Did you know that you might get up in the night for a pee (particularly if you are a man and over 50 or so) and, after you pee you might faint? No, neither did I!

It even has a name – micturition syncope.

I am not a man and I have been over 50 for more than 30 years and have never fainted in my entire life, but I have been awoken by the need to pee in the middle of the night and, just occasionally, had some really weird symptoms that I now know are symptoms of that strange name.

Here’s my story re micturition syncope.

Last August I woke up needing to pee around 3 in the morning, got out of bed, made my way to the loo (bathroom, wc, lav) and peed. As I stood up I found that my legs felt like they had pins and needles and a funny dull pain which seemed to be climbing up my legs into my abdomen. I sat straight back down again and, inwardly panicked! What could this be? Could I be dying?

The pain got worse. The pains were coming in waves and I was feeling hot and cold. I sat there moaning and trying not to wake Julian but asking the deities for help. I wanted to go back to bed and go to sleep, not be found dead on the floor of the loo in the morning!

After around ten minutes, I had recovered enough to stand up and walk the 20 steps or so back to my room. I don’t remember if I lay awake thinking about this strange attack, but I imagine I did.

That was seven months ago and I had forgotten all about it but, two nights ago I woke, walked down the hallway, had a pee and stood up. My legs felt a little wobbly but I was only half awake and wanted to get back to bed. I realised I was thirsty so went into the bathroom (our loo is in a separate little room next to the bathroom), turned on the tap, had a small glass of water and suddenly my legs felt as though they had pins and needles! I sat down on the bathroom stool in the hope that it wouldn’t get worse but it did. And then I realised I needed to pee again! Would my legs manage to get me the five steps I needed to go?

Thankfully, they did! I suffered the whole damned thing again and, again it took about ten minutes from beginning to end. Afterwards, I went back to bed and worried about what could be the matter with me for the next half hour or so before I fell into a heavy sleep.

The next day I thought I might try to get a doctor’s appointment but then thought I’d ask Google what it could tell me about my symptoms – and it told me about micturition syncope.

I’ll leave you to go to Doctor Google to find what I found. I won’t bother the GP yet, though if it happens more often, I suppose I will have to.

Take care out there. And remember that all the stuff I complain about might not happen to you when you get old!

Update:

Not long after I posted this, ‘Veronica’ and Paul went to Paris for a week’s r&r. They arrived there on a Sunday in early mid-April. They did some sight-seeing and on the next day went out to eat. While at the restaurant, Veronica visited the ladies’ room, had a wee – and fainted!

When she woke up she found herself on the floor with a sore leg but, otherwise okay, though she wasn’t happy about fainting. She got up and went back to join Paul and told him about the faint.

I wasn’t there and don’t know all the details about what happened next and she didn’t let me know what had happened – why should she? She was okay! But her leg was hurting more than before. (She had been suffering from a bad knee).

She rang me and we had a face-to-face chat on Viber. I suddenly noticed the painting behind her as she sat on the sofa – it was her sofa and her painting! They were home three or four days early!

It turned out that she had broken her leg!