Night sweats

[MrsNGoo]

The last week on and off I’ve been waking up drenched and having to change. Not taking any meds not too many blankets ect it’s been mild temperatures at night. And can’t find online any answers to why I am having this. Is it just another edno symptom

[Hidden]

I know for sure it can be hormonal so most likely it's related, I get this sort of 2 nights a month at the same time in my cycle x

[foursimplewords]

I get this a few nights per month too; I think its to do with hormones

[M-W23]

Hi, I have endo and chronic Lyme disease. I used to get night sweats one night a month, always at the same time of my cycle. I was never hot, just drenched (and in fact cold, because I was wet through; that may be because I have a low body temperature due to Lyme). Then it increased to two nights per month, and on until I only had one or two nights a month without them.

A year ago - 13 years after they first started - I was having to change up to six times every night, and my duvet and pillow were visibly wet through as well, every night.

No doctor ever had an answer or seemed too concerned, but it was ruining my sleep and making all my other symptoms harder to bear as a result. At best they used to tell me to have less blankets, but I was already cold and if anything I wanted more.

I did some research and found that magnesium deficiency can cause night sweats. It was still clearly linked to hormones, but in my case I think magnesium deficiency was exacerbating it. I'm now have a spray version of magnesium oil every night, and capsules during the day, and my night sweats have pretty much disappeared. Now they only reappear when I'm actually too warm - previously they started within minutes of falling asleep, regardless of temperature.

I had made a lot of changes to try to control my endo and Lyme symptoms, so it's hard always to say for sure which changes made the difference, but it's always felt to me that the magnesium is the key for me. Unfortunately blood tests aren't very helpful for magnesium because it's the level in your cells that counts - 99% of magnesium isn't in your blood. Having magnesium results from blood tests in the 'normal' range doesn't mean anything other than that you don't have a magnesium overdose or the very worst deficiency.

The best way I've found to tell if you're deficient is whether the magnesium spray stings when you spray it on - if the body is deficient the pores open up to absorb it more quickly and it stings. It took a long time to get my levels up, and because Lyme causes magnesium deficiency I have to keep them up. The spray I use is Seven Minerals Pharmaceutical (or USP) Grade Magnesium Oil Spray.

Incidentally I also connect the use of the magnesium oil spray to another symptom I've managed to get rid of, which is extremely vivid and frightening dreams.

This may or may not help you - I'm sure there are many contributing factors and causes of night sweats that we don't know about - but hopefully it will help someone - when night sweats get to be chronic it really is miserable and in my experience it's hard to get the medical profession to take them seriously.

[MrsNGoo in reply to M-W23]

Wow that’s a major issue for you sorry to hear. Crazy. May I ask how you had got Lyme disease I know nothing of it? I have only noticed night sweats around my cycle last night I didn’t have it which was good Cos I have most nights some degrees of it. But it is a new thing for me it’s only been happening the last two months. I though it may have something to do with estrogen as one lady has said as I stopped taking the pill to have my period and that’s when I noticed it. Who bloody knows. I don’t sleep well and it’s nothing for me to be wide awake til 3am but when I do get sleep I start sweating and two nights ago I had to strip both top and pants off and dry myself off with a towel.

[M-W23 in reply to MrsNGoo]

I don't actually know how I got it - I started having symptoms when I was 11, and my doctor just told me the pain in my legs and hips was growing pains. The well-known source is tick bites, but there is evidence that there is a wider range of ways to get it, including mosquitoes and getting it from your mother before birth (foetuses have tested positive).

My symptoms gradually over the years got more and more varied and complex, and it wasn't for three decades (!) that I finally got a diagnosis, by going privately to a doctor in Canada. Since then (a couple of years ago) I've been gradually battling it on my own, because the NHS (I'm in the UK) doesn't recognise chronic (ie long-term) and their test for it is only 30-50% accurate. The best source of information about the disease is the website Tired of Lyme.

There is definitely a strong link between night sweats and hormones. However magnesium helps regulate hormones, so that can still be the ultimate cause (if you type 'magnesium hormones' into Google you'll see what I mean about the connection). Magnesium is also well-known for helping with insomnia, so it might be worth looking into. The nice thing about it is that it's no hassle to take it.

I hope your night sweats are short-lived!

[MrsNGoo in reply to M-W23]

Wow! That is crazy. The health system in general around the world is so uneducated really aren’t they. Yea I had been taking some magnesium which I think may have contributed to me not sleeping or at least my clock being out of whack. But good news the last two nights I havnt had them so yay.

[M-W23 in reply to MrsNGoo]

Good, I hope the night sweats continue to stay away!