My neck keeps sweating when I fall asleep

The physiological phenomenon of sweating only occurs when a person exercises vigorously or the weather is hot. Although sweating is considered by many to be a very good physiological phenomenon for the human body, it can effectively expel excess toxins from the body. But sometimes sweating is also caused by illness. Some people find that their necks are often sweating when they fall asleep at night. What's going on?

Sweating of the neck while sleeping is called night sweats

In medicine, sweating while awake is called "spontaneous sweating", and sweating during sleep is called "night sweats". Night sweats is a disease name in traditional Chinese medicine. It is a symptom characterized by abnormal sweating after falling asleep and stopping sweating after waking up. "Dao" means stealing. Ancient doctors used the sneaky activities of thieves at night to describe the disease that every time people fall asleep or just close their eyes and are about to fall asleep, sweat secretes like a thief.

Traditional Chinese medicine has had a relatively deep understanding of night sweats for a long time. In the "Huangdi Neijing" written during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was called "night sweats." "Qing" means sleeping. There is an idiom called "ignore sleep and forget food", which means that he does not care about sleeping and forgets to eat. Obviously, "night sweats" means sweating while sleeping. In the Han Dynasty, the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing used the vivid term "night sweats" to name the disease in which people sweat in their sleep in his book "Golden Chamber". Since then, successive generations of doctors have continued to use these names, and today, both doctors and people working in other industries know what kind of disease night sweats is.

Some patients with night sweats start sweating as soon as they fall asleep, some start sweating after falling asleep at midnight, and some start sweating just after closing their eyes for a while. The amount of sweat produced varies greatly. According to the clinical manifestations of patients with night sweats, they can be divided into three types: mild, moderate and severe.

Most patients with mild night sweats sweat easily when they are deep in sleep, at around 5 a.m., or 1 to 2 hours before waking up. The amount of sweat is small, and they only feel a little sweat all over the body or certain parts of the body after waking up, and no sweat will be secreted again after waking up. It is usually not accompanied by any discomfort.

Most patients with moderate night sweats will sweat soon after falling asleep, and their sleeping clothes may even be soaked through. The sweat will stop after they wake up, and they will not sweat again after wiping the sweat off their bodies. This type of night sweats causes the patient to feel hot and sweat, and sometimes to feel dry mouth and throat after waking up.

Patients with severe night sweats sweat easily. Shortly after falling asleep or just closing your eyes and about to fall asleep, you will sweat a lot. You will wake up after sweating, and the sweat will stop instantly after waking up. Falling back to sleep may cause sweating again. The amount of sweating is large, and the sweat often has a light salty taste, or is mixed with sweat odor. Severe sweating can make the bedding soaked, and one cannot sleep well without changing sleeping clothes several times a night. Some seriously ill patients can make the bedding soaked. When the bedding is thin or a mat is used, sweat can leave sweat marks on the bed board. These patients often have a noticeable feeling of hotness, irritability, dry mouth and tongue after sweating, and like cold water. It may be accompanied by low fever or hot flashes, fever in the five hearts, red cheeks, dizziness, weight loss, fatigue, dark urine, small urine volume, and dry stool.

Mild and moderate night sweats will not cause much damage to the body, but for patients with severe night sweats, the condition will often worsen over time and develop into "dehydration", which seriously threatens the patient's health and life safety.