❤️ You wake up at 2 a.m. from a deep sleep, confused about everything except for the fact that you need to pee right now. When it happens once in a while, it’s no big deal. Waking up two times or more at night to urinate, you may have nocturia, a medical term for excessive urination at night. Nocturia disrupts sleep, resulting in daytime tiredness and depressive symptoms. Over time, poor sleep can become a severe problem for many of us.
What Causes Nocturia?
Usually, the amount of urine at night decreases compared to the daytime, but with aging, the amount of “antidiuretic hormone” that reduces the amount of urine at night decreases. Several health conditions can also cause nocturia; in men with enlarged prostates, women with bladder dysfunction, or menopause.
How does Traditional Chinese Medicine treat nocturia?
In TCM, the kidneys are in charge of the metabolism of water and urination. The ‘Kidneys Qi” (pronounced “chee”) plays a role in holding the urine in the bladder. Subsequently, a kidney qi deficiency could be the root cause of frequent urination and nocturia. The Chinese Medicine concepts of “Yin” and “Yang”. The bladder’s ability to hold urine is a Yin function. When there is deficient kidney yin, the bladder will not hold the urine, leading to symptoms such as frequent and sudden urination or urgency incontinence. In this case, we can use Chinese herbs such as Chinese yam, Poria, Prepared Rehmannia and Moutan bark. On the other hand, Kidney yang deficiency the symptoms can be associated with nighttime urination, abundant pale urination, a feeling of coldness throughout the body. In this case, we can use Cinnamon, Astragalus, Dried ginger, and Dodder seed warm and nourish the Kidney yang.
Acupuncture and Chinese herbs have been proved to be highly successful in treating nocturia. Acupuncture treatment may increase the ability to hold urine, decrease the number of nighttime urinations, decrease urgency, and create a smoother flow of urine. Combining with Chinese herbal will speed the recovery time.
