Diagnosis | Night sweat

Diagnosis

In order to deduce the cause of the increased night sweat, the attending physician must carry out various examinations and a detailed doctor-patient consultation. If night sweat is the only symptom, it is particularly difficult to make a diagnosis. The family doctor often consults various specialists, such as an internist, neurologist, oncologist or endocrinologist.

During the physical examination it is important to measure blood pressure and body temperature. It is also important to scan all lymph nodes. Swollen lymph nodes in combination with night sweats usually indicate an infection, but can also indicate a malignant disease.

In addition, a laboratory examination is carried out. For this, inflammation parameters, blood count, liver and kidney values, sex and thyroid hormones, as well as the stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline are determined. HIV serology can also be performed on the basis of the blood test. In some cases, an X-ray examination may follow, which can, for example, confirm the suspected diagnosis of tuberculosis. An ultrasound diagnosis is also often part of the clarification.

Therapy

The therapy always corresponds to the underlying cause and can therefore unfortunately not be described in a generalized way. Night sweats often subside after an infection has been overcome. In addition, it occurs that no cause can be found for the night sweating by the physician, in this case the physician speaks of a so-called idiopathic night sweat.

In these patients the sweat glands are unexplainedly overactive. In these cases, however, the patients also sweat more during the day. These patients are usually advised to change their living and sleeping habits.

These measures include drinking as little or no alcohol in the evening as possible. In addition to alcohol, caffeinated beverages should also be avoided. Furthermore, no more fatty and spicy food should be eaten in the evening.

The evening meal should best be taken two to three hours before going to bed. Smoking should also be avoided. Since night sweat is often provoked by too warm outside temperatures or by too warm pyjamas, blankets, it is helpful not to wear tight-fitting pyjamas but light pyjamas.

Also the room temperature should be adjusted in the bedroom. The ideal sleeping temperature is about 18°C. If the problem lies in switching off in the evening and you go to bed stressful, relaxation exercises, reading or quiet music help before going to bed.

Night sweat is a symptom that can be attributed to many possible causes. Therefore it is important to clarify the cause of night sweats before trying to treat them. A treatment against night sweat as such does not exist anyway, as it is always an expression of an underlying disease.

Homeopathic remedies cannot be recommended against night sweat, as they neither differentiate by cause nor are they effective. There are also no uniform recommendations on the part of homeopathy, so that it can only be strongly discouraged. Some of the possible causes of night sweats are in acute need of treatment, for example cancer. Especially in such cases the use of homeopathic remedies would be grossly negligent.