# Why am I urinating less? Source: https://kidneystonediet.com/ep/why-am-i-urinating-less/ Published: 2020-12-22 --- [![Kidney Stone Diet Podcast](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Podcast-1-1024x1024.jpg)](https://kidneystonediet.com/podcast/) [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91qxO0ztVI)[Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-am-i-urinating-less/id1528474326?i=1000503208745&uo=4)[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2FkNLyiyOfp8qnHGlATvd9)[Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0868148d-adfd-411d-b3f2-71a0ad1461ec) December 22, 2020 --- ![Jeff Sarris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Jeff-Sarris-150x150.jpg) Jeff Sarris Host ![Jill Harris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Jill-Harris-150x150.jpg) Jill Harris Host In this episode of the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast Jill Harris explains why you may be urinating less on day two of a 48 hour urine collection.\ \ • [Kidney Stone Diet](https://kidneystonediet.com/)\ • [Kidney Stone Prevention Program](https://kidneystonediet.com/kidney-stone-prevention)\ • [Oxalate Food List](https://kidneystonediet.com/oxalate-list/)\ • [Free KSD Resources](https://kidneystonediet.com/resources/)\ \ Find the full transcript at [BYLT.co/show/kidney-stone-diet](https://bylt.co/show/kidney-stone-diet) ## Chapters - 00:00:00 Understanding 48-Hour Urine Collection Tests - 00:02:47 Factors Affecting Daily Urine Output Volume - 00:05:42 Requesting a 24-Hour Urine Test - 00:07:48 Preparing for Doctor Visits with Urine Analysis - 00:13:17 Resources for Kidney Stone Risk Reduction ## Transcript ### Understanding 48-Hour Urine Collection Tests 00:00:00 Jeff Sarris Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris, and I'm here as always with Jill Harris. How are you doing, Jill? 00:00:26 Jill Harris Hi. Good to be here with everybody. 00:00:29 Jeff Sarris Yeah, so we are on the third episode today. We like to batch all these episodes together to try to really make sure we're going delivering a new episode for you every week. So, we actually have Christmas right around the corner, so this is this will be good. We're going to get through the holidays with all these episodes here. We're going to keep people on track and then we'll be back at it in 2021. 00:00:50 Jill Harris Well, I'm going to tell you, I know, too, for all the listeners, we're just counting down the days to 2021, hoping that it's a much better year than this craziness that we've just been through. 00:01:01 Jeff Sarris Definitely. So, why don't we dive right in to this week's question? 00:01:06 Jill Harris All right. 00:01:07 Jeff Sarris So, this is regarding the 24 or 48-hour urine test, urine collection. So, someone said, "I've been doing the 48-hour urine test, but despite consuming the same amount of fluids, I produced much less urine on day two. Why might that be?" 00:01:23 Jill Harris Great question. The audience has great questions. I love that. So, the gold standard of urine collections, and it's never ordered this way, very rarely. I have some of my docs who refer patients to me, some of them. Shout out to Dr. Nadler at Northwestern. He will order a 48-hour urine collection. Dr. Coe, of course, Dr. Coe sometimes orders a three-day urine collection, but there are doctors that order the 48. Most don't order any. And then the ones that do order urine collections tend to order just the one day. So, I just wanted to put that there because some people watching are going to be like, "Oh no, my doctor never ordered that. Do I need to get that?" So, I just want to preface it. So, why is it that someone urinates less on, you know, the second day than they did on the first day? ### Factors Affecting Daily Urine Output Volume 00:02:47 Jill Harris Because what comes out of your body depends on what you put in your body, not just fluids, but salt and sugar, and how much you sweat. Are you middle-aged like me? You may be sweating a lot more at night. Are you young and working out in the gym? You're sweating more than somebody who's sitting at a computer all day. So, again, what's coming out of your body, meaning sweat, that's a big deal if you're exercising, menopause, you know, where do you live? Do you live in a hot climate? Are you a construction worker? Do you work in a hot climate and you're sweating? So, that all, that all takes precedence. But, but mainly, a big part, it's all of this, but also, too much salt, as we all know, bloats us and will lessen your urine output, which means you'll pee less, because now your body's going to retain it. And sugar, most people don't know, but sugar acts the same way. Sugar will also lessen urine volume. So, when we eat too much sugar, we also will get bloated and will pee less. So, your diet has a lot to do with how much urine you're going to produce. So, that's why the Kidney Stone Diet, why I love it so much, is it hits everything. So, you know, it's- and it's all drenched in science. It's not like Dr. Coe and I made this up. It's based upon all science, right? It also hits the USDA guidelines in what all of us should be eating. We all should