2-3 mg every night (my husbands daughter normally takes six, each person is different) and I sleep all night with no drowsiness in the morning. My husband and his daughter also take it. One time for two nights in a row, my husband didn't take it ( I normally give it to him with other vitamins, but these two nights I missed both) and he asked me if I'd given him the melatonin. I said no, I forgot and he said that he figured that was the case, because he didn't get a good nights rest both of those nights!

For more information on melatonin, read "Your Body's Natural Wonder Drug - Melatonin" by Russell J. Reiter, Ph.D. and Jo Robinson.

Our body produces melatonin from the pineal gland in our brain and some of us just don't produce enough of it. It is a fabulous anti-oxident, so it does more than just help you sleep. If anyone else that reads this has a sleep problem, please check out the above mentioned book. It sells for approximately $23, but you can also get it in your local library. I borrowed a copy from a celiac friend of mine and I am so grateful to her for sharing this with me.

Good luck with this Shari & sweet dreams!

Melatonin is a large-molecule hormone that can't pass the blood-brain barrier. Unless you're taking a supplement that helps the brain to produce more melatonin, taking actual melatonin doesn't actually do anything according to the research. It is produced naturally in the body and regulates your sleeping cycle. The pattern you have in your adolescence can be long-winded but changes over the course of your life as changes in your brain occur (which is why we sleep at weird hours when we're older).

[allisons]

I have always had to urinate a lot, but I seem to be a little more often after going gluten free (about three months now). I have been feeling pretty good of late (my problems were more fatigue than anything else) but I get dehydrated very easily and drink tons of water. I wake up feeling like I am hungover sometimes because I am so dehydrated. A tall glass of water usually takes care of the problem.

You might try getting some electrolytes when you feel hungover - the water can actually make it worse if you're out of balance because your body will say "Hey, this is too much water" expell it, and you end up losing more electrolytes.

[Black Sheep]

Amazing. I'm not the only "freak of nature" out there who has to pee every 20 minutes! It started when I was 20 and slowly got worse and worse over the years (I'll be 48 in June), until last year it got so bad, I really was going about every 20-45 min.! And just like someone mentioned way back on page 2, I think it was, after I'd go I felt like I had a bladder infection, but was even tested and didn't. It got to the point where even my pure cranberry juice didn't help, and I had to start taking big doses of the pills. And like others mentioned, I was tested numerous times for diabetes, always negative--and the docs would just say don't drink so much. I was drinking maybe 10-15 glasses of water a day. Since I was in my teens, it's been my habit to even bring a glass of water to bed and sit it on my nightstand, and have a drink right before sleep, perhaps one during the night, and when I wake up.

But I noticed after about 3 weeks or so of being g.f., I didn't have to go as much. Then I realized I hadn't been drinking as much. Now I drink around 8-9 glasses of water a day. Sometimes I can even run errands for a couple of hours without having to go, until I get home! I still have to take the cranberry pills in order to keep that uncomfortable infection-like feeling at bay; but instead of taking 1 or 2 of the high-dosage pills every day, I only need 1 pill, about every 3 days.

It has only been about 6 1/2 weeks since I've been g.f. though, so I'm hoping it continues to improve.

[missy'smom]

Good luck to you all in putting an end to these problems. I've had issues from a young age. Put an end to it by getting testedd then treating diabetes. Ditched my calcium supplement and that helped too-balance of mag. and calcium wasn't good so ended up with tension at night and that led to am potty trips and interrupted sleep. What I really want to say though is if you get tested for diabetes, please know what your numbers are and what they mean and understand the tests. Don't just accept a pos. or neg. Educate and advocate for yourself. Current practice is to let it go too far before DX. Issues are so much easier to manage earlier on. My fasting on testing day was normal and fasting is all some Docs go by. Yet, I am seriously insulin deficient. I'm very glad I asked for other tests!