Question: I am a 50 year old male and have a problem with a frequent need to urinate. I am certain that this problem is linked to being cold, and am fairly certain that it only occurs after I have been sleeping in a chilly place the night before. At night I sometimes need to get up and urinate up to 3 times a night if sleeping in a damp and chilly place. I am a sailor and sometimes my bunk space is chilly. Even if I don’t drink any water at all after noon I still usually need to get up and urinate at least once in the night. In addition, during the daytime if I am chilly I need to urinate very frequently (every two hours or less is I have been drinking a normal amount of water). Often I feel warm and fine, then go out on deck, or move from the sun to the shade, and within minutes I feel an urgent need to urinate. This problem first occurred a bit over a year ago. It was a problem on and off for about 3 weeks, but I did not realize at that time that it was linked to cold. However it occurred when we were sailing in Canada and the weather was damp and cold and the crew quarters were also often cold. After I left the ship I visited a urologist about this problem. Unfortunately, I did not get an appointment until about a week after leaving my ship, I had been warm and dry all week, and by then I had long ago returned to normal. He did an exam and had some lab work done (I lost the paper that had the results, but they were normal). He gave me some Sancruta XR 60mg to try if the problem reoccurred. When I took it this summer It had no noticeable effect. This summer I sailed to Glacier Bay national park in Alaska. I did not have any problems for most of the trip, but did have problems several days. I am fairly sure that these were days immediately following anchoring for the night at the foot of glaciers, which made the air in the boat chilly all night. I went into and out of the condition at least twice during the trip with a short duration each time. I have been on my current ship for 2 months, and the crew quarters are always damp and chilly. I spend much of my days on deck working. We were in Newfoundland, XXXXXXX Scotia, and for the last month in Maine (these are cold places). This condition has been active for almost 2 straight months now, every night and about half the time during the daytime. I have been controlling it somewhat by limiting my fluid intake to mornings only; however I still almost always need to piss small amounts a couple times a day and get up at least once at night to pee. When the problem first presents itself, it is as if a switch is thrown and my kidneys go into overdrive. I need to piss every hour or two for 6 or 12 hours, even if I am not drinking anything. After a half day or a day, my body establishes a new equilibrium, (with less water in it, since I have pissed a lot and not drunk anything). What I do drink I usually feel the need to piss away as soon as I get chilled the first time – often within a half hour or so. When I am warm and dry for a day or two I will feel like I am very dehydrated and drink lots of water (without needing to piss) until I rehydrate again. This rehydration when the problem ends might be the next day, or several months after the problem starts. The problem might (I am not certain) have two criteria. I am certain that it only occurs when I am chilly; however, I am also fairly certain that the problem never occurs unless I have spent the previous night or two in a chilly bunk. I spent last winter in Seward Alaska, where I was frequently out in the cold, but I always slept in a warm dry place. I never had the problem last winter. I should also mention that 15 years ago for a few years I used to have a weird cough variant asthma that was linked to cold. Whenever I sipped ice-water, ate ice-cream, or even went out in the cold, I would cough a few times. I don’t think it is directly related to my present condition, but it is another example of my body’s sometimes weird reaction to cold. So my questions are: What is happening? Why is it doing this? Which categories (below) does this problem likely fall into? Is this nothing but an annoyance that I can safely ignore? Should I take steps to avoid triggering it (give up sailing and camping in cold weather)? Is the condition harmful to me when triggered, but if I avoid triggering it is it benign? Could it be a sign of a really big problem that I need to look into deeply?

Thank you very much! I had a prostate exam just last year and the urologist I visited said it was normal. I would say my urine stream is good while it lasts, it just does not take me long to empty a bladder that is not really full but was telling me it was. My followup question is: Do you think it is damaging to my health to have this condition triggered? I find the condition very annoying and inconvenient, but have been managing. Assuming I can live with the inconvenience, can I just manage this as I have been (drinking no fluids after noon when the condition triggers) or would you say that to protect my health I ought to avoid any more sailing trips or other situations where I sleep in chilly places so that the condition does not manifest? Thanks.