Sweat Dreams

I made the mistake of wearing regular pajamas to bed last night. Ever since about 35 years old ( I was born premature and seem to do everything that way), I have been plagued by occassional night sweats. It used to be pretty tolerable when I was on a birth control pill with estrogen in it.

However, ever since I have been on the progesterone only pill, I could be my own water source most nights. Thus, the special wicking pajamas I now usually sport to bed. While they don't exactly keep me completely dry, I have never woken up soaking in them either. I will wake up clammy sometimes, which is a vast improvement.

Prior to wicking pajamas, some nights, I would wake up and the sheets underneath me would literally be soaking wet. This was particularly problematic when it happened the first time at a B & B in Vermont. What do you do when you essentially "wet the bed" in the middle of the night at an Inn? There was no front desk, open twenty four hours. Even if there was, I was going to be a very uninviting sight going down there at that odd hour to ask for extra sheets. Who knows what they would think? Probably that I did actually have bladder control issues, or worse.

Plus, having to change the sheets, even if I did have them, would involve waking my husband and making him get out of bed. Anyone who knows him also knows that he is not the easiest person to wake up. If he were asleep near train tracks, he would slumber away as the train went by.

So, what is a soaking wet, cranky girl to do? The quickest thing possible to try and get to sleep. I grabbed one of the bath towels and put it on the bed beneath me. It was a little weird and kind of beachlike to sleep on the towel, but it did the trick and provided the necessary barrier.

These night sweats don't seem to be affected by the temperature of the room, or the rest of my body. It can be a delightful New England night where we are being buffeted by arctic winds outside and the temperature is below zero. Add to this lovely scene that my hands and feet are freezing and I have donned socks and am seriously contemplating mittens-in bed! So, I finally fall asleep, and low and behold, I will wake up in the middle of the night, drenched. Go figure, if someone could just tinker with the wiring, the heat could be distributed to my hands and feet, and I wouldn't even complain if they got a bit sweaty or clammy.

Maybe instead of having doctors trying to figure out the mystery of night sweats and hot flashes, we should be looking at plumbers or HVAC guys. We could use their lingo and tell them that zone 1 is hotter than hell, where zones 2 and 3 are being frozen out. I am guessing they could figure out a solution quicker than the doctors, but I wouldn't want to see the bill.