What Causes Night Sweats?

Sweating occurs in response to the increase in body temperature and is one of the natural reactions of the body. Many different situations, such as increased ambient temperature, physical exercise, anxiety and fear, lead to an increase in body temperature. In such cases, increased sweating in the body is considered normal. However, in some cases, the body increases sweat production without factors such as physical exercise or an increase in ambient temperature. This may be a symptom of some underlying diseases. At this point, night sweats are one of the most common conditions that can indicate serious health problems.

What is Night Sweats?

Night sweating can be described as sweating that causes the person to change his clothes and bed linens or to take a shower, regardless of the physical conditions of the sleeping environment. Night sweats are classified into three different degrees: mild, moderate and severe night sweats in order to better define the problem. In the case of mild night sweats, the person only describes the feeling of sweating during sleep and their laundry or bed linens do not get wet. In moderate night sweating, the person’s underwear gets wet during the night and the person needs to change his underwear in the morning. In case of severe night sweating, both the person’s clothes and bed linens become wet, and in such night sweats, night sleep is often interrupted. Severe night sweating, which may even cause the need to take a shower in the morning, is a serious problem that greatly disrupts sleep comfort.

It is important to correctly distinguish between night sweats and the problem of excessive sweating, medically called hyperhidrosis. Because night sweats are an important health problem that can indicate various types of cancer, infectious diseases, side effects of some medications, sleep-related problems and some other diseases. Hyperhidrosis can be defined as excessive sweating during daily activities without any known reason. This condition usually occurs as a result of the sweat glands in the body becoming too large and working harder than normal. In case of hyperhidrosis, sweating occurs intermittently in episodes. Rather than being a disease, this condition is considered a problem that disturbs the person socially and seriously disrupts the comfort of daily life. Night sweats are a condition in which a person sweats more than normal during sleep and may occur due to various diseases. Being able to make this distinction correctly is extremely important for the diagnosis and treatment of the current health problem.

What Causes Night Sweats?

Night sweats may have many clinical causes. In order to diagnose the underlying disease correctly, the excessive sweating problem called hyperhidrosis must first be completely excluded and the severity of night sweating must be determined accurately. However, how often the sweats recur, the presence of other accompanying symptoms, the patient’s age, gender, existing health problems, routine drug treatments and many other criteria are extremely important in detecting the disease that causes night sweats. Conditions known to cause night sweats Some of them can be listed as follows:

1. Many hormonal diseases and most hormone treatments can cause night sweats. The most common disease among these is ovarian failure. This condition, which is characterized by the inability of the ovaries in the female reproductive organs to ovulate, can occur as a serious health problem or as a result of menopause, one of the natural stages of life. Night sweats in women are largely associated with menopause. The night sweats seen during this period usually occur together with the complaint described as hot flushes.
2. Diabetes is also among the causes of night sweats. Excessive insulin dose administered at night, skipping meals or excessive exercise during the day may lead to low blood sugar at night and hypoglycemia. Night sweats in diabetic patients are a condition that largely occurs as a result of hypoglycemia.
3. Other endocrine diseases that cause night sweats include hyperthyroidism (high thyroid) and endocrine tissue tumors.
4. Infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, brucellosis and fungal infections, as well as infective endocarditis, infectious mononucleosis (kissing disease) and subcutaneous abscess are serious diseases that can cause night sweats.
5. Night sweats are one of the most common findings in malignant diseases, especially in the presence of Hodgkin’s disease. However, the majority of non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients complain of night sweats.
6. Another disease associated with night sweats is gastroesophageal reflux disease. This disease, which can be defined as the reflux of stomach contents into the esophagus, is one of the common diseases of the digestive system that can occur in almost all age groups.
7. In sleep disorders, disruptions occur in the body’s temperature regulation mechanism and problems such as sweating may occur, especially during sleep. In this regard, sleep apnea due to obstruction is considered one of the causes of intense night sweating.
8. Many prescription or over-the-counter medications, as well as some herbal products, can cause night sweats. These drugs can be listed mainly as antidepressants, antipsychotics, cholinergic agents that act on the nervous system, insulin and other types of hormonal drugs.

How to Prevent Night Sweats?

Night sweating is a condition of excessive sweating that occurs independently of the physical conditions of the person’s sleeping environment, such as temperature and humidity, and is unrelated to situations such as anxiety and stress. Since it usually indicates other underlying health problems, it is not possible to prevent night sweating with external interventions such as cooling the environment, taking off one’s clothes, and not using quilts or similar covers while sleeping. In order to solve this problem, the main problem that causes the problem must first be correctly identified and improved.

It is important at this point to correctly recognize the health problems that can cause night sweats. The person must first distinguish between night sweats and other sweating problems such as hyperhidrosis, and then observe the additional symptoms that may accompany night sweats. For example, in case of night sweats caused by menopause, hot flashes may occur. Combining these findings is extremely important to solve the problem.

Which Doctor Should You See for Night Sweating?

Treatment of night sweats is only possible by treating the underlying disease. Therefore, in order to cure this problem, the condition causing the problem must be diagnosed. When determining which doctor to consult for the treatment of night sweats, other complaints accompanying this problem should also be taken into consideration. In this regard, the person needs to know the diseases that may cause night sweats and follow other symptoms seen in him/her. For example, if the person is using a drug from the antidepressant class, this should first be shared with the psychiatrist who plans the treatment and the dose of the drug should be changed if necessary.

Although night sweats are an important symptom that occurs as a result of many serious diseases, it is seen that people who experience the problem do not generally consider it as a serious condition and do not share it with the physician during the examination. This condition, which greatly disrupts a person’s sleep comfort, can lead to sleep problems and many other related disorders if left untreated. Therefore, the importance of night sweats should be understood and this problem should be treated effectively along with other underlying health problems. If you also complain of night sweats, do not forget to follow the symptoms of the accompanying disease and share these findings and the problem of night sweats with your doctor.