be eating the low added sugar, the lower sodium, getting enough fluids, getting enough calcium, not eating a side of beef. The oxalate part is the only thing why we call it the Kidney Stone Diet, because that's the deciding thing. The Kidney Stone Diet is Every aspect of the things we're talking about is going to lessen your risk, right? But as a whole, we called it the Kidney Stone Diet because of the oxalate part that really separates it out. Otherwise, we could just say this is what the government suggests, as well. So, it's pretty interesting that it coincided with that. So, that's why, that's why you may be drinking the same amount, but if you had a barbecue, just say it was July 3rd one day, But July 4th the next day when you did your urine collection, you ain't eating salads on 4th of July, typically. You're having barbecue, you're drinking booze. Booze will also dehydrate you. So, there's all kinds of things, right? And, typically, when we're getting a little buzz from alcohol, no one's like, "Sally, I'm drinking beer. Make sure you set me up with a glass of water each time I finish my beer." Ain't nobody doing that! So, that's why we run a little dehydrated when we drink alcohol. So, all of that Plays into what- how much urine you're producing each day. ### Requesting a 24-Hour Urine Test 00:05:42 Jeff Sarris Yeah, so you also mentioned not all doctors will be prescribing or actually doing the test, doing the 24-hour urine collection, 48-hour, but and you, your platform has a lot to do with advocating, people advocating for themselves. So, when should people sort of, maybe not, push might be a strong word, but when should they ask for their doctor to do something like a 24-hour urine collection? 00:06:10 Jill Harris Yes. So, a lot of doctors want to wait, they will say to their patients, "You know what, Trish? We're just going to wait till you get a second stone." I don't understand why we would wait for a patient to get sick again and then test. So, when we can test, do the urine collection, and rule out perhaps some other things that are going on. Diet will always matter, but sometimes there's, like I said before, there's underlying medical conditions That one might need to check on. Also, when the doctor does the first urine collection, there should be a fasting blood draw that should be taken as well on the patient. So, again, checking to see if there's any underlying medical conditions that are leading to the stones. So, you know, but I've heard from doctors, too, "Look, Jill, here's the deal. Why should we waste the patient's time? Nobody's interested in changing their diet." And that's a real thing. If all stone formers were really interested in changing their diet, we would have less stone formers. But also, I push back a little. If all stone formers understood what could be done about stones, then maybe we'd have less stone formers. So, it's all the way in which one looks at this. I think there's a little bit of both. That's my take after 21 years of doing this or being in this sector, you know? 00:07:37 Jeff Sarris Definitely. And then when it comes to having this test, you have a service, a urine analysis urine analysis consult. What does that do and how does that sort of benefit the patient? ### Preparing for Doctor Visits with Urine Analysis 00:07:48 Jill Harris I love that service because it's very inexpensive, so I always like to have things at all price points because I'm very booked these days, so, you know, my privates can be a little bit more expensive, right? So, I like to offer something at all price points. That call is a 15-minute call with me and it's, you ask anybody that's ever done it, it's been amazing. People on the Facebook group are always talking about that. That call is me Showing the patient, you know, they bring me their results, they send me their results to my website, and we get on a phone call and I give them the talking points. We go over why, what their report shows, meaning I'm not diagnosing them or anything, I can't do that as a nurse, but I'm saying, "Look, you know, the calcium's out of range. When you visit your doctor, Please talk to the doctor about what this means for you, where it should be, why is it that way?" And I'll also go over the dietary things that are showing on the report as well. But what that 15-minute call does for that patient is it arms them so that they can go advocate for themselves at the doctor's office. Also, I find that if a patient is educated, they're going to get better time with their doctor, because that doctor sees that the patient took the time to get educated and is definitely wanting to make changes. Because again, what doctors see all the time is, " yeah, low salt. Right, doc. Get right on that!" You know, so doctors are frustrated, too. So, you know, like I said, it's a it's a it's a problem for patient compliance as well. So, the patients that are seeking my services are very motivated to make sure they never get a stone again. That's why I'm so successful, because my patients are successful, because they don't want to go through this again. So, they're seeking out my guidance. If they get my guidance, they can be super, super