Sweating into the night with diabetes

There are two types of diabetes mellitus, type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The common feature of both types of the disease is that the body lacks the hormone insulin or that insulin cannot act sufficiently. Insulin is important for the body’s cells so that the carbohydrates from food, which are broken down into sugar, can be converted into energy.

Without insulin, the body cells cannot absorb the sugar from the blood and the blood sugar level rises. As a result, the metabolism is severely disturbed and metabolic disorders can occur, which can be manifested by certain symptoms. In general, at the beginning of a diabetes disease, there is increased thirst, increased urge to urinate, tiredness and nightly calf cramps.

These symptoms are often more pronounced in so-called type 1 diabetes and appear earlier than in so-called type 2 diabetes. An important warning signal for a dangerous hypoglycaemia of the body cells (especially the brain nerve cells) are heavy sweating. Heavy sweating in combination with muscle tremors, ravenous appetite, weakness, dizziness and visual disturbances can indicate the potentially life-threatening condition.

In addition, nerve damage in various areas (diabetic neuropathy) occurs as a result of the permanently elevated blood sugar levels in diabetes. If nerve damage occurs in the autonomic nervous system, heavy sweating can occur at night or during the day. Typically, the initially increased tendency to sweat in the affected areas decreases again in the course of the disease and as the destruction of the nerves progresses, there is often reduced sweating.

In some cases, diabetes mellitus also causes heavy sweating on the face and neck during eating, which is called gustatory sweating. Even in people who do not suffer from diabetes mellitus, low blood sugar levels can sometimes cause heavy sweating at night. This can be caused not only by an unbalanced diet or alcohol, but also by special diseases (for example, an insulinoma).

For example, if diabetes mellitus is treated with insulin, a nightly drop in blood sugar levels can also be caused by evening dosage or ingestion errors, which can become noticeable by increased sweating during the night. In this case, the treating physician should be consulted in order to possibly adjust a more optimal insulin therapy. In the same way as certain drugs lead to increased sweating or outbreaks of sweating at night as an undesirable side effect, certain active substances inhaled during smoking can also lead to heavy sweating.

The vegetative nervous system, the nerves in the brain and various hormones all have an influence on the production of sweat, which are all stimulated by the active ingredients during smoking and can thus lead to increased sweating. The active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, which is consumed when smoking cannabis, increases the release of the messenger substance dopamine. Increased dopamine can lead to side effects such as cardiac arrhythmia, rapid heartbeat, vomiting and heavy sweating.

The severity of these symptoms can vary from individual to individual, due to the dosage of the active ingredient or individual differences, for example in the amount of dopamine released. Sweating after smoking can be more pronounced at night, as withdrawal symptoms can occur due to the decreasing level of the active substance in the blood.Even after many years of smoking, withdrawal symptoms can occur when consumption is discontinued, which usually disappear again after one to three weeks. These include nervousness, mood swings, sleeping problems and altered appetite, as well as heavy sweating, hot flushes and possibly increased temperature. However, even if you sweat more at night while smoking pot, you should consider other possible causes. Basically, it is not recommended to use cannabis as it can endanger your health.