Reasons for Night Sweats In Men

Waking up with soaked pajamas and sheets due to perspiration can be a startling experience. These are called night sweats or nocturnal hyperhidrosis.  No matter what you call it, it is not normal in men.  Night sweats can be the signs of a potentially deadly infection or of a chronic health condition.  Not all diagnosis will be so dire, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Idiopathic Hyperhidrosis

This diagnosis sounds more frightening than it really is.  For an unknown reason, a man’s body may break out into a heavy sweat.  This is embarrassing and inconvenient, but not life-threatening.

Infections

Night sweats can be the symptom of a deep-seated infection from a seemingly harmless break in the skin, such as a scratch or injection.  Check the injured site for pain, swelling, redness or leakage of fluids.  Infections of internal organs like the kidneys may also cause night sweats, pain and fever.

Tuberculosis

This is a potentially deadly infection caused by bacteria.  The body raises its temperature in an attempt to kill the bacteria.  Men with tuberculosis usually show other symptoms along with night sweats, including cough, fever, problems breathing, chest pain and sudden weight loss.  Infants, babies and elderly men are most prone to tuberculosis.

Hyperthyroidism

An overactive thyroid gland can cause a variety of bizarre symptoms in men, including sudden perspiration.  A malfunctioning thyroid gland usually cannot be prevented but can often be easily treated.  Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism include insomnia, rapid heartbeat, uncontrollable tremors, diarrhea and a sudden increase in appetite often paired with unexplained weight loss.

Stroke

Nocturnal sweating is a rare symptom of a stroke.  Strokes are when the brain suddenly lacks enough blood to keep functioning.  There is also condition called trans ischemic attack or TIA where men experience symptoms for less than a hour or even just a few minutes.  Many men wrongly assume that when the symptoms go away, so does any danger.  Anyone experiencing a TIA has a high risk of suffering a full-blown stroke within 24 hours.

Hodgkin’s Disease

Also called Hodgkin’s lymphoma, this is a potentially deadly form of cancer.  Usually men suffering from Hodgkin’s disease also show other symptoms like swollen lymph glands, fever, itchy skin or feeling exhausted all of the time.  Occasionally night sweats are the only symptom until more serious symptoms develop. 

Medication or Niacin Side Effect

Excessive perspiration during sleep is a rare but treatable side effect of some medications like antidepressants.  Men taking supplemental doses of dietary vitamin B3 or niacin may also wake up drenched in sweat.  Medications known to cause nocturnal hyperhidrosis include but are not limited to:

• ·         Donezepil (brand name Aricpet) a dementia drug
• ·         Aripiprazle (brand name Aricept), an antidepressant
• ·         Indinavir (brand name Crixivir) a drug for HIV
• ·         Cyclosporine (brand name Neoral) a drug used to help patients adjust to organ transplants
• ·         Daclizumab (brand name Zenapax), used like cyclosporine.
• ·         Interferon alpha-2a (brand name Roferon), used to treat serious immune disorders like AIDS or hepatitis C.

Never suddenly stop medication because this can cause even more problems than nocturnal hyperhidrosis.  Talk to a medical professional about alternatives such as cutting back on dosages.

Image of sweating man by Dogbertio 14 for Wikimedia Commons

Why Do Women Gain Weight During Menopause?

It’s normal for menopausal women to experience some hormonal weight gain, usually around the belly.  Although not as talked about as other common symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats or joint aches, menopause weight gain is one of the most common symptoms of middle-aged and elderly women, whether they are experiencing perimenopause, menopause or postmenopause.

Some studies have suggested that genetics plays a role in menopause weight gain.  However, it is possible for women nearing menopause to prevent weight gain.  Even if the woman gains weight, there are steps she can take to lose her extra pounds through diet, exercise and other lifestyle changes.

Massive Hormonal Changes

When women hit middle age, their bodies slow down the production of the hormone estrogen.  Menopausal weight gain is caused by this hormonal imbalance.  It is thought that estrogen somehow plays a crucial role in how the body stores fat.  More studies need to be done to determine exactly how estrogen affects body metabolism.

A common misconception is that hormone replacement therapy or HRT causes menopausal weight gain.  Although women can get other negative medical conditions from estrogen replacement therapy, weight gain is not one of them.  Adding estrogen or the ability to balance hormones naturally is thought to help a woman prevent weight gain or lose weight.

The Aging Process

Hormonal imbalance is not the only problem facing a middle-aged woman.  As women age, they tend to get tired easily and are not able to be as active as they once were.  As a consequence, they become more sedentary.  Since they are not burning off more calories they consume, they will gain weight.

