I have an under active thyroid. I am persistently cold. My boyfriend complains that at night I "cocoon" myself in the duvet and then get so

[Gamgee]

Hot that I sweat profusely. This does not wake me up. Is it connected to thyroid issues?

[Hennerton]

It may be that your dose of medication is not high enough. You need to have a thyroid blood test and then ask for a printout of results, showing the lab's reference range. Post here and people will advise. Do you feel well in all other respects and what dose are you on?

[dgleds]

sounds low thyroid....But you sweat when wrapped up (often low thyroid you don't sweat much) unless you are on thyroid meds....Maybe get your hormones checked out (other ones as well as thyroid)...

[eeng in reply to dgleds]

Possibly you sleep very deeply so you don't wake up when you sweat? How old are you?

[ejh1]

This happened to me when my thyroxine dose was too low. When my dose was raised, I stopped the night sweats.

[Gamgee]

Thanks for the replies. I have had tests but don't have the full results. I will ask the doctor for them. I take 50g of levothyroxine a day and am 39. I do actually sleep much better (deeper) when I "cocoon". I feel better than I did without the levothyroxine and am certainly less lethargic but I am not full of beans!

[Clutter]

Gamgee, have your ferritin, vitD, B12 and folate tested. Getting these high in range plus a thyroxine increase should top up your beans.

It might be worth checking your other hormones because night sweats can be a sign of early menopause brought on by hypothyroidism.

[Gamgee]

Thanks Clutter. Sweats only occur if I wrap up in duvet so hopefully not menopausal yet! Can I get those tests at my doctors or do I go private? Is it possible that doctor says your levels are normal but they are not "normal" for you? If so, how do you know? Sorry if naive questions!

[TSH110]

I had this too but was post menopausal so the medics could not blame that for them any more tho it was used as a diagnosis for years to brush away all my hypothyroid symptoms safely under the carpet. I was always cold but had night sweats like you describe on levothyroxine even when I was supposedly optimised. I got some repite on a dose that was deemed to be overmedication. They dropped my dose and the sweats came back with avengeance. At worst I was getting scores a day. I was later diagnosed with depression and was given antidepressants at the same time in desperation at feeling sub human for 3 years on Levo I started self medicating with a little NDT. I also had a vit d deficiency which was treated. The hot flushes soon receded I suspect it is due to the NDT and vit D but maybe the antidepressants have influenced them too. As I have upped the NDT and lowered the Levo the sweats have gone away almost completely as have a shed load of lingering hypo symptoms. I would suspect under medication and get the vits checked as per Clutter's very sound advice. It makes me mad that one GP told me the sweats were a sign if over medication I told her I found it pretty odd that I had suffered them throughout my time of treatment to get me optimised when I was very hypothyroid. She simply ignored me. I swapped GP's I was so fed up of her patronising and ignoring my pleas for help to sort out very real hypo problems - she happily let me go right downhill saying that just had to be put up with as part if the illness. Tommy rot nothing a good dollop of NDT couLd not sort out in a matter a few weeks. Don't stand for such medical negligence like I used to till coming here and learning a thing or two from a great community.

[Gamgee]

Thanks TSH110. I don't get sweats as such, meaning unless I am left to my own devices with a duvet and cocoon I don't get hot. I am always cold. In fact, as I have my own office in work, people won't come in there to have meetings with me as it is too hot.

[puncturedbicycle]

This used to happen to me all the time. Sometimes my pyjamas would get soaked - visibly wet - and then I would wake up and have to change, but more usually I would sleep through and only notice how sweaty I was when I woke in the morning.

It's really uncomfortable because if you get wet, as soon as you put an arm or leg out of your duvet you're properly freezing, and if you're sensitive to the cold it's like torture. I've awakened so cold I felt nauseated.

[Gamgee]

How did you stop it punctured bicycle?

[puncturedbicycle in reply to Gamgee]

I don't think I had any control over it. It happened a number of times (five to ten times? fifteen times?) over a period of years (so maybe not 'all the time' as I wrote above) and it just stopped of its own accord. Probably the waking up in the morning with a damp collar and pits happened more often than the waking up in the night with visibly wet jimjams.

When I think back, I should really have gone to the gp to find out if it was hormonal (I was only in my mid thirties when it started).

I think if it is hot flushes, isn't that really hot and uncomfortable and you get so hot you kick all the covers off? What happened to me was just sweating, not feeling hot. But I am not particularly sweaty normally, and a couple of times I woke up and had to change into dry clothes, which I thought wasn't normal.

Sorry - now I'm just waffling and not really being very helpful I know.

You may want to have two duvets, so your partner doesn't have to fight for a corner.