Excessive night sweating questions answered

night sweats cold Night sweating is something that affects many menopausal women before, during, or after this transition. Excessive night sweating can be a sign of a serious issue and can greatly affect a woman’s quality of life. If you suffer from excessive night sweating then it’s important to know the triggers and cures for this problem. The information below explains more about excessive night sweating and how to manage it effectively.

What is excessive night sweating?

Excessive night sweating usually begins with a feeling of extreme heat in the upper body followed by a quickened heartbeat and a red hot chest, neck, and face. Such symptoms typically persist for between thirty seconds and five minutes and how often they occur and their intensity is different for every woman.

Common symptoms of excessive night sweating include:

• Sudden and intense feelings of heat.
• Sweating (mild to severe).
• Heart palpitations and rapid heartbeat.
• Nausea.
• Headaches.
• Flushing.
• Chills.
• Damp to soaking clothes and bedding.
• Frequent interruptions of sleep.
• Loss of sleep or insomnia.

Read on to learn about the causes of excessive night sweating.

What causes excessive night sweating?

Excessive night sweating is often referred to as “nocturnal hyperhydrosis” which is a common perspiration problem occurring during sleep. Excessive night sweating can repeatedly wake a woman from her sleep and she may even find her pajamas soaking with sweat.

Being disturbed from your sleep by excessive night sweating can have serious consequences for a woman’s physical and emotional well-being, as it can make her tried, stressed, irritable, and unsociable.

The main trigger of excessive night sweating is believed to be decreasing estrogen levels that occur during menopause that cause hormonal and biochemical fluctuations. More specifically, excessive night sweating is the result of the hypothalamus’s (the heat regulatory area of the brain) overproduction of heat. During the menopausal transition, declining estrogen levels cause the hypothalamus to discharge chemicals that cause skin blood vessels to expand so that heat can be released, which results in excessive night sweating.

Excessive night sweating and other vasomotor symptoms (those related to the constriction and dilation of blood vessels) are less intense and regular following menopause and the majority of women will stop experiencing excessive night sweating after five years. However, for some women, excessive night sweating can continue for up to 10 years. Below you can find information about how best to manage excessive night sweating.

Managing excessive night sweating

Excessive night sweating can be managed by taking steps to relieve stress, improving your diet, and doing regular exercise. Yet, a more effective remedy for excessive night sweating and one that treats the root cause of excessive night sweating, hormonal imbalance, is alternative treatments such as herbal supplements.

In extreme cases, women may turn to more severe measures to treat their excessive night sweating such as pharmaceutical or surgical options. Such options are usually only recommended if lifestyle changes and alternative remedies are unsuccessful.