Constipation and frequent urination can have various causes, including overactive bladder syndrome, pregnancy, urinary dysfunction, and low potassium levels. Other factors that can cause constipation include lack of exercise, low fiber diet, stress, and colon or rectal disorders. These symptoms may occur simultaneously, but the causes may not be related.
Constipation with frequent urination isn’t always directly linked, and each has a wide variety of causes. An individual may suffer from overactive bladder syndrome, which causes the bladder to contract resulting in frequent urination, while at the same time suffering from constipation due to consuming large amounts of dairy products. In other cases, these symptoms may be the result of an underlying condition, such as pregnancy, urinary dysfunction, or hypokalemia, which is a low amount of potassium in the blood.
In many cases, constipation and frequent urination aren’t symptoms of a condition, but can be caused by several factors. There are hundreds of factors that can cause constipation in a person, but some of the more common ones include infrequent exercise, lack of fiber in the diet, stress, irritable bowel syndrome, laxative abuse, dehydration, and colon or rectal disorders. Likewise, there are a number of possible causes of frequent urination, including overactive bladder syndrome and the use of diuretics, which are medications that treat high blood pressure and diabetes. When these factors occur simultaneously, there is a high probability of suffering from both constipation and frequent urination, although the causes may not be related.
It is also possible that these symptoms are caused by a single underlying factor. Pregnancy is a condition that can cause both constipation and frequent urination. Frequent urination is common during pregnancy because the body holds more fluid during this time, the baby can put pressure on the bladder, and the hormones produced during pregnancy cause the body to urinate more often. At the same time, the surge in hormones during pregnancy causes the muscles in the intestines to become sluggish, slowing down the movement of food and allowing the intestines to absorb all the water in the food. When the final products arrive in the rectum, they are often less bulky and fail to stimulate the rectum to do its job of sending a message to the brain that it’s time for a bowel movement. The result is constipation.
Another underlying cause of constipation with frequent urination occurs in children who have urination dysfunction. Urinary dysfunction occurs when children lack normal function of the muscles that control urination, known as the sphincter and bladder muscles. These children urinate frequently because their bladder holds much less urine than normal and their muscles contract automatically. These muscles also control bowel movements, and when they don’t work properly, they can also cause constipation.
When blood potassium levels are too low, it is called hypokalemia. Potassium plays a vital role in muscle function and fluid regulation in the body. For these reasons, a lack of potassium can cause both constipation and frequent urination.
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