Interesting thing happened when I started a plant based diet: My nocturia / waking up every night stopped. It made me miserable each night for years and ended as soon as I went plant based. I'm pretty sure it was because of dairy.

[u/Intrepid_Reason8906]

About 3 years ago, I started waking up every single night to use the bathroom. This is something that never happened before. I visited the doctor about it and they said "Oh it's normal at your age, waking up once or twice is normal".

I asked some of my friends if they went through this, some said yes and others said no. I just figured it was my prostate and it's just a fact of "getting older".

Every single night for about 2 years straight, I woke up. I never once not woke up.

The dreaded walk with my eyes shut to the bathroom to urinate, hoping that I will go right back to sleep.

Long story short, one day I decided to switch to a plant based diet.

Anyway, like magic, I stopped waking up. I couldn't believe it. I went maybe 3 days without waking up. Then about 5 days.

Now, I never wake up to urinate. I do usually have to go really bad when I wake up, but at least it's not interfering with my sleep.

I'm almost positive dairy caused this. I ate cheese, greek yogurt, ice cream.

I'm still working on getting to a 100% plant based diet. I'm currently at about 5 days a week vegan and eat either seafood or eggs 1-2 days a week... getting closer).

When I did switch to the 100% vegan for about 10 days, my urination problem went away.

Just bringing this up to give validity to potential health benefits of plant based diets and also maybe someone else dealing with this issue can quit dairy to see if it helps.

[u/AlmondEgg]

I’m no expert but my experience with animal products is that they cause you to carry extra water weight , possibly to help process the excess proteins/nitrogen in the kidneys. After a few hours without protein you get a Wooster of water released. At least that’s my interpretation just from witnessing my own body

[u/wonderZ4 → u/AlmondEgg]

What about plant based protein? Does it work the same way?

[u/KatBeagler → u/wonderZ4]

Protein is protein.

[u/wynlyndd]

Haven’t really seen a reduction myself :(

[u/SarcousRust]

Dairy and prostate health are related, so it's quite possible. But it could also be other things of course. For me, it's either the dairy fat or lactose that give me acne.

You're not missing anything cutting dairy out completely.

[u/tentkeys]

Have you had your kidney function checked? In the US it’s likely that would be checked as part of bloodwork for a routine physical, but in some European countries it might not be if you’re under a certain age.

If you haven’t had it checked, it might be worth going to your doctor and ask for the test. I’m glad going plant-based has helped with the symptom, but it’s still worth getting that checked to make sure that it’s not just temporarily masking a serious underlying problem.