Hi all. I'm a C5 quad since a diving accident in August 1987 when I was 23. I just turned 60, am(was) 5'10" and I weigh 182 lbs, down from 205 lbs this time last year.
Amazingly enough I have used the same bowel program since leaving the hospital in 1988. Every other night I lay on my left side then use a suppository (Magic Bullet by Concepts in Confidence) the following morning. Most mornings my program is finished in 2 hours, sometimes 2.5. Yes, I have been very lucky in that regard. The following night I lay on my right side. In other words, I empty my bowels every 48 hours. Also, I usually spend about 8 hours on my side each night. The last four nights I have started sweating profusely in the middle of the night. The sweating is usually limited to my neck, shoulder, side, and arm but only on the side that I'm not laying on. So when I'm laying on my left side, my right side sweats, then the following night while laying on my right side, I sweat on the left side. I have no sensation from the mid-shoulder down, but strangely enough I do feel the sweating. Re: pressure sores, occasionally I do have superficial pressure sores at the ischial tuberosity location, but nothing serious since 2004-2005 when I had a bad one that required surgery and sidelined me for almost 2 years. Since 2004 I have slept on an Invacare air mattress, and for the past 5 years it's been the Invacare MA600 system. Today my butt (and sides, hips, knees) looks good, and at 60 I don't spend a lot of time in my chair for fear of developing a pressure sore. My caregiver has been with me the entire time and knows as much about decubitus ulcers as I do. The sweating does not appear to be caused by pressure on my skin. Of course it could be something under the skin but I don't know. Another problem I have dealt with for the past 30+ years is kidney stones. Kidney stones have their own set of warning signs but sweating has never been one of them for me. I mention this because it's possible I do have kidney stones as I pretty much live with them all the time. Several times over the years I have had lithotripsy to remove large stubborn kidney stones that caused persistent UTIs, but it's not surprising for me to pass several kidney stones, sometimes quite large, over the course of a few weeks and I can usually tell when it's about to happen. Headaches, chills, and muscle spasms in certain areas of my side and lower back, almost always accompany kidney stones, and I am not experiencing any of these at the moment. No UTI symptoms at the moment either. So, my question is what could be causing these cold clammy sweats? Have any of you old timers experienced this and figured it out? Is it always a pressure situation? I do remember sweating profusely on my head and face whenever I was up in my chair right before finding the bad open pressure sore on my butt back in 2004, But back then neither of us knew what a pressure sore was so we didn't know to look for something like that. We do now but again my caregiver sees no evidence of pressure on my skin anywhere. Any suggestions or help would be very much appreciated. Thanks to all of you who contribute here on the quad-list, and especially Jim Lubin for providing us with this forum all these years. Best, Greg
