Night Sweats

[LouisaWillett]

My partner is type 1 diabetic (diagnosed about 4 years ago). We are used to the Hypo induced sweating at night but recently he has been experiencing terrible night sweats which are NOT related to a hypo. He has been waking up drenched, and going hot and cold and we are both losing sleep - with full time jobs and young children this is getting tricky! He has asked his diabetic specialist about this but no-one seems to have any answers - we assume it is diabetes related but as I mentioned this is not to do with hypos as his blood has been fine or if anything a little high when tested. Can anyone shed any light on this?

[JDRF-Team-sgg]

It is possible that other health problems are causing the night sweats, and I encourage you to have him checked by his physician since this seems to be happening fairly often.

Another possibility is that the night sweats ARE hypo-related but that his liver is producing emergency sugars after a hypo while he is asleep and is therefore bringing his glucose levels up to normal by the time he wakes up; hence, his normal or slightly high glucose readings. It may be a good idea to do some tests to see what his glucose levels actually are doing at night by picking a few nights and setting the alarm to check glucose levels every 2-3 hours to see if his glucose is dropping and then rising afterwards. I assume that this doesn't happen every night, so you may have to do this for several nights, or possibly for several weekends to see any kind of pattern. If no drops are happening at all, then this is probably not the cause. But it probably should be checked out just to make sure that the sweats are not hypo-induced at all.

I used to do this at times, and have heard of others doing the same thing. It is worth checking, for no doctor's test can determine if this is happening. The only way to tell is to check the glucose every few hours at night. So you lose sleep, but you find out some information that can either point to a cause or rule out a cause. You could perhaps take turns setting alarms and waking up, and you could do the finger pricks for him when it is your turn, just to try to allow him more sleep. That way the sleep reduction is halved if the other partner can sleep through the alarm when it goes off.

There is no other diabetes-related cause for this night sweat problem that I have ever heard of, by the way. He probably should have his thyroid numbers checked, for thyroid malfunction is common in type 1 diabetics (the same auto-immune system problem that causes the diabetes can cause the thyroid to malfunction). Thyroid problems can cause patients to be abnormally hot or cold. Many doctors automatically check out thyroid function in diabetics when we have our semi-annual lab work done.

[MLWTR]

This may not be related to diabetes at all. He might want to see his internist and have some basic bloodwork done, especially white count and ESR (a marker of inflammation). Quite a number of conditions can cause night sweats.

Good luck.

[MLWTR]

This may not be related to diabetes at all. He might want to see his internist and have some basic bloodwork done, especially white count and ESR (a marker of inflammation). Quite a number of conditions can cause night sweats.

Good luck.

[JDRF-Team-LRS]

It's worth a good physical checkup and some blood tests, especially since it's interfering with your family's ability to function.

This website has some good information on some of the causes for night sweats.  While this medical article focuses on some very serious conditions, stress & nightmares can cause it, too ...

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030301/1019.html

Good luck.  I hope you get some relief soon.

[Roy313]

I have been Type 1 diabetic for 45 years, I have had night sweats, for many years some times so wet that we have had to strip the bed and move into the spare room, My wife tells me that the wetness don’t smell like sweat in fact it is odourless, I have no smell at all, lost that years ago, the "sweats" as we call them are a mystery to all and some time two nights in a row then nothing for a month or so.
I have suffered with a cold body for more than 15 years, more so in the winter of coarse.
Thank goodness I get heating allowance next year.

[Roy313]

As you can see above message Dec 09 2008 I also suffer "suffered" with night sweats, my doctor changed my ---Vastatin tablet to a different Vastatin and I have had none since there are more than one Vastatin you can take, I am on Provastatin now and it works for me "It may not do the same to you", Try a different one, all the best and let me know.     Roy

[brads08]

My partner is sweating real bad at night everynight he is a type 1 diabetic we wake up and the bed is saturated.he is only 25 and been a diabetic since he was 15 years.His levels are fine we have checked them many of times before bed and during

[venustiana]

Well, I don't know what the reason is but I know few diabetics including myself that sweat a lot while sleeping. I have always thought that it was because I'm hot nature. But maybe the reason is because we are diabetic.