What Causes Night Sweats?

What Causes Night Sweats?

Have you ever experienced night sweats? Night sweats can be caused by many things. They can be related to physical or emotional factors, or they can be unrelated to either. If you’re looking for answers then this article is for you. It quickly answers the question “what causes night sweats” and more!

Table Of Contents

• What Causes Night Sweats?
• How to Prevent Night Sweats?
• Take Away

What Causes Night Sweats?

Night sweats can be caused by many different things, including hormonal changes (such as those that occur during menstruation), psychological stress, side effects from medications, hypothyroidism, and sleep disorders such as sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome.

1. Menopause

Night sweats are a common menopausal symptom, but they can be frustrating to deal with. If you're having night sweats, you know that they're not comfortable. They can wake you up in the middle of the night and make it difficult to fall asleep again or to get back to sleep once you do get up. 

Night sweats during menopause happen when your body's thermostat is thrown out of whack. During menopause, the levels of certain hormones start fluctuating and your body has trouble keeping its temperature steady. When you have night sweats, your internal thermostat sends a signal that it's too hot for sleep even when it isn't.

Night sweats are most common right before your period starts or right after it stops. This is because both factors influence your hormone levels. Before your period starts, estrogen and progesterone levels drop below normal while testosterone levels rise above normal. After your period ends, all of these hormone levels rebound quickly and out of balance for a few days. During this time, it's common for women to experience night sweats.

2. Other Medical Conditions That Can Cause Night Sweats

Some medical conditions can cause night sweats along with other symptoms. These include:

Infections - Tuberculosis is the infection most commonly associated with night sweats. Night sweats are often the first sign of infection. Other causes of infectious-related night sweats include osteomyelitis (bone infection), abscesses (infected areas of tissue that contain pus), endocarditis (inflammation of heart valves), septic arthritis (joint infection), and HIV/AIDS.

Cancers - Some cancers are known to cause night sweats as a symptom, especially lymphomas (blood cancers). Other types of cancer can indirectly cause night sweats as a side effect of treatment, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy to the chest area or hormone treatments for prostate cancer.

Hormonal disorders, such as hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), pheochromocytoma (a type of tumor on the adrenal glands), or carcinoid syndrome (caused by tumors in the gastrointestinal tract and lungs).

3. Stress

Being stressed out can cause you to sweat. Your body's stress response is controlled by an area of your brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus, in turn, controls your pituitary gland, which releases hormones that affect other glands throughout your body. When you're stressed, your body increases its production of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones stimulate your sweat glands, causing you to sweat more than normal.

4. Medications That Can Cause Night Sweats

Medications that can cause night sweats are varied. The most common offenders are antidepressants, blood pressure medications, and diabetes medications.

Some doctors believe that this is because these drugs raise levels of certain brain chemicals, such as serotonin, which can increase body temperature and some drugs may cause you to sweat more by interfering with your body's ability to cool itself down during hot flashes or other menopausal symptoms.

How to Prevent Night Sweats?

There are a few ways to prevent night sweats. First, getting an early diagnosis can help you start treatment immediately. When you know why you are sweating at night, you can try different medications to find a combination that works to control your symptoms.

Treatment is not difficult and you can live a normal life with no sweat!

1. To prevent night sweats, wear clothing that keeps your body cool such as cotton or silk. Avoid synthetic materials like polyester because they trap heat and moisture next to your skin. If you tend to sweat at night, use a mild antiperspirant on your armpits and in your groin area. Also, avoid spicy foods and caffeinated beverages before bedtime so the heat doesn't build up in your body.

2. Try to keep the room cool at night by using a fan or air conditioner. This will help lower the temperature of the air around you so that when you go to sleep, it's easier for your body to regulate its temperature.

3. Using sheets that block out light can also help decrease the temperature in the room by blocking out heat from the sun during the day and keeping it from radiating back into the room at night.

4. Certain herbs have been found to reduce the severity of hot flashes and night sweats. Black cohosh, red clover, and chaste berry are proven to help with reducing hot flashes and night sweats in menopausal women.

5. Foods with high levels of estrogen and salt may be triggers, such as chocolate, soybean products, and others. Alcohol consumption can also trigger these symptoms by raising body temperature and stimulating sweat glands in the skin. Avoid consuming these before going to bed.

Take Away

Night sweats are a symptom of various conditions. In this article, we discuss the various causes or underlying conditions that may trigger night sweats. These include infections, menopause, anxiety, and many other medical conditions. It’s important to determine the underlying cause of night sweats and the accompanying symptoms because it can impact how you may need to treat the condition. We also explain how these conditions are treated, medications and alternative therapies that can be used why they work, and what can be done to prevent these unpleasant symptoms from occurring in the first place.

 

 

 

 

[ ]