Older women also begin losing the lean muscle mass they had as youths.  Their bones also become more brittle and prone to breaking due to estrogen loss.  This combination of weakened muscles and problematic bones can certainly make an aging woman become wary of exercise.

Treatment

Women experiencing hormonal weight gain or other menopause hormonal changes should talk to their doctors or gynecologists about changes in diet and safe exercise options.  Many women prefer to go on a plant based natural hormone replacement regimen rather than use estrogen replacement medications made from pregnant mare urine.

Women should stop smoking and cut back on their exposure to second hand smoke, since tobacco smoke can slow down metabolism and dull the taste buds, making a woman crave foods high in sugars and fats.

What You Need To Know About Acid Reflux Pillows

One of the most annoying symptoms of acid reflux disorders that quickly make you miserable is that you are too uncomfortable to sleep.  Not being able to get enough sleep throws the entire body off kilter and can make you more susceptible to new illnesses.  If you’ve already seen your doctor about your problem, he or she may recommend, among things, acid reflux pillows.  These have helped many sufferers of acid reflux, heartburn, and gastroesophogeal reflux disease (GERD) to get a decent night’s sleep.

It’s Funny Looking

Acid reflux pillows most often come in a ribbed wedge design, so yes, they can be funny looking.  This peculiar shape keeps your head and neck in place, so hopefully your stomach acid will stay in place, too.  Some acid reflux, GERD and heartburn sufferers have found that by raising their bodies in a comfortable, slight incline, they can get a much more comfortable night’s sleep.  However, you can often fall asleep sitting up, move around in the deep relaxation of sleep and lie flat, thus encouraging the stomach acid to creep back up your throat.  Acid reflux pillows hope to avoid that and keep you in a comfy position all night.  

You can use them alone or with other pillows as well.   Most acid reflux pillows are made of hypoallergenic foam and come with their own pillowcases.  They come in a variety of sizes and accessories.  Some even come with additional wedges to doubly assure that you stay in position.

Where Do I Get One?

Acid reflux pillows are easy to find.  There are many makers and types, so there isn’t just one source that makes them.  You can find them in pharmacies, health stores and even large chain department stores.  And, of course, there are scads of them online.  Although some are sold on online auctions, make sure they are new, so that they are sanitary.  They come in a variety of prices.  

You might want to try a small one to see if you like it, then get a more, or a larger one.  There are even those large enough for the entire body!  You need pillows anyway.  Why not try one that might help your acid reflux, too?  You’ll be multitasking as you sleep.

Do They Work?

Acid reflux pillows are only one weapon in the war against acid reflux.  They don’t cure acid reflux all by themselves.  You still have to take your medicines and follow your doctor’s advice.  For the first few nights you still might not sleep well because your body is just not used to the feel of these pillows yet.  Your body will usually adjust in less than one week.  Sweet dreams.

Naps Powerful Learning Aid for Pre-Schoolers, Says Study

Naps are good for what ails you -- especially if you are a 3-year-old and what ails you is having trouble learning, suggests a University of Arizona study which was published in the latest issue of Child Development. The study recommends that 3-year-olds need 10 hours of sleep every 24 hours.

Study Specifics

39 children were tested altogether. These were considered "normal" 3-year-olds in health and development. They were split into two groups -- habitual nappers (those who have at least 4 naps a week) and non-nappers (those who have three or fewer naps in a week.) A nap was considered to be 30 minutes long.

The kids were taught new verbs and either had a nap afterwards or did not. They were even taught verbs made of nonsense sounds like "blicking" and "rooping." (You mean they're not real words? Anyway --) the kids were tested on their new vocabulary skills 24 hours later. Habitual nappers (who had a nap averaging 1 hour) did much better than the non-nappers.

The Least You Need to Know

Like it or not, those damn kids of yours need naps. This is not the only study to suggest this. A similar study in 2013 at the University of Massachusetts Amhurst tested 40 kids, where some had naps averaging 77 minutes after a learning period and some kids did not have naps. The nappers had 10% better memory retention than the (presumably) cranky non-nappers.

Unfortunately, neither study does not go into how to get a 3-year-old to take a nap.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

When It's Time To Give Up On a CPAP Machine

My Mom suffers from many chronic ailments, including severe sleep apnea. Inevitably, doctors perscibed her a CPAP machine. She tried it for 18 months. It had absolutely no positive effect -- in fact,  it had a lot of negative effects. Some (not all) of her doctors want her to try again. Here's how to tell if your CPAP machine is really a CRAP machine.

