9. Changes in Sweat and Heat Regulation: Sweating Out the Details
Earlier, we touched on heat intolerance as a symptom of peripheral neuropathy, and now we’ll dig a bit deeper into that aspect. Changes in sweat and heat regulation can have significant impacts on comfort and quality of life, and they tell an interesting story about how our bodies work.
Let’s start with a brief overview of how your body typically handles heat. Your body likes to keep things at a steady 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, give or take a little.
When your internal or external environment heats up, your body has several methods to cool things down. One of the most efficient is sweating. The moisture on your skin evaporates, pulling heat away from your body and helping to lower your body temperature.
The process of sweating is managed by the autonomic nervous system, which we’ve mentioned earlier. When your body needs to cool down, your ANS sends signals to your sweat glands, telling them to produce sweat. It’s an efficient system, but it relies on the integrity of your peripheral nerves to work correctly.
When peripheral neuropathy comes into the picture, it can damage the nerves involved in sweat production and regulation. This can disrupt the normal sweating process, leading to symptoms like excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis) or reduced or absent sweating (anhidrosis). (9)
