Sudden urgency to pee a lot?

[ExcitedMamma]

I wrote recently about DD suddenly having accidents overnight, which have continued. She's almost 4 and has been dry overnight for over year. Now she is having to go pee urgently constantly (it was 3x in the last 30 min.) but not giving right away or very much and complaining of pain. Before this she'd go like once every couple of hours during the day. We've been to the pediatrician 2x now and had her urine tested and its negative for a UTI. They have no idea what's going on and referred us to a pediatric urologist. I'm very anxious about this, we've been to far too many doctors and specialists lately!! Has anyone had anything like this before with their child? Thanks!!

[Kestrel]

Have they checked for constipation?

[AnnieW625]

Have them do an expanded uti test. Dd2 tested negative for a uti recently during the rapid result test, but the expanded one was positive and took about 2 days to get the results. The doctor thought DD2 was constipated so I started her on Miralax at his suggestion and she had one good poop and then complained of stomach pain for a few hours and the next day wouldn't leave the potty because she kept having to pee or she would convince herself she needed to poop and she wouldn't (because she didn't have to). It was awful.

The overnight accidents could be a sign of stress. Is your DH home?

[JBaxter]

I'd have her checked for a UTI first.

[o_mom]

Since you have ruled out UTI, it might not hurt to go to the urologist, but I would go slow on any invasive testing unless they have a really strong feeling that there is something wrong.

DS had similar patterns around that age. The doctor said that sometimes around age 4-6, they can suddenly start to notice all the little signals from their bladder and don't know how to differentiate between little urges and big urges. She said it's like when you try to go to sleep and suddenly feel like you have to go, even though you just went, and it is hard to ignore. Or, like becoming aware of your tongue - it is suddenly there and you can't ignore it. We dealt with it for a while, tried a medication (no effect) and finally booked an appointment with the urologist. When the appointment rolled around, 4 months later, around two weeks before, he suddenly stopped (he had no idea the appointment was coming up). It was like a light switch flipped and we went back to normal. I rescheduled the appointment for two months out and eventually cancelled it since we did not have any more issues.

[lalasmama]

Any chance she has an external yeast infection? That can often cause the painful urination, but won't necessarily show on a urine dip. Sore vulva -> painful urination -> avoiding peeing -> peeing little amounts because it stings so bad -> peeing more because bladder isn't being emptied. Especially common if she's wiping herself (or not, as the case may be. When it happened to DD, I started paying attention, and she had decided she didn't want to wipe anymore, which caused her to chafe due to the wetness).

[MSWR0319]

Have they checked her sugar? Isn't peeing a lot a sign of diabetes?

[Mikey0709]

We've been there. We couldn't leave the house cause we would be in the bathroom every 5-10 minutes for drips!

Google "pollakiuria". This was us - VERY common with kids between 4-6 years old. We didn't have any other symptoms (no pain).... just the urge to go CONSTANTLY. For us it lasted MAYBE 4-6 weeks.... thankfully not months. It was at a point in Kindergarten we would have to run to the restroom CONSTANTLY... thank goodness he had one in his classroom, but the teachers were concerned.

Good luck. Reading about this really calmed my fears, and didn't pressure my child so things naturally corrected themselves. It was a pain, but we went with the flow cause the URGE was real, even if nothing came out. We did get checked for UTI, diabetes, etc.... but luckily our pediatrician was familiar with this common thing.

[bisous]

Have they checked her sugar? Isn't peeing a lot a sign of diabetes?

That's always my first thought, but with diabetes the volume would be huge and there shouldn't be any pain. Still I suppose it is worth ruling out. If you're already taking blood make sure they run a panel to test for diabetes which untreated for even a few weeks can have very serious health consequences!

[ExcitedMamma]

Thanks everyone!! Would a yeast infection be visibly noticeable? I've never had one so no idea what to look for but the doctor did check and said nothing was noticeably wrong. I know they tested her sugar with the first sample, they didn't comment on it the second time though, would it have been standard to test it again? Is the pee test accurate enough?

Pollakiuria is what came up when I was googling after the doctor's appointment yesterday. I found different treatment recommendations, one side said to not make a big deal about it and it would go away and on the other side to try and help the child wait longer, like with incentives to hold it longer. Any advice? The one that offers incentives is obviously the opposite of ignoring it and not drawing attention to it so I'm not sure what to do! It also seems weird that none of the doctors have mentioned this when it was the first thing that came up when I googled. But most of them made it seem like it was only a daytime issue, did anyone have this with sudden overnight accidents?

I did find some sites that said it could be stress which just made me feel awful! She seemed to have handle our brief separation really well. I called twice and she had no interest in talking on the phone and ran off to play. Weirdly after we settled back home she was extra clingy but that's pretty much stopped. Neither of them really asked much about what was going on with DH so I really don't think they know or are worried about him. She has been mentioning our dog who died a few months ago more than she had before and is really sad about it but only once was it with crying, which was so bad that she sobbed for hours when I was trying to put her to bed, but she's been a lot better since then and just back to saying she misses her which is what she had been saying about it since it happened. I actually think for them things are pretty mellow and if anything it's a perpetual weekend around here! Lots of extra tv and treats because DH just wants to spoil them.