4.02.2013

Frequent urination: Not a UTI so why's my 4 year old child peeing so much?

It's well documented here that I've recently potty trained my 22 month old son...of course potty training is never a one and done thing in the first few months.  At least for me, I'm still always asking him if he has to go and we're constantly running to the potty.  I guess what I'm saying is it's basically a hot topic at our house right now.

But over the last 10 days or so I started to notice that my 4 year old daughter has been frequently peeing.  When I say frequently here's how it went just since dinner today:

5:20
5:28
6:24
6:54
7:18
7:23
7:25
7:28
7:36
7:44

Yes, she's peed 10 times in an less than two... woop, making that 11 times...7:49 ... hours.  I left her room for bed at 7:20 and as you can see she's gotten up six times since then to pee. 
I started to notice the frequent peeing at nap and bed about a week ago.  But, I thought she was using it as a stall tactic.  I also started to notice that she'd get up at night to pee - often times more than once. She has been potty trained since before she was two so by now she's very independent in the bathroom. She doesn't wake us up at night and she never calls me in when she's going.  In fact she prefers privacy.

But on Saturday, when she spent the night at my mom's, my mom brought up the frequent peeing.  She said my daughter had gone 4 times in two hours which she thought was a lot.  When my daughter had to go at a restaurant my mom went in with her and noticed only a small amount of urine came out.

I immediately called the doctor to see if we could get in thinking it was a UTI.  The on-call doctor brought us in and took a urine sample right there.  Her urine was fine and a UTI was ruled out immediately.

The doctor did notice her urine was very diluted so he asked us to take another urine sample two days later for more testing.  He wanted to rule out diabetes insipidus.  It's a condition that affects the kidney and is characterized by excessive thirst (which she does not have) and excretion of large amounts of severely diluted urine -- even a reduction of fluid intake would have no effect on the concentration of the urine.  We also talked about the possibility that perhaps the frequent urination is a behavioral issue having to do with my son potty training.  While this was my original thought I've come to believe that's likely NOT the case as my daughter is complaining about how many times she has to pee.

Three days after the UTI was ruled out, the second urine test also ruled out inspidus.  Meantime, today has by far been the worst day with my daughter peeing upwards of what I would guess had to have been at least 25-30 times.  When I spoke with our doctor today to learn the results of the second urine test, she suggested perhaps my daughter is constipated.  She explained that constipation can lead to frequent urination if it's pressing on the bladder.  I highly doubt this is the case as my daughter is a daily pooper and never has any "pushing" problems.  However, to figure out why she's peeing so much, I am willing to do whatever.   So over the next week I am supposed to keep an eye on my daughter's poops to see if they are hard, small and pebble like, large in size or anything that might suggest constipation.

My doctor suggested this is a proactive step before she sends us to see a pediatric urologist.  She said the urologist will no doubt talk about constipation so it's best to examine the poop pattern, etc before even going so as not to waste time or money.  If they can rule out constipation as the issue, then doctors will then look into whether she's having bladder spasms, retention issues, overactive bladder, or a voiding dysfunction. 

While my daughter is not complaining of any kind of pain, burning or other symptoms, the alarming number of times she pees definitely has me concerned.  For that reason, I'm also keeping a daily journal of when my daughter pees so when I tell the urologist or doctor it's 30 times a day, they'll know it's not an exaggeration.

Add 8:03...and 8:12 to the list.

Here's an update on what's going on after we saw the pediatric urologist

Anyone ever experience any type of frequent urination issue like this in their child? What was the end result?


No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

New Mama's Store