As always, do not use this blog post in the place of professional medical advice.

Keeps Taking Off Mask When Asleep

This was the big problem with Mom and her CPAP machine. Her subconscious was just not going to go along with it. It's hard to fix. I'd have to stay wake every time Mom slept or took a nap and stare at her to make sure she wouldn't take the mask off. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Machine or Mask Keeps You Awake

The purpose of a CPAP machine is to get you better sleep. If it's been months and you haven't had any decent sleep since before the machine arrived, no matter how many new masks you've tried, it's time to think about giving up.

You Can No Longer Afford It

There's no sense using a treatment that you cannot afford. I've been homeless and let me tell you -- it's damn hard to lug around a CPAP machine when you're getting chased by alcoholics with the DTs.

You Have Severe Incontinence Issues

This is another problem Mom had. By the time she unhooked herself from the CPAP machine, she'd soaked her undies, nightgown and sometimes the carpet. Mom has bad arthritis, knees and scoliosis. She has to use a walker in the house and so moves slowly. When she got back from the toilet and me cleaning her up, she was too upset to go back to sleep.

You Cannot Clean It Regularly

A CPAP machine needs to have the masks and hoses regularly taken off, cleaned and completely dried before being used again or dangerous mold and bacteria can grow in the warm, moist environment. Cleaning was not a problem for Mom since she had me do it, but it you have mobility issues and don't have a caretaker to clean for you then a CPAP machine may not be the best thing for you.

Image by JoJoJo04 from Wikimedia Commons

How the Common Bed Bug Proves that Evolution is True

We can learn a lot about evolution from the common bedbug. It has vestigial wings, developed a gene change in about 50 years and females adapted one organ to work for reproduction.

The common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) is not only creepy, but provides three lessons in why Charles Darwin was right.  Bed bugs can go through a couple of generations per year, so we are able to see them evolve in out lifetime.  And they aren’t through evolving yet.

These three lessons are in vestigial traits, genetic mutation and modification of an existing body part to do a function that it wasn’t originally intended for. 

Vestigial Wings

Place a bed bug under a microscope and you’ll see along their sides tiny pads that appear like a little like stunted mosquito wings.  Well, that’s because they are wings.  However, after millions of generations of not flying, the wings atrophied and eventually shrunk.  These pads are located exactly where wings would be in other insects such as mosquitoes.

According to Creationism, all species appeared in their current form less than 10,000 years ago.  Creationists tend to state that either vestigial organs do not exist or vestigial organs have functions yet undiscovered.  But Creationism cannot explain why bedbugs needed to lose their wings. 

But evolution can.  The common ancestor bed bugs, bat bugs and swallow bugs fed on cave-dwelling critters such as bats, according to Virginia Tech entomologist Dini M. Miller, PhD.  But when people started dwelling in caves, a new food source was ready to be exploited.  Flying takes up a lot of energy.  By hitching lifts on human goods, clothes and bodies, bed bugs could save energy.

Genetic Resistance to Pesticides

With the sequencing of the bed bug genome, scientists discovered just why bed bugs are resistant to so many pesticides -- they evolved genes to neutralize the pesticides.  Many pesticides like pyrethrins kill by harming nerve cells and paralyzing the insect.  Bed bugs are genetically different from bedbugs fifty years ago.

In an effort to find out why bed bugs are so hard to kill, researchers from Ohio State University located a colony of bed bugs known as the Harlan colony, after the US military’s entomologist that began the colony, Harold Harlan.  The Harlan breeding colony has never been exposed to insecticides.  The genes of these bedbugs were compared to bedbugs from a Columbus, Ohio apartment. 

And the genes were slightly different.  The Columbus bed bugs could produce vast amounts of enzymes which help to break down toxins and flush them from the body.  The Harlan bed bugs did produce this enzyme, but in much lower quantities.  As a result, they are much easier to kill than modern bedbugs.

Female Bed Bugs and Traumatic Insemination

Remember that creatures adapt in order to help the individual survive to pass along its genes and not necessarily adapts for the benefit of the entire species.  This can lead to survival struggles between members of the same species – and takes the battle of the sexes to a whole new level.

Female bed bugs lack sexual organs.  So how do they get pregnant?  The male bed bug wields a hypodermic-like Sexual intormittent organ that pierces the female and pumps sperm directly into a groove in her abdomen.  This process is called, appropriately enough, traumatic insemination.  Females can die from their wounds.

