How Sleep Apnea Can Keep You Up at Night

Many people blame their frequent visits to the bathroom every night on an overactive bladder (OAB) or, for men, an enlarged prostate. While these may be frequent causes of nocturia (getting up more than one time per night), an often overlooked cause is obstructive sleep apnea. You might wonder how sleep apnea could cause you get up multiple times at night to urinate, but recent research confirms confirms that sleep apnea can force you to make more urine at night (and so get up more often). This same research also suggest that by treating the sleep apnea, you may also no longer need to urinate so often at night.

Why Are You Getting Up So Much At Night?

We begin by noting that many patients who get up frequently at night do so because they make too much urine at night. Your bladder is simply filling up more quickly than it should because of how much urine is being made. Normally, for young people, no more than 20% of your daily urine should come while you are asleep. In older patients, more like 33% is more normal. Patients who exceed this are said to have nocturnal polyuria, meaning they make too much urine at night. This is easily diagnosed by having patients keep a diary for several nights to measure how much urine they make during the night compared to the day.  

Sleep Apnea Cause Too Much Urine Production

While there are several causes of nocturnal polyuria, an often overlooked cause is obstructive sleep apnea. Blockage of your airway in sleep apnea results in a lot of negative pressure in your chest as you try to breathe (try closing your throat and taking a breath).  This causes more blood to return to the heart. When this part of the heart expands from the extra blood, it releases a hormone (atrial natriuretic peptide) that makes you make more urine. It’s as if the body thinks there is too much blood volume (maybe it thinks you drank a lot of fluid) and tries to get rid of the excess fluid. So, patients with obstructive sleep apnea make too much urine at night.  

There Is Hope

The encouraging news is that treatment of the sleep apnea such as with a mask providing continuous airway pressure (CPAP) not only treats the sleep apnea but also will reduce the urine production and the nocturia. So next time you find yourself getting up that 3rd or 4th time at night, consider having an evaluation of whether you are making too much urine at night. If so, a test for sleep apnea may be in order.