Needing a pee. How does it work?

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

Rainmaker

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No, seriously. :p I suffer from a severe kidney disorder (bilaterally) and as such have to pay more attention to my waterworks than the average bear. That's how I got around to considering this matter, just in case anyone wondered.

Anyway, I was in the car last night and as often happens to me, I started to need a pee miles from home. The thing that got me thinking was that the urge to go tends to go like this over the course of the time between onset and relief:

Hm, could do with a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> Need a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NEED a pee. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> OMGWTFBBQ I'mgonnapeemyself. ---> Don't need a pee. ---> NOW! NOW!... :p

That got me thinking. What on earth is the purpose of the gaps between urgency? You either need to pee (and clearly you do), or you don't. Why the pauses in the urge? I figured out loud to the Mrs (who thinks I need help, or else a job in science) that evolution-wise, we'd have peed where we stood on the first instinct. Holding it in served no real purpose; that only came with 'civilisation' later. In that case the bladder and nervous system isn't actually geared towards prolonged urgency/failure to relieve and so it compensates the best way it can.

So perhaps the excitation of the nerves in your bladder simply wanes after x amount of time, only to renew once the system 'resets'? Does anybody actually know? I could ask my surgeon, but I'm not due to see him until next year now.
 
Well, I have, on a couple of occasions, needed to pee SO MUCH, that I actually couldn't pee until the need had gone away. I guess the tension of needing to pee makes it harder, so the body relaxes to allow you to release it?
 
from what i remember from biology theres only so much of the transmitting chemical at the synapses and once it runs out the signal cant be sent until the body produces more so could be something to do with that. But probably not :p
 
tom_e said:
from what i remember from biology theres only so much of the transmitting chemical at the synapses and once it runs out the signal cant be sent until the body produces more so could be something to do with that. But probably not :p
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking. If you flood a serotonergic synapse for long enough it eventually overloads and doesn't respond. That's how, theoretically, certain recreational drugs can damage working memory and the central executive in the long term. As I mentioned in my OP, perhaps the bladder's signal system works the same way. The signal (neurotransmitters) floods, overloads and has to wait for a system reset to work again - at which point your bladder is more full than before, hence the increased urgency after a gap.
 
I usually find that with me the process just goes -

Beer - Beer - Beer - PEE! - Beer.............and so on.
 
Beer is the worst. I need to pee soon after nearly every pint, that stuff just goes straight through my system.
 
D D Danneh said:
Well, I have, on a couple of occasions, needed to pee SO MUCH, that I actually couldn't pee until the need had gone away. I guess the tension of needing to pee makes it harder, so the body relaxes to allow you to release it?
Click to expand...

Had this before, tends to help if you sit on the bog. Bit girly I know, feels weird doing it, but it works!
 
On the topic of this - The name escapes me but, when you sleep, your body releases a chemical which suppresses the urge to pee until you wake. It effectively makes the urine more concentrated so it fills up the bladder less.... Also why, in the morning (or after a long sleep) your urine is darker than throughout the day
 
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