Night Sweats
Night sweats can be caused by so many things; from a serious medical condition to something extremely trivial. Before you hit the panic button, consider checking out some of the trivial causes, and low tech solutions.
- Medication. Have you changed medication or dosage recently? Do you take medications that interact with each other. If so, RxList is an excellent reference site for medication issues, as well as your doctor or pharmacist. Niacin, Viagra, alcohol, and psychoactive drugs are all notorious for causing night sweats.
- Pillows. Do you have some kind of heat-retaining pillow, pillow protector, or pillow case? For example, some "allergy proof" pillow protectors are lined with plastic. This turned out to be my problem. Even if you are using all cotton bedding, you can now buy CoolMax pillows and accessories to prevent heat buildup.
- Room conditions. This almost goes without saying, but consider knocking the A/C down a degree or two at night. Does your bedroom get as much air as the rest of the house? Maybe a ceiling fan over the bed would help.
- Electric blanket or mattress pad. Boy there's nothing like climbing into a nice warm bed on a cold night. But perhaps being under that hot blanket all night is too much of a good thing. Consider turning the heat down on retiring, or putting the whole thing on a timer (e.g., to turn off after a couple hours).
- Physical issue or disease. Clearly this is something best left to your doctor. Causes can be anything from apnea to menopause to tuberculosis. Medicinenet.com has an excellent article on this topic, written in plain English.