For a while now, my grandma has been complaining about sweating. When we went for the 1st visit to the oncologist, one of the question they asked, was if she had any problems with sweating. At the time she did not. Shortly after that, she started having trouble with sweating. I wondered if it was the power of suggestion, but it comes and goes. It is something that keeps her up at night, and is very uncomfortable to deal with. It's not painful, it's just annoying for her.
One theory we had was that maybe it was her thyroid. We thought that maybe her thyroid was off and it was causing her to sweat. We made an appointment with her primary doctor and she told us that it was most likely because of the tumors. So we went home, and she continued to have the sweating off and on. She couldn't get comfortable. She would be hot, then cold, then hot, then cold, etc. So she wanted to make another appointment with her doctor to ask again. We had her thyroid tested, but couldn't see her regular doctor because she was out of town. So we saw another doctor, and he said the same thing. It was probably because of the tumors. He said that her thyroid was a little high, so he bumped her down to a lower dosage. She actually felt like she was doing better on the higher dosage, but the doctor told her she needed to be on the lower. He told us to do that for 6 weeks and then come back to her regular doctor. So that's what we did. We went to see her regular doctor 6 weeks later, and of course she is right where she needs to be with her thyroid, and again, we were told that the sweating is probably caused from the tumors. I think we heard it from another doctor as well. No matter how many times we told my grandma, that it was because of the tumors, she kept complaining about it. I think she was hoping someone would give her a different answer that would stop the sweating. My mom suggested we make another appointment for her to check her thyroid again. I told my mom, that we would probably get the same answer we have been getting from all the doctors. I didn't think it was necessary to go back and hear the same thing again.
I started thinking about what else could be causing the sweating. I broke it down to the basics. I thought about what makes someone sweat. If your hot, your body starts sweating to cool you off. Another reason for sweating might be hormonal. That led me to think about hormonal sweating. Women in menopause sweat and have hot flashes. My grandma use to take a pill called Evista. But when after we called the oncologist and told him she wasn't going to take the drug, he told us to take her off evista. I realized that maybe that was keeping her menopause symptoms away all this time. I also realized that even though she had these tumors long before we ever knew about them, she never had a problem with sweating. So I don't think the sweating is from the tumors at all. I think it's because she doesn't take evista anymore. I realized this a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned it to her. I'm not sure if she fully understands, but she hasn't said much about her sweating lately. My mom suggested we keep a food journal for her so we could try to track when she sweating and if there is a correlation with the food she ate that day. I have been keeping this journal and realized that for the last 4 days or so, she hasn't had any trouble with sweating. By the way, this is the hottest week we have had in a few months. It's been in the 90's.
Before I realized what was causing the sweating, my mom read that having 2 serving of soy a day was shown to help with sweating in menopausal women. So we switched her to soy milk, and bought her some edamame soy beans. It's hard to say if they are helping or not. Maybe they are, but then again, maybe it's the fact that she knows now what the reason could possibly be.
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