Q: My 42 years old husband has been facing some problems while urinating at night. Normally he has a practice of going 3 to 4 times to urinate at night. It takes time to start and its flow is also not frequent. It stops and comes. During the day time, it is fine. Please suggest some tests, which we need to do?

A:Such urinary symptoms are uncommon in a healthy young male of 42 years. Symptoms are suggestive of poor flow and frequency of urination. Obstructive causes in the urethra like stricture urethra and bladder neck obstruction have to be excluded. The most common tests suggested in such scenario are ultrasound imaging of the urinary tract and measuring the force of the urine flow with uroflometry. Cause of urinary frequency could be secondary to the obstruction itself, due to over activity of the bladder or inability to completely empty the urinary bladder. Other cause could be excessive urine formation at night. A detailed fluid intake pattern (excessive fluid intake), medication history (any diuretics), associated medical diseases (like cardiac history), blood sugar estimation (excluding diabetes, which can cause excessive urine formation) and renal functions (mild derangement of renal functions may result in excessive urine volumes) will have to ascertained before reaching the cause of problem in your husband.