great at their doctor appointments and can say, "I know you said there's nothing wrong on my collection, but I'm just, you know, I'm just noticing that this is high and this is high, and I'm wondering what we can do about it." And then, lots of times doctors are like, "Oh, look at Timmy, he's on the ball here. Let me sit down. Let me let me, you know, he seems very interested and educated, so let's really do whatever we can for Timmy." And I don't mean to say that doctors don't do for patients that don't know about the report. That's not my, but I'm just saying If patients tend to get better, as a sick person, as somebody who's been sick a lot in their life, when I go to a doctor's appointment and I just sit there and just listen, I may miss out on things that if I educated myself before I got to that appointment, because the doctor's dealing with 30 patients a day, you know? They're not perfect. So, it's great if we can educate ourselves, so we could also be more helpful to ourselves with the doctor in those appointments. Doctors love educated people. They do. They want people that are motivated and they want people to be advocates for themselves. It's more interesting for them. I'm assuming. I don't, you know, I'm like that as a healthcare person, you know, as a nurse. I want patients to be motivated and wanting to change and be healthy. That's what we all want as health professionals. We want our patients to be healthy. That's why we went into what we went into, right? So, That's my take on all this. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying that's my small point of view on this problem. So, yes, the urine analysis consult is gold, people. Honestly, it really is. And I'm very proud of that service. I'm proud of all my services, but that one is a newer one and it's been working out really well for people. So, that's awesome. 00:11:39 Jeff Sarris Yeah, when we're better equipped to, when we're asking better questions, essentially, we can have better results just all around, because we know what we should be talking about. We know sort of the areas that maybe otherwise would have just, like you said, just gone right over our heads. The doctor says X, but you have no context for it yet, so you don't really it might not sink in the way that it would otherwise. 00:12:01 Jill Harris You said that so much just eloquently as I did not, and it's not a judgment, it's just a fact. I don't care that I didn't. I'm just saying that's exactly what I was trying to say. And, you know, it's that's just perfect. I think, you know, like I said, when we know a little bit as patients, we are able to facilitate a doctor's appointment much better. And so, that little 15-minute call for $39, as it stands today, On December 18th, 2020, cuz who knows if that may go up. As it stands today, and you may look at this YouTube a year from now, and it may not be that anymore. But I'm just saying, that is, most copays are more than that. So, get your money's worth, people, at your doctor's appointments. Because as somebody who's been sick in a doctor's appointment, sometimes I'm really anxious. And people are like, "Well, you're a nurse." Yeah, but I don't know nothing about cancer. I do kidney stones. It's like calling a plumber to fix your lights. We do what we do. So, sometimes I've been really anxious in my doctor's appointments, and things go out my head, and go, you know, I forget, and then good luck getting hold of your doctor later. You're like, "Oh my god, why did I not think of that?" So, if you're educated going in, you can hit a lot of points with the doc, right? It's awesome. ### Resources for Kidney Stone Risk Reduction 00:13:17 Jeff Sarris Absolutely. So, for anyone interested in the urine analysis, they can head on over to kidney stone diet.com. There's a bunch of free resources, the weekly email, just so much over there. And then, obviously, the Kidney Stone Prevention Course. But we just want to thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed if you enjoyed this, if you're getting a lot of value out of this show, Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or wherever you're listening via the podcast, and share with your friends, because every little bit helps us get the word out and it helps us assist more people in reducing their risk for kidney stones. 00:13:54 Jill Harris Well, and that's the whole thing, Jeff. What I hear every day is, "I had no idea about any of this. I wasn't told anything. There's conflicting help out there. I don't know where to turn." So, when people tune in to our podcast or Spotify, or wherever they're listening, it I love it because we're able to help, and also people get clinically correct information. And people are interested in their health, and that's what I care about mostly. I want people to be interested in taking control of their healthcare, okay? You're part of your team, too, so you've got to do your job in changing your lifestyle so that, you know, you lessen any disease risk. So, thank you for joining. We really appreciate that you're here and you're ready to do the work. 00:14:41 Jeff Sarris So, we'll see you next time. 00:14:43 Jill Harris Bye, guys.