Chronic night sweats

[AnxiousJamie]

Hey friends! Here’s the background… I am 41, female. I started on a weight loss journey in March. I have lost about 35 lbs and my BMI went from 26.1 to 21.1. I decided to lose weight because my cholesterol had been slowly creeping up for the last couple of years. Also I was having occasional elevated BPs. I have also had hypothyroidism for about 9 years, diagnosed after the birth of my daughter. Starting at the beginning of May, I noticed that I began having consistent mild night sweats. They weren’t drenching but mostly I would wake up feeling a dampness on clothes and bedding. I do live in the American south but my AC is always on. I had lab work done at the end of May to check my thyroid levels and I had gone from hypothyroid to very slightly hyperthyroid. My PCP lowered my meds and said that since my weight loss, I was over- medicated and this caused the hyper. She wanted me to return in 6 weeks to be retested. That appointment is tomorrow. My problem is my night sweats have continued and are almost nightly. The night before last I had a drenching sweat. I had to change clothes, I was soaked through! The issue is that my sweats are not full
body, they are localized to the area of my body that is covered up. Usually my lower half. But it doesn’t matter if I sleep with a thin sheet or heavier blanket, I wake up damp. I would be thinking hormonal but the sweats never affect my head, face, or chest. They are almost always my lower body or my back where I’m touching the bed. I am terrified that these sweats mean something really bad. I know that the likelihood of me still
being slightly hyper is there. My anxiety has been through the roof this summer. Normally it’s very controlled. Most people do not even have symptoms when they are slightly hyper. That’s another reason I’m worried. Why would I be symptomatic to this degree (constant night sweats, increase anxiety) when most people are not. There must be another reason for this!

[AnxiousJamie]

Anyone have chronic night sweats? Had lab work completed this morning to check my thyroid.

[nomorepanic]

We do have loads of posts about this so use the search facility or scroll down and read "similar threads"

[AnxiousJamie]

Well my thyroid numbers were normal, so now more testing! I am terrified!!

[nomorepanic]

Did you read similar threads - they may have some answers

[.Poppy.]

It could be an anxiety thing, but it's also just hot right now even with A/C. I'm in Kansas and it's miserable here, I can only imagine what it's like down there. Even with my air conditioning running I wake up having sweat through the night (and it always seems more pronounced if I've had a vivid dream as well). Being that it's only where you are covered up I'd be inclined to believe that you are just getting too hot throughout the night.

[AnxiousJamie]

Thank you Poppy. I haven’t had night sweats in the past 5 nights however….I have found a hard and fixed lymph node on the left side of my neck. It’s relatively small and I likely wouldn’t have found it if I weren’t looking for it. Nevertheless it is there and hard and fixed. I’m even more worried now as the hard node combined with history of night sweats has me on edge. And let me not forget to mention that I have a globus on the right side for at least 3 weeks. At least I thought it was a globus from weeks of increased anxiety. Now putting this altogether….night sweats, lump in throat, hard and fixed node…what else could it be!?

[AnxiousJamie]

I am spiraling! I have been dealing with increased anxiety for a couple of months now. Starting with mild
night sweats. Now I have found an immovable node in my left side of neck. I have a node at the same level on the other side. They feel the same except the one on the left does not move. They are about the same size. I went searching for this node. It was not sore and not overly big. Now finding this combined with my mild
night sweats that I’ve had for the past two months off and on. I am convinced it’s bad. I had full labs drawn at the end of January and they were normal. But that’s 6 months ago now. A lot can change in those months. Also I’ve had a lump in the throat feeling for 3 weeks on the opposite side of the fixed node. Seriously what else could it be but some type of cancer.

[AnxiousJamie]

Well I must be in a terrible shape. No reassurance.

[nomorepanic]

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your thread was merged with another of your threads.

Please when posting on similar topics add it onto your previous post rather than starting a new one.

It is nothing personal it is just to make it easier for people to follow your story and to give you advice as a whole.

[.Poppy.]

Nodes do weird things, and much of the time it's not cancer. They raise for a long list of reasons (that is their job) and sometimes they don't go down. Usually they are movable, sometimes they are fixed. I've had nodes be raised for years before finally going down; I have one that probably never will go down.

Unfortunately for your health anxiety the only thing that will give you any kind of clarity is to get it checked, but I would maybe give yourself a week or two and leave it completely alone to see if it goes down on its own. For a node that you had to prod to find this is likely not an emergent thing. Do you have a portal with your doctor's office? Mine allows me to message my provider with little questions and she can tell me if she thinks it needs an appointment or not.

[AnxiousJamie]

Poppy, thank you for the reply. My
aunt is a doctor and she answers all of my questions thankfully. I don’t live super close to her though so I can’t run and let her check things out as much as I would like to. After describing the position and characteristics, she is not convinced it’s a node at all and possibly it’s a structure in the throat. She doesn’t believe my night sweats are a problem either. She believes combination of hormones and environmental. I trust her immensely so I’m trying to listen to what she says. I am 41 so hormonal sweats aren’t out of the question as we have early menopause in my family. Im
trying to be optimistic and know that if she truly felt something was wrong she would steer me in the right direction. Thanks again for the reply.