Overview
- The NHS advises a medical check if you regularly wake with soaking sheets, defining night sweats as clothing and bedding drenched despite a cool sleeping environment.
- Cancer Research UK lists very heavy night sweats among general cancer warning signs and urges consultation for drenching episodes or an unexplained fever.
- The NHS notes excessive sweating can occur with cancers including leukaemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney, prostate, mesothelioma, carcinoid and medullary thyroid cancers.
- Leukaemia Care reports about 30% of people with leukaemia experience nocturnal sweating and describes episodes that wake you drenched and unable to cool down.
- Experts stress infections, medication side effects and the menopause commonly cause night sweats, yet persistent, sleep-disrupting episodes or those with weight loss, high fever, cough or diarrhoea should be checked.