Pollakiuria - when your child constantly says they need to wee

[SuperSixy]

Hello all mums and carers
The link below takes you to an article I have written about a condition called Pollakiuria, which is when your child says they need a wee every 10-15 minutes all day, every day. When my son had this condition, I found it very hard to get a diagnosis or any help, so I am posting this article here for information, in the hope that anyone trawling the net for info like I did will find it.

docs.google.com/document/d/1F_flGKAATWIqv6M173PlwOjcaPOM4BmYSg3Dj99R818/edit?hl=en_US

Thank you so much for your article! I just started experiencing this with my 4 year old son. I had no idea what to do. My GP just dismissed it and didn't even do a UTI test. I would like to have him tested to be sure there's no issue that way, though from all the sounds he has this Pollakiuria condition. I'll have to notify my GP about this condition as I think she's never heard of it.

After reading your article I now have something I can do to help my son get back on track. Thank you again!

Well I never knew this was a condition with an actual name...but I thought it was pretty common. My DD went through this when she was reception age. GP checked her for urine infections and it was all clear. He suggested that she had simply got anxious about weeing and had got in a vicious cycle of weeing too frequently which had made her bladder weak which made her need to wee more etc etc. We made her wait a bit longer between wees and it got better by itself quite quickly...

nks for that - good timing for us. My 5yo DD is driving us potty with her constant 'i need the toilet' -we thought she may be constipated so tried some lactulose, but no result. I will investigate this further.

I am reanimating a ZOMBIE THREAD because 4yo DS has started to do this.

He's constantly going to the toilet in a very short space of time but isn't complaining of or showing any signs of a UTI so I wasn't sure if I should take him to the doctor.

I'm wondering now if it's linked to going back to school next week. It's a big change this time.

He will be there all day instead of just mornings. He will have a new teacher and some new classmates, while some of his previous classmates will be in another room now and his best friend has changed schools completely.

He will be staying for school dinners and will have a proper PE teacher and getting changed into a PE kit for the first time.

He had seemed to be coping well and even looking forward to all this, but I'm wondering now if the constant trips to the toilet for a wee are a sign that he's feeling anxious after all.

OP are you still about to offer any further advice, or does anyone else have a child going through this now?

Thank you very much for that article by the way OP. I think I might print it off for my meeting with DS's new teacher next week. They have toilets just off the classroom and children can go whenever they like, but I think it might help to explain the problem to her in case it carries on once he's back at school.

It's such a relief to read this article.Our 4 year old son thinks he needs a wee a lot. I have been trying to ignore it as he is otherwise well. He started school a few weeks ago and his teacher pulled me to one side today to say he spent ' too much time in the toilet and was it going to become a problem'. I didn't know what to say but having read this article it gives me something to go on.
I won't be making a big deal of it and will be trying distraction methods in future.

I cannot thank you enough for this article!

My daughter had all of the symptoms noted and as your article says I started to frantically search the Internet to try and find some way of helping her.

We had ruled out all possibilities of infection with the doctor and was then told that she would "just grow out of it", something you don't want to hear when your daily life is taken over by this condition.

I followed all of the points that your article notes and within a few days we saw a drastic improvement.

Thank you once again and if anyone is looking for help with frequent urination I cannot recommend this article enough.

I am just reading this and I'm so glad I found it. This has been happening with my 4 year old daughter for about 2 months now. I will try all the techniques. Its been so stressful not knowing what's wrong. Shes had 2 tests on her urine with the gp and she is fine. Its been so hard but hopefully it will get better now. Thank you

@Dwoodus90 are you still about? Just wondering if this resolved for your DD?

I'm experiencing something similar with my 4 year old. It's not quite as bad as mentioned in the OPs write up, but she is going to the loo much more frequently and often only small amounts or sometimes none at all. Nursery have picked up on it too. Her urine has been dipped and was clear, waiting on results from the lab but I don't think there's any infection due to no other symptoms.

I'm feeling really out of my depth and not sure how to deal with it. She starts school in September and I don't want this to be an issue for her

Open to advice if anyone else stumbles across this....

Hey yes I'm still here. She has finally stopped. She just stopped on her own. We went to the hospital and everything but the nurse said it was behaviour not anything seriously wrong. I actually told poppy that if she keeps going to the toilet I would.have to ring the nurse and he wouldn't be very happy. I also tried to encourage her to help me with chores etc if she mentioned the toilet again and said things like... help me with this first. She is a lot better now but she tends to do it when she is having a strop so I definitely think in our situation it was attention seeking. She is out middle child. I just stopped making a fuss of the situation and it seems a lot better now. She also starts school in September. Xx

Thank you.

I think it's possibly linked to constipation here but now has become a habit.
It's not attention seeking I don't think because she'll say it when doing something she doesn't want to miss (eg watching tv).

I'm also wondering if there's some anxiety going on as she is particularly bad at preschool.

I'll go with distraction and see how we go. How frequently was your DD asking to go?

Very late to the thread but typing because my now 9yr old has experienced frequent urination on and off for the past few years and it's been pretty upsetting for her (and limiting for us) at times, much more so as she's become older and more self-conscious. We've been down the route of health checks several times over, which have found no physical cause, and I've regularly come back to reading the article linked here for guidance and reassurance. I can't be sure that what my DD has experienced is pollakiuria (she has needed to go when she worries she won't have access to a toilet, so it's worry-driven), but the calm pointers in the article have really helped me at times, so thank you to the original poster. I'm not sure that my daughter is fully free of it yet, but I think the biggest step forward that we made was accepting that there was no physical concern and stopping ourselves from focusing on it as a problem - the more we accommodated it, the worse it got.

I'm so glad my original post has helped someone xx Hope your daughter's condition improves xx

I can't open the link, what does it say I. A nutshell?

Thank you so much for this. 11 years since your original article and still very limited help on the NHS for this. My DD has just started school and showing symptoms. I will take a step back from convincing her she doesn't need it and focus on distraction techniques.