The thermostat in my house is currently registering at 77 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m melting at my computer with all the activity I’ve been involved in today. Meanwhile, Lynn alternates between being hot and cold but mainly stays cold.
Before the days of MS, Lynn’s body temperature ran hot. It could be the middle of winter, and he would be outside in shorts and a T-shirt, cooking on the grill. We used to joke that he would spontaneously combust into flames one day because he radiated heat. That changed shortly after his diagnosis. He gradually became less tolerant of heat. Instead of setting the temperature indoors to a chilly 70, he would be satisfied to allow me to set it at a more comfortable level where it was no longer necessary to bundle in a blanket and wear gloves to watch TV. Then he went from being warm to the touch to being cold.
Lynn developed a urinary tract infection that was mistreated for a couple of months, resulting in his becoming very ill. His body was not able to fight off the infection, and he became weaker and weaker. As his health declined, he became cold. At times, I needed to wrap him in blankets, put fleece-lined footwear on him, cover his hands in gloves, and heat up sandbags to lie over his hands and against his body. He was freezing all the time.
Eventually, he had to be admitted to the hospital, and while there, he aspirated and developed pneumonia. It wasn’t caught at first because he had no fever. He was very lethargic, sleeping all the time. His blood pressure was low, as was his pulse, and his body temperature simply did not register. The staff attributed the temperature difficulties to equipment for almost two days. Finally, one of the care partners got a rectal thermometer because she felt something was wrong. Rectally, his body temperature should have been a degree higher than orally; however, his body temperature still did not register. When they finally got a reading, his body temperature was 90o rectally! He was immediately put into the ICU, and a heat blanket was used for hours to gradually bring his body temperature back to normal.
After that, his temperature fell rather than rising whenever he was sick. He was also cold all the time after that. We discovered that he was severely anemic and had almost no ferritin storage (ferritin is a form of iron stored in the body as a reserve for when the hemoglobin doesn’t have enough iron to circulate throughout the body as needed.) The cold was a bone-chilling cold. Regardless of how much clothing he wore, or if he used a heating pad, he stayed cold.
As his ferritin level improved and his blood levels approached normal, he gradually began to warm up again, but he continued having difficulty regulating temperature. He would be cold, so he would drink hot tea. Then he would feel too hot and drink cold water. He alternated between hot and cold all day, and rarely did he have a comfortable temperature. In looking into that further, we discovered his thyroid levels were off, probably due to the Rebif he had been using. Almost a year later, his thyroid is almost back to normal (he’s off the Rebif), but he still has difficulty regulating his body temperature.
He becomes cold if he’s tired, feeling ill, or stressed out. If he’s in a hot room, taking a hot shower, drinking hot liquids—he tends to become overheated and has a meltdown. Essentially, he doesn’t seem able to regulate his internal temperature and has to use external measures to make the necessary adjustments. His doctor has never said this is the result of MS, but I wonder if it is. I know that the anemia, ferritin deficiency, and hypothyroidism certainly contributed to his struggles to stay warm, but now that most of his “levels” seem normal, he still has trouble. I know that people who have MS often say they cannot tolerate heat, so I’m assuming there is a component to MS that contributes to the body’s temperature inability to regulate body temperature effectively. Why not? MS seems to affect every other body function, so why not temperature?
How does that affect me as his caregiver? I have to plan for both hot and cold. When we’re going out, I know that even if it’s warm outside, I might still be running a little heat or need to get him something hot to drink for his comfort. I also know he can’t tolerate sitting outside in the sun or being out on the deck during cool breezes because his body doesn’t seem to do what is needed to help him become comfortable. So, is this caused by MS? It’s anyone’s guess, but it seems like a correlation to me….
This article originally appeared on Multiplesclerosis.Net by Health-Union, LLC, and has been reposted with permission.
