Cold sweat is a very uncharacteristic symptom. The cause of excessive sweating can be, for example, low blood sugar or severe stress. Cold sweat is one of the symptoms of menopause as well as thyroid disorders. The problem of cold sweaty skin can occur after taking medication. Cold sweat at night is dangerous because it is linked to the risk of cancer. Cold forehead and fever are also symptoms of a viral or bacterial infection.
Is cold sweat dangerous? What causes cold sweats?
Cold sweat is a very uncharacteristic symptom, the appearance of which may be related to a certain body condition – such as severe stress or emotional excitement – but may also be the first sign of a serious illness, including cancer.
There are many conditions that can be a potential cause of cold sweats . The most common are infections, hypoglycemia, heart attacks, significant and sudden blood loss, and cancer.
Cold sweats are particularly worrying at night, as they may wake us up from sleep – a symptom never to be underestimated and should be reported to your doctor.
Cold sweats often accompany conditions associated with excessive emotional tension, we may also observe them in cases of severe anxiety and panic attacks. Cold sweats can be caused by severe pain associated with body injuries, fractures, attacks of renal colic or biliary colic.
What else does cold sweat mean?
Cold sweats during pregnancy, often alternating with hot flashes, are sometimes a reaction to changes in a woman’s body and should not be a cause for concern.
- Cold sweats and dizziness can also make life difficult for menopausal women. Excessive sweating during menopause is due to the dying of the ovaries. In turn, cold sweats in men can occur because of decreased testosterone levels.
- They also appear after a sudden and usually severe blood loss, which leads to the development of shock. Such massive bleeding is most often seen in victims of accidents, especially victims of car accidents.
- Profuse cold sweat is one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism .
- Less common causes of cold sweats include cold sweats that appear as a side effect of medications and other pharmacological agents used by the patient . In this case, the appearance of cold sweats indicates that the body is intolerant to a particular drug or that an allergy to a particular drug is more dangerous.
- The cause of the appearance of cold sweats, which is a direct threat to the life of the patient, is also a shock – both hemorrhagic, anaphylactic, and septic. In this case, the patient requires immediate medical attention.
Cold sweat, viral and bacterial infections
The sensation of cold sweat flooding the skin, making it sticky and unpleasantly sticky, often occurs with various infections, both viral and bacterial.
In this case, a cold sweaty forehead in a child or adult is associated with the onset of fever and the action of bacterial toxins on our body. Cold sweat and low fever can also be caused by a sudden drop in body temperature caused by taking antipyretics.
This nonspecific symptom can occur either during a minor cold or during much more severe and more specific infections, such as tuberculosis, HIV infection, or brucellosis.
Often, cold sweats and weakness indicate the presence of limited inflammation, such as an abscess – such as a lung abscess or a perianal abscess . In most cases of cold sweats accompanying infections, other symptoms such as lack of appetite, general malaise, bone and muscle pain are also present.
In the case of a fever, you’d likely develop cold sweats when your fever starts to break…
www.health.com
Hypoglycemia – low blood sugar and cold sweats
Hypoglycemia is a condition in which the sugar level in our body is too low, which in practice means that the blood glucose level is below 55 mg/dL. Causes of hypoglycemia can include insulin overdose, starvation and exercise in people with diabetes, as well as alcohol abuse and some cancers.
In addition to cold sweats, which are a nonspecific symptom of hypoglycemia, there are other symptoms. The most common are intense feelings of hunger, weakness, restlessness, a feeling of rapid heartbeat, and drowsiness. Without treatment, hypoglycemia can lead to serious complications, including death.
If your blood sugar drops while you are sleeping, your partner or other family members may notice that you are sweating and behaving differently.
www.uofmhealth.org
Is cold sweating at night a symptom of cancer?
Neoplastic diseases are a very serious social problem, as they cause a very large number of premature deaths, there is usually no effective treatment, and diagnosis is not an easy task – due to the lack of specific symptoms.
Night sweats, including cold sweats, are one of the possible symptoms of tumor diseases; especially disturbing is the cold sweat during sleep, sometimes of such intensity that it may wake up the patient.
Patients often report waking up unexpectedly in a cold sweat without fever, which cannot be explained by an ongoing infection, environmental temperature, or any other condition. In most cases, these patients also notice unintentional weight loss in addition to cold profuse night sweats.
Infection is one of the most common causes of sweating in people who have cancer. Infection can give you a high temperature and your body sweats to try and reduce it. Treating the infection can control or stop the sweating.
www.cancerresearchuk.org
Cold sweating in a heart attack
In the case of myocardial infarction, the patient’s occurrence of a wet, cold sweat is most often associated with severe chest pain. The pain is usually pressing or burning and is localized to the back.
Another reason for the occurrence of cold sweats in a heart attack is the intense feeling of anxiety that arises in this situation. This is primarily a fear for your own life, a fear of death. Impaired blood supply to the heart also plays a role, reducing the amount of oxygen flowing to the heart.
Sweating during physical activity or in hot weather is healthy. But when individuals begin perspiring while experiencing discomfort in their chest, arm, neck or jaw – with little or no exertion – it could be the onset of a heart attack, according to a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
www.sciencedaily.com
