If you sprinkle when you tinkle you may need to see a doctor after you wipe off the toilet seat.
Spraying while urinating instead of releasing in a steady stream could mean there is build up, semen for men and discharge for women, blocking the passageway caused by the aftermath of sex or kidney stones.
While it is common to experience some deviation in your stream, a reoccurring spray could be a sign of a condition called urethral stricture, which doctors can fix through non-invasive procedures.
The condition can be from sexually transmitted diseases, prostate cancer or giving birth and experts explain what doctors can do if you continually spray.
If you spray when you urinate as if a finger is being held in front of a hose, it could be the aftermath of sex or mean you’re passing a kidney stone, but if it persists a New York urologist said it could mean something more serious
Urine says a lot about your health, from the color to the smell and consistency, and if you spray it could be a sign of serious to not-so-serious conditions.
The urethra is a tube that carries urine from the bladder so it can be released from the body.
Usually it is wide enough for urine to flow freely through it, but when it narrows or something is blocking the flow, it can cause urine to spray as if a finger was being held in front of a hose.
Urologist Dr Sovrin Shah from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York told Daily Mail Online: ‘Spraying of urine can happen if the urethral opening happens to stick together and sometimes that fixes itself when it comes out.’
Bodily discharge such as semen can cause the urethral opening to stick together, which is why many men experience the spraying phenomenon after sex.
Dr Shah said that with a strong enough stream, the urine is usually able to push out any residue causing the spraying to stop by the end of the stream.
In women, weak muscles around the urethra may make it hard to push out any discharge that causes the passageway to be clogged.
Dr Shah said that anything that distorts the way the urine flows will affect the way the stream comes out in both men and women.
Foreign bodies such as kidney and other types of stones that pass through urine could also cause blockage of the passageway leading to spraying.
The small, hard deposit of minerals and salts goes through the urethra and the process is typically painful.
But once it is out, your stream should return to normal.
These are all temporary occurrences that Dr Shah said you need not worry about.
However, if you are consistently spraying, he urges you to see a doctor.
‘If it happens on a regular basis there could be something wrong with the urethral anatomy,’ he added.
If spraying is caused by a narrowed urethra it means you have urethral stricture.
The condition mainly affects men but can also affect women.
Dr Shah said that urethral stricture is caused by scarring in the urethra, usually from trauma.
For men, that trauma can include inflammation from prostate cancer, a straddle injury or injury from sex including penial or pelvic fractures.
Other scarring is caused by infection from sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia, and the damage can last long after the infection is gone.
This trauma causes the urethra to become gradually narrow, making it more difficult for urine to flow and can lead to painful urination as well as spraying.
In some cases, the scarring happens long before the stricture becomes noticeable.
For women, scarring can happen from childbirth or from sex injury depending on penetration, force and angle, according to Dr Shah.
The primary treatment for urethral stricture is to make the urethra wider using a medical instrument called a dilator.
Over time, larger dilators will gradually increase the width of the urethra.
Or another nonsurgical option is to implement a permanent urinary catheter.
This procedure is usually done in severe cases and has risks, such as bladder irritation and urinary tract infection.
But surgeries could lead to more scar tissue, which can mean more spraying.