Does everyone with OSA or CSA have nocturia?

Nocturia is caused by increases in a particular peptide, atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), that increases in blood plasma due to sleep apnea, to put it simply. Treatment with CPAP has been show to decrease this peptide with the result of reducing nocturia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2530 ... &linkpos=3

Before cpap I would go to the potty sometimes every 15 or 20 minutes during the night. Maddening! Always urgent, never productive enough to explain the urgency. When my edema was bad I knew as my legs were going down, that fluid had to go somewhere, so those times were productive. But aside from that time period, I couldn't understand why. Since effective cpap treatment, I only get up at night if I've drank a ton of water later at night. Just drank about 32 oz of water, won't need to get up though. I went from feeling like I had the bladder of a chihuahua to wondering if I'm part camel.

Before CPAP, I had to get up about 4 times a night to use the restroom. Since I started CPAP I rarely have to get up.

elena88 wrote:I was just reading another thread, and it got me wondering.. does everyone with osa or csa have nocturia?

( where you have to get up every two or three hours to urinate during the night. The lack of oxygen causes pressure on your left ventricle of
your heart, and in turn, your body responds to the pressure by making and releasing urine.)


Anyway, do people with mild apnea have nocturia?

Moderate apnea?

Severe apnea?

Or is it something that builds up, the longer you have the apnea, the more likely you are to experience osa no matter if its mild, moderate, or severe.

Even though Im struggling, the five trips to the bathroom at night have turned into one or two.. so this is good news!



How many of you had nocturia when you started cpap, and how many still have it?

How many never had it?

One needs to distinguish between waking up because one has to urinate versus waking up for other reasons and electing to urinate.

djr1215 wrote:I think it's more that I'm awake and since I'm awake I have to go. I can tell when needing to void is what wakes me up because my dreams turn into long searches for a bathroom. Wherever and whatever I'm doing in my dream I start looking for a bathroom and every one is broken or filthy. That keeps up until I wake up.

Wow! I thought I was the only one who had dreams like that-can't find a bathroom that is clean enough to use. I thought I had dreams like that because I grew up in Taiwan and we didn't have indoor plumbing when I was little. The outhouses would be crawling with roaches (literally the walls were solid moving roaches) and I would rather have died than have to use one. My sister and I think we may have ruined our bladders trying to hold it in. But since being on XPAP, I hardly ever have those dreams or have to get up during the night.

Usually one of my cats will wake me, so I'll get up and go to the bathroom just on general principle.

After over 25 years of "must sleep close to a bathroom" due to a minimum of 2 - 3 trips a night - now I never go at night unless I drink a lot just before bed.
Broke a foot falling down the stairs for a trip at 3 am 10 years ago.

I have Sleep apnea for at least ten years but didn't have to get up to use the rest room at night until a year or two ago, then i was getting up about two times a night. Now I never get up.

Gerald wrote:Elena.....

If you'll check your BP immediately as you wake needing to pee, I think you'll discover the cause. If I have to go to the john in the middle of the night, it's because of elevated BP. Since I started using the CPAP, my nocturia trips have dropped to almost zero......and my BP is normal.

I have hight blood pressure and still do not have the ned to get up in the middle of the night. I don't take medicine for it yet, that will come Wednesday I think.
One other thing i noticed is that I have not had any Acid reflux or heart burn since starting CPAP.

Interesting replies, thanks everyone!

I was NEVER getting much sleep before the apap, I had to go to the bathroom so many times a night it was ridiculous!

This is one of the reasons I only slept in an hour in my sleep study, I made FIVE TRIPS to the bathroom to pee, and had to walk down a long
hall and get unhooked from all those wires to do it, so it wasnt just, OH well, might as well go...

five trips from eleven pm to five am.. and I got my panties in a bunch on top of that!

Literally caught in the wires!

If they have this all on camera, Im dead

so now, I dont sleep so great, but not having to get up every hour or couple hours is fabulous!

I used to have those searching for a bathroom dreams too, only I found one, and woke up just in time! OMG!

elena88 wrote: If they have this all on camera, Im dead

I've been wondering about those cameras. I didn't realize that there was a camera in the room when they told me to chage into my PJs. Exactly when do they start those cameras? I wondered if those guys were watching me change. CREEPY!