A Cure For Night Sweats?
If, like me, you have suffered from night sweats during the course of your illness, you will understand what a truly miserable experience it is.
I’ve been suffering from them for years, going way back before my diagnosis, and I really didn’t think anything of it. When you wake after a bad dose, it is like you have gone straight to bed after a shower, without bothering to get dry first. The sheets, pillows, quilt or blankets, sleeping companion and dog will also be drenched. The only thing to do at this stage is to shower, change the bedclothes and sleeping attire, companion if you wish, and blow dry the dog.
This can happen a number of times per night.
I have tried a number of strategies to alleviate the situation over the years. In the UK winter, removing bedclothes and pajamas until the sweating stops leads to hypothermia, and yet the sweats take over once warmth has returned. No happy medium is possible.
When I lived in the tropics (Colombo, Sri Lanka) I had built in industrial strength aircon in my apartment. The bedroom unit had settings that varied from Lotus to Aerosmith and the oddest was the one that varied in intensity from high to low causing wake ups at the peak times. I alternated between sweating, shivering and soaking.
In Morocco, sub-tropical, the mixture of windows and doors wide open and mild night temperatures meant I could sleep reasonably well, but still woke up sodden. A soft fluffy towel over the pillows always helps a little.
Chemo is said to help, though it hasn’t in my case, but it’s probably a little sledgehammery to get chemo just to stop the night sweats.
So, has anybody got a cure?
I’d like a cure too, and I’m not even ill, I’ve had them my whole life.
People with Hyperhidrosis(excessive sweating) suffer from night sweats as well, there are a bunch of things you can do, here are a few:
1. Setup a fan right next to your bed
It will help to keep you cool through the night and also help you fall asleep easier as when your body is cooler it’s easier to fall asleep.
2. Take a prescription anti-sweat mediciton
Driclor is the best one you can get, it has twice as much aluminum chloride than what you will find in regular antiperspirants.
3. Drink Sage Tea
Here’s something you can try drinking right before bed…Just get the following ingredients:
* 1 cup of water
* 1 teaspoon of sage powder or 1 tablespoon of sage leaves
* 1 lemon
What you’re going to do is bring the water to a boil. Once you’ve done that, steep the sage in the water for about 5-10 minutes. Don’t overdo it since it can lead to toxins being released from the sage. It’s a delicate balance. Once done, drain it and drink it right before bed.
Hope that helps..
-Ren
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Take care, Dennis
I used to have night sweats for hodgkins; haven’t had them in quite a few years now. However, just before they stopped, I came up with a solution (which I wish I would have thought of a long time before.) It’s this:
Tuck a thick cotton bath towel down your shirt front before going to sleep. When you sweat, pull the towel out and go back to sleep. In my case, I used to have just one good drenching each night, so this worked for me.
For anyone experiencing chemo brain, (which I still do now that it’s been 12 years since chemo), I’ve found that smoked salmon (with the skin) seems to help a LOT! Must be the fish oil in it. It really helps give me some clear thinking back. It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest thing I’ve found. You can find it in those vacuum-packed foil packages at Winco or other stores, in the refrigerated section in stores, next to the other fish.
I had nightsweats during the period of being diagnosed with CLL (2004) and first being treated with Rituxan (2008). By 2007 I was relying on 125 mg capsules of EGCG to work its wonders on my protruding lymph nodes. It didn’t do much to slow the swelling. My neck, by 2008, had swollen to 19″ in circumference from a starting point of 16.5″ pre-diagnosis. But the EGCG was immediately effective in putting an end to my nightsweats. The most dramatic instance was an occurrence of daysweats around noon one day when I began soaking through my couch. I took an EGCG capsule and stopped the sweats within minutes. This may have been a fluke event but it actually happened.
I took EGCG in a unique way. I dissolved the powder in two teaspoons of water and kept the solution under my tongue for twenty minutes, swishing it around in my mouth. This allowed me to bypass the digestive process that destroys the EGCG before it can reach the blood. Perhaps the nightsweats being discussed above are more ferocious than any I experienced, but I did wake up damp, cold or soaked many nights before I became an EGCG enthusiast.
I am a cancer survivor of 21 years now. I recieved very high doses of chemotherapy and have suffered the nightsweats almost every night since. I sleep nude with a fan directly on me all 4 seasons of the year and have tried all sorts of remedies to no avail. I also suffer from an extreme case of “chemo-brain” which I have recently discovered I am not alone with. It is so bad that I cannot function normally in a work atmosphere. I cannot remember people I’ve met and re-met numerous times, the last sentence I hear repeats itself over and over like a broken record until I hear something else (which does the same thing), and I get so frustrated that noone understands what I’m going through. So, good luck with the sweats and stay away from the chemo!!
Oh god Chris ur post is worrying – I am on my 5th chemo session ( one more to go ) and having the most awful night sweats, I feel weak and tired all the time because of lack of sleep – I wake up soaking with sweat all night – was hoping this will pass after chemo – if im being honest with the stats the doc gave me before starting chemo I would not have gone ahead and had it if id known how bad it makes you feel and the after effects! – I had breast cancer which had also gone into the lymph nodes – good luck to anyone having chemo in the future but given my choice again i wouldnt have had it!!!