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Health Watch is a Public Service of the Office of News and Publications and is intended to provide general information only and should not replace the advice of a medical professional. You should contact your physician if you have questions about any of these topics.
If you get most of your daily exercise running to the bathroom, you may want to change what you drink.
Do you feel like you're always rushing to the bathroom? If you have to urinate more than normal - more than about eight times in a 24-hour period - doctors at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas say it could have as much to do with what you drink as it does with how much you drink.
Dr. Mikhio Nihira, a UT Southwestern gynecologist, says diet sodas can send many women running to the bathroom more often. The caffeine, carbonation and sugar substitutes in diet sodas all irritate the bladder. Bladder irritation can make you feel like you need to urinate or make you feel like you are having trouble holding it.
Caffeine is also a diuretic - something that causes the body to lose fluid making you urinate more. Drinking a lot of caffeinated beverages, including coffee, tea or cola, can make you need to go to the bathroom more frequently.
To cut back on bathroom trips, drink fewer diet sodas. Even if you replace the sodas with the same amount of water, you should feel less urgency about going to the bathroom.
If that doesn't help after a while, you should talk to your doctor. A change in bladder habits could be the sign of an infection or some more serious problem. This is especially important if urination is painful or if you are having to go to the bathroom more often because excessive thirst is making you drink more.
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July 2004
