​When the weather gets cold, people with frequent urination increase. But there are a lot of cases that heart diseases and blood vessel diseases are hidden behind frequent urination. So it is important to know the characteristics of your frequent urination.
 
Overactive bladder (OAB)
 
Because the nerves of the bladder become sensitive, frequent, sudden urges to urinate are caused even if urine is not accumulated.
 
The amount of urine at night is more than during daytime
 
Overactive bladder is the disease that the amount of urine at night is less than during daytime.
The diseases that the amount of urine at night is more than during daytime are heart diseases, sleep apnea syndrome, lifestyle related diseases such as diabetes and others.
 
Hyperparathyroidism
 
Hyperparathyroidism is a disorder of the four parathyroid glands caused by the development of a benign tumor or others. These glands are about the size of a grain of rice and are located in your neck. The parathyroid glands produce parathyroid hormone, which helps maintain an appropriate balance of calcium in the bloodstream and in tissues that depend on calcium for proper functioning. the development of a tumor causes excess secretion of parathyroid hormone, causing abnormal activity of organs in whole body.
 
The kidney and muscles are easily affected by hyperparathyroidism.
 
If the kidney which regulates the amount of urine is affected, urine is produced too much.
If a pelvic floor muscle which supports the bladder is affected, frequent urination is caused by the decline of the function of the muscle.
Even if the test results of creatinine, calcium and blood pressure are within the range, they are a little bit high.
 
Swelling of legs and night urination
 
Water coming from swelling of legs leads to night urination.
 
People whose legs are obviously swollen have about 200-300 cc of water in one leg, more than 400 cc (2 glasses) of water for both legs.
 
The accumulated water in the legs comes back to the blood stream when lying down at night and the amount of water in the blood increases. The body tries to produce more urine to discharge the excess water, causing night urination.
 
Check the swelling of legs
 
When you press the inside of the shin with your finger, if the finger print stays there or a dimple doesn’t disappear, you have swelling of the leg and tend to have night urination (Fig. 1).
 
How to improve night urination by solving swelling of legs
 
The method is soaking in a bath tub.
 
The effect of water pressure and heat of warm water brings the water stored in the legs back to the blood. But it takes about 3-4 hours that the water returned to the blood becomes urine.
 
So it is recommended to take a bath 4 hours before going to bed.
 
If taking a bath 4 hours before going to bed is difficult, it is also recommended to massage legs, wear elastic stockings and lie down lifting legs up 4 hours before going to bed (Fig. 2).

There is a statistic that people who have nocturia (frequent urination at night) have a lower survival rate than people who don’t. Also When waking up at night and going to the bathroom, there are people who sometimes fall down and break a bone, lowering the quality of life.
 
The main cause of nocturiais too much intake of water at night such as water, tea, coffee or alcohols.
Another cause that you have to pay attention to is swollen legs.
 
While spending daytime, blood tends to be accumulated in the legs by the influence of gravity. In addition to that, aging causes the power to push out the blood from the heart and the power to return the blood from the legs to the heart weaker, resulting in that water comes out from the blood accumulated in the legs. This is the cause of swollen legs.
 
Why do swollen legs become a cause of nocturia?
 
While sleeping at night, the level of the legs is equal to the heart’s, so blood containing a lot of water comes back to the heart easily without the influence of the gravity. There is a sensor in the right atrium, which detects the amount of water. The sensor orders the kidney to make more urine from the blood to prevent the heart from having too much water. To improve this type of nocturia, it is important to improve swollen legs.
 
How to improve noctruia caused by swollen legs

(1) Massage your legs from the ankle to the knee (Fig.1).
(2) Walk in the evening.
Moving the muscles in the calves promotes the dilation and contraction of the blood vessels, pumping the blood back to the heart. Walking in the evening makes urine before going to bed.

​Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) includes IgA nephropathy, diabetic nephropathy, membranous nephropathy and nephrosclerosis. The kidneys filtrate the blood and excrete wastes and toxins as urine. But even if the function of the kidneys lowers down, there are few subjective symptoms. If you keep putting a burden on the kidneys by eating too much salt, the kidney function stops before you realize. If the kidney function becomes less than 10 %, the kidneys can’t filtrate wastes and toxins in the blood sufficiently, resulting in necessity of dialysis.
 
Dialysis is a cleansing process of the blood that uses a special machine to filter wastes and toxins from the blood and return the blood to the body. In general, dialysis needs 4-5 hours per treatment, 2-3 times a week so daily life can be restricted. Dialysis also have to be continued for life. So it is important to prevent chronic kidney diseases.
 
But if you improve the kidney function before it gets worse, you can expect the improvement of swelling, high blood pressure and frequent urination.
 
The methods to remove salt from the body are urination and sweat. Since sweat is difficult to control, urination is the only method to remove salt taken from the mouth. The organ doing the job is the kidney. So if the kidney works too much, the kidney becomes exhausted and the function lowers down.
 
The sense of the taste started becoming weak at the age of 65 in men and at the age of 60 in women. The insensitivity to the taste makes you take more salt.
 
People who have kidney diseases are insensitive to salty taste. If they continue eating lightly salted food for about a week, their sensitivity to salt returns normal.
 
How to reduce salt
(1) Choose seasonings which show “Salt Equivalent”. You can calculate about how much salt you are taking.
(2) Use a small measuring spoon, 1/8 tsp.
(3) Season with materials with strong smell such as ginger or garlic.
(4) Season with soup stocks or spices instead of salt.
(5) Eat from light seasoned food.
(6) Record what you ate and the amount of salt.
 
Other methods:
(1) Use juice of citrus fruits instead of salt.
(2) Use crushed nuts for salads instead of dressing.