Hot, sweaty, cold and warm
I’ve had so many blogs about this topic. Regulating my body temperature is not going well these days. It can be very frustrating. The sweating happens a lot after i eat. It is because my food is hot. The hot food causes my body temperature to rise and then I start sweating. Really makes no sense. Most normal people eat a hot meal and don’t have any issues. Not me, I eat, I get overheated. WTF!!! It happens all the time with my soup. Even in the winter months. When I consume soup, which is almost everyday, I am stripping off my layers. I never even eat it when it is super hot either. I’ll be in my T-shirt, temperature of my house no higher than 66, window open next to me and sweating.Then what happens after you sweat? Your clothes are damp. The air is still cold, the window is still open and the next thing I know I’m cold. So now I’ve changed my T-shirt, put on a sweatshirt and bundled myself back up. This process happens all the time and we haven’t even talked about the nights yet.
What is it about sleeping that body temperature fluctuates so much? Now give it to someone who can’t regulate body temperature normally. Depending somewhat on the season and my last episode of overheating, I usually go to bed with my T-shirt, pants and a fan on. I have turned the heat on in my bedroom once this entire winter. I sometimes get such a chill from the fan that I try to shut it off. I say try because I get so hot without the fan. If I’m chilly I try a sweatshirt. That usually leads to me overheating at some point in the night. Yet there are times I’m wrapping the blankets around my arm and face because I’m so cold from the fan. It can be a constant struggle throughout the night for me. I am hot, cold, warm, and cold again every hour sometimes. All these issues and I still haven’t hit menopause and have had hot flashes yet. What am I going to do when that shit happens?
I have a very easy tell as I start to overhear. My checks get a very rosy red. I stopped wearing blush years ago because I overheat often enough that I always gave myself that natural color. I never needed to add more. Overheating adds to weakness in other multiple sclerosis symptoms so it is all one vicious cycle. There isn’t much I can do about all this and I manage the best I can but what a frustrating thing. Warning to all, if you visit me dress warm I keep my house cooler than most people. However, that still doesn’t help.
Problems regulating body temperature
Beyond heat sensitivity and Uthoff’s phenomenon, MS patients may have difficulty regulating their body temperature due to impaired neural control of autonomic and endocrine functions. The part of the brain that senses core body temperature and regulates it to about 98.6° F — the preoptic anterior hypothalamus — can be affected by MS, allowing for atypical fluctuations in body temperature.
Hypothermia has been documented in small numbers of MS patients with core body temperatures ranging from to 86° F to 95° F. This can be problematic for patients when serious infections may be masked due to the absence of a typical fever response. My ‘normal’ body temperature runs closer to 95° F, so a temperature registering 99° F is more similar to 101° F in a healthy individual.
