COVID is back. This new symptom appears at night
The emergence of new COVID-19 variants has caused a change in the type of symptoms you may experience. The most common symptoms now appear at night.
7:25 AM EDT, October 20, 2023
Initially, symptoms of coronavirus infection presented as cough, loss of taste or smell, and shortness of breath. Over the past few years, however, symptoms have varied and depended on the strain of the virus.
Since July of this year, health experts have been alerting, that there has been an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases again.
New strains of coronavirus
The increase has been linked with two new virus strains - Eris and Pirola.
According to media reports, both Eris and Pirola are descendants of the Omicron strain - a variant that caused a sharp increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in 2021 and 2022.
Some experts warn that Omicron and its sub-variants can be associated not only with typical flu-like and cold symptoms but also with those that occur exclusively at night (i.e., during sleep).
Nighttime symptoms of the virus
This is about night sweats, which are so intense that they might require a change of clothes. From a medical standpoint, night sweats are referred to as excessive sweating during sleep, which is not a reaction of the body to high temperature or physical effort.
They appear regardless of the ambient temperature and are so intense that they lead to the soaking of nightwear or bedding. In addition to night sweats, patients are increasingly experiencing insomnia.
- Night sweats are one of the key symptoms of the Omicron and Delta variants, with over 40 percent of patients reporting excessive sweating even after the infection has passed. If you have no comorbidities and have been sweating profusely at night for a while, there's a high likelihood that they're caused by a currently experiencing or already experienced variant of COVID-19 - informs LifeMD.
Other causes of night sweats
Night sweats can be the result of several other conditions, among which menopause and hormonal imbalances, neurological disorders, sleep apnea, idiopathic hyperhidrosis, bacterial infections, tumors (e.g., lymphoma and leukemia), and hypoglycemia are most often mentioned.
Night sweats may also be induced by certain medications - antidepressants (particularly SSRIs and tricyclic antidepressants), drugs used during hormone replacement therapy (used to alleviate menopause symptoms), and in diabetic therapy.
Short-term night sweats can also be affected by the use of fever-reducing drugs, including aspirin and acetaminophen.
