Dr. Mitch: What Can Your Frequency Of Peeing Say About Your Health?

Your two-minute check-up with Dr. Mitch Schulman, brought to you by board-certified hand surgeon Dr. Daniel Durand for relief of TriggerFinger. Book a consultation now at monthrealhandsurgery.com 754. Good morning, Dr. Mitch. Good morning to you, sir. Mitch, if you've been up with us, you've probably heard us telling people on the news that air quality is just terrible today, so we're feeling for people who have respiratory issues. It's taken easy. Also, the cold can make your breathing more difficult, so if you're going to go out

put something over your face, whether it's a scarf or a mask, whatever works for you, to help humidify and warm up the air before it hits your lungs, but also to clear out some of the yuck that's out there. I don't know what's going on. It's just incredible. The other day, I don't know about you guys, but the mist that I was driving in, I thought it was, wait, you're at a certain age, you start to wonder, is this my eyes?

It was what, and I came home, I told my wife it was white knuckle time. There's a stretch of the 40 in your IKEA, Mitch. I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't find the, uh, the on ramp to the highway. Isn't that terrifying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't like driving this one. Please take an ECP while I don't want to see you in the emergency. I'm kidding. Mitch, I'm going to put you on the spot here, Dr. Mitch, and ask you a delicate question. And it is what you're peeing frequency can say about your health. Look, it is true. Um,

They'll say that you should pee about six or eight times during the day, but every three or four hours. But the honest to goodness truth is, it's a function of how hot is it? How much are you sweating? Don't forget you sweat even in a cold. What are you eating? What are you drinking? What's going on in your life? So basically what I tell people is, you need to drink enough liquid, or whether you're getting it in your food or in your drinks, so that when you wake up in the morning, first thing, you're in as dark and concentrated. That's normal because you didn't get up all night and pee very often, hopefully.

During the day, if you're drinking enough, your urine gets clear. So an almost clear urine doesn't hurt, doesn't have blood in it. All those things are cool that you're not going very often, that you don't feel the urge that you must go, that's all normal. The moment that you start seeing dark urine during the day, it either means you're not drinking enough or something else is going on. The moment that it hurts to pee, the moment that you feel the sense of urgency to pee, those are all not normal.

People often ask me, but I say foam or I'll say bubbles for one a bitter terminology. When I pee, that's a function of the amount of protein in your urine and it's normal to get it from time to time. But if you're getting it constantly, it's getting worse. You could be spilling protein in your urine. If you're going to the bathroom very often, do you have diabetes and are you spilling sugar? If there's too much sugar in your urine, it's going to make you want to go to the bathroom more often.

Certain medications that people take will make them go to the bathroom more often. Some of the anti-diabetic medications work that way. Some of the medicines that we use for either high blood pressure or for congestive heart failure when the fluid backs up into the lungs are called diuretics. Well, a diuretic makes you go to the bathroom more often. The key thing is change. If something is changing, something doesn't feel right, then definitely it needs to be looked into. But remember, even in the winter, you're going to sweat.

And it's really important to stay well hydrated. And you should be going to the bathroom to pee on a regular basis. And if you're not and you're drinking enough, that's also going to be an issue. And I've got to figure out what's going on. All right. So I'll make sure you're saying so during the day, it's six to eight. Was that the range you said? About every three to four hours on average, maybe a little bit more, a little bit less. The key thing is the change.

If you always go to the bathroom with a certain degree of frequency, a certain degree of regularity, and all of a sudden that changes, either you're going more often or less often, that's a tip off that something has changed. And if you're maintaining the same diet, maintaining the same activity, the temperature and everything's about the same, but it has changed, that's a tip off. Something is going on, it needs to be looked into. But certainly pain, burning when you pee, blood in your urine,

uh... dark dark dark urine that persist dark during the day it doesn't and these are all warning signs of something's going on doctor mitch always love the info thank you for much so much for joining me again this morning mitch appreciate it always a pleasure look forward to talk to you again soon very good doctor mitch shulman