A lot more would die if the female bed bug had not evolved a pseudo-sexual organ called the spermalege.  Thought to be modified from part of the female’s immune system, a spermalege is merely spongy tissue filled with blood-like liquid called hemolymph.  The male bed bug’s organ can only penetrate through parts of a female’s abdomen – not the entire abdomen.

Over the millennia, these injection sites filled with large tissue in order to quickly eliminate any pathogens introduced from the puncture wound.  There is also a theory that the female bed bug’s immune system chooses which sperm lives and kills the rest.

Conclusion

Creationists state that all species alive today were created in one week about 10,000 years ago.  However, the bed bug has gone through genetic changes in just 50 or 60 years.  Bed bugs also have useless wing pads and females have parts of their immune system to act as a sexual organ.  The Creator either has a perverse sense of humor or there was no creation in a week.  Creatures are never done adapting to survive and reproduce in ever changing circumstances.

References

“Why Evolution is True.” Jerry A. Coyne

Purdue University. “De-Bugging the Bed Bug: Sucking it Up in 2008.” Dini M. Miller. 2008. http://aapco.ceris.purdue.edu/doc/min2008/attach/03mar08/attach32.pdf

National Public Radio.  “Bedbug Genome Reveals Pesticide Resistance.”  Jon Hamilton.  January 19, 2011.  http://www.npr.org/2011/01/19/133057071/bed-bug-genome-reveals-pesticide-resistance

“Costly traumatic insemination and a female counter-adaptation in bed bugs.” Edward H Morrow and Göran Arnqvist.  Proceedings of the Royal Society B:  Biological Science.  November 23, 2003. 270(1531): 2377–2381.

 http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/270/1531/2371.full.pdf

Bed bug image from Wikimedia Commons

Self-Hypnosis: Now You Are Under Your Own Power

With self-hypnosis, you are giving yourself encouragement and support to do most anything, like get better sleep.  It can take a while to convince yourself that you can and will change, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t change right way.

Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”  This one sentence is the secret to learning self-hypnosis, also called “autosuggestion” or “positive reinforcement”.  Although you can certainly go to a certified hypnotherapist, you can also easily learn the same techniques that they employ.  The hard part is whether you can believe that you can change.

Who Needs Self-Hypnosis

If there’s something about you that you need to change, such as quitting smoking, losing weight, having more self-confidence, stop a stutter or sleep better, self-hypnosis can work for you.  You still have to actually do stuff in the real world, such as not smoke or stick to your diet, but many people have found help in doing this with self-hypnosis. 

You are giving yourself encouragement and support.  It can take a while to convince yourself that you can and will change, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t change right way.  Give yourself the same slack as if you were learning a new sport or skill. 

Step One: Relaxation

First off, you need some quiet time where you won’t be disturbed.  Start with fifteen minutes or a half hour.  You can sit up or lie down.  You are actually not going to sleep, just putting yourself in a very relaxed state.  You can use silence, a white noise generator or some soft music, whatever helps you relax and your body to get loose and floppy.  Just let it happen at it’s own pace.

Step Two:  Deepening the Relaxation

Yes, this gets you even more deeply relaxed and open to suggestions.  Some people count down twenty to one, some chant a favorite prayer or poem – silently.  There’s no need to do it out loud.  Doing it out loud might make you tense.

Step Three: Making the Suggestions

This step is pretty self-explanatory.  After you are really relaxed, just repeat quietly to yourself whatever you want to change.  “I am a successful writer,” for example, or “I can be happy without snacking!”  Something short and easily memorized is best.  There is no right or wrong way to know when you are relaxed enough to make the suggestion.  Just let your instinct guide you.  Remember, you are not taking a test on self-hypnosis.  You won’t fail.

Step Four:  Waking Up

Once your positive suggestion is made, you can wake up and rejoin the real world.  Just make another suggestion to wake up, feeling refreshed and full of energy.  You might want to do the opposite of your deepening technique.  If you counted down to deepen your relaxation, count up.  Or you can just say “The alarm is going off now.  Time to get up.”

Step Five:  Practice, Practice, Practice

As you practice, you will find it easier and may be able to take shorter sessions or longer ones.  If you keep falling asleep, perhaps you could just repeat the suggestion to yourself while you are fully awake, even writing the sentence down over and over again.  There is no one way of self-hypnosis technique that works for everyone.

Links to References

• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypnosis/MY01020/DSECTION=what-you-can-expect 
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valorie-j-wells-phd/anxiety-self-hypnosis_b_878694.html
•  http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1985-06-05/news/8501220402_1_advance-ethical-hypnosis-students-breathing

Image of Hypnosis statue from Wikimedia Commons