subject: Night Sweats - A Sign Of Infection [print this page] Several people who have night sweats go to visit doctors seeking a cure to their problem. Night sweats happen when there is too much of sweating, palpitation at night.
If your bedroom is too stuffy without proper windows, and if you use too many bed sheets, it is normal that you will begin to sweat a lot. It is a serious medical problem only when you get hot flashes in your sleep and you sweat too much.
The disease "night sweats" has to be distinguished from mild sweating at night. If you develop the disease, you will be sweating so much while you are asleep that you are going to soak your clothes and your bed sheet in your perspiration. Another characteristic of night sweat is that, sweating is followed by severe heat flushes in your skin. These heat flushes usually affect your face or your chest. Night sweats usually occur due to some infection. The sweating starts once the body temperature gets lowered after a spell of fever.It is an extremely unpleasant situation to be in!
Causes:
There is more than one cause of night sweat. Each case should be treated individually by doctors after taking into account the medical history and all other details. Some of the well-known causes for night sweat are:
Menopause: during menopause, the body undergoes a lot of change. Some people suffer night sweats during this phase of life. Menopause is looked upon as a common cause of night sweats.
Idiopathic hyperdidrosis - people who suffer from this are chronic patients of night sweats. There is no well defined reason as to why this disease occurs.
Infection- several infections give rise to night sweating. Night sweating has a link with tuberculosis. It leads to hot flashes during the night. Several bacterial infections in the body also lead to night sweats. Night sweats are also symptoms of HIV.
Cancer: it has been found out that some patients with undiagnosed cancer complain of having night sweats. Some other symptoms of cancer are weight loss and fever.
Medication: some medicines also cause night sweating. Night sweating is caused by strong doses of medicines. Some anti depressants, aspirinscause night sweating.
Its time to get serious when:
You have to watch how long you are experiencing night sweat. If it has been just a couple of days, you need to wait for some more time. Maybe it is due to some tension that you are going through or a problem that you are facing. But if it has been some months now, you need to be careful. Get yourself checked by a doctor. Usually night sweat is accompanied by fever. So check your temperature every day in the evening, at about six o clock if you are having fever or not. You must get some proper diagnosis done. You also will have to go in for a blood test and find out whether your blood count is giving a proper reading or not.
