Night sweats

[notsoyoung]

Hello this is my first visit to the forum. My husband was diagnosed with alzheimer's over 2 years ago. To date we are coping reasonably well mainly due to the fact I hardly dare make any comment as anything seems to instigate a domestic dispute. The query I have is that he has started having night sweats despite the fact he is predominantly very cold most of the time. They commenced probably 5/6 months ago infrequently and now they are becoming much more regular albeit certainly not every night and everything is wet through. A friend at the local memory cafe says her husband suffers the same. Is this normal, part of the disease? and does anyone have any explanation or helpful tips please?

 

[jenniferpa]

Hi and welcome to Talking Point.

Re the night sweats: it could be part of the dementia (for some people the body temperature regulation system seems to go haywire), but I should also point out that there are other health issues that can cause this that have nothing to do with dementia. I think sometimes we (and doctors) assume that everything that happens is down to the illness you know the person has, but in fact, it's obviously possible to have another possibly treatable illness as well.

Personally I'd be contacting his GP about this. Has he had any blood tests recently? Is he by any chance losing weight?