Just wondering if anyone has experienced feeling constantly extremely cold or know any possible causes of it. Alex (my fiance) has been dealing with it since she got sick but it's been more extreme lately. I read that hypothyroidism can cause coldness but I don't think that's her problem because she seems to have the opposite of many of the other symptoms.

It could just be because she's so thin but she been able to gain a bit of weight in the past few weeks and if anything the coldness has gotten worse. We keep the house nice and warm for her and she's always wearing multiple layers but often she still gets chills while I'm sweating.

Hopefully she'll have time to mention it to one of her docs at her next appointment but anyone know why this could be happening. Could it just be a normal part of recovery? Any other ideas besides warm clothes and hot baths to keep her warm?

Thanks,
Ryan

Have her get her thyroid checked, even if the other symptoms dont match. If you lose weight quickly your thyroid levels usually go down with it. A simple med of synthetic thyroid coulb be all she needs. Even people that have a low-normal range can have the always being cold symptom and be healed by the med. Good Luck

I spent a couple yrs pretty cold & ~6-9 months incredibly cold way inside at the core all the time. I ended up keeping a thermometer w/in reach so I could see if I could or should turn up the heat. I would never feel warm enough to tell otherwise & and it's not exactly worthwhile to heat a house to 110°.
Then I found out I had intestinal candida from all the gluten damage. A couple months on a strict anti-candida diet and I haven't felt it since.

I know I joke that my internal thermometer is broken. Pre-diagnosis I was always too warm. Post-diagnosis when I get too hot I can't cool down quickly and when I get too cold it takes forever to warm up. I wear sweaters and bring light jackets in the summer in Florida because I get too cold.

I would still get her thyroid checked. Mine always tested normal. So who knows anymore.

Before I had any idea what was happening to me, especially at night, I would have these episodes that felt like ice water was literally streaming through my veins. It coincided with symptoms of malabsorption that I was also having. It was awful, and there was no way to warm up. Now that I am gluten-free I no longer have this. I'm back to my usual hot, steamy, "turn-on-the-air-conditioning" self. It's been so hot in Ohio that I've been having fantasies about the blizzard of February '07!

Pre-diagnosis, I joked about having "cold flashes" instead of hot flashes because I'd get so bone chilling cold and the only thing that would make it go away was soup or something hot to drink. Since I was overweight then and remain so, I don't think it was a weight issue.

Then I found out that taking kelp supplements helped stop the cold flashes. Kelp supplements have iodine (for your thyroid).

Since the Celiac diagnosis in 2003, I haven't needed kelp and haven't had a problem with it.

Get her thyroid checked. Especially her thyroid peroxidase antibodies. Get the whole panel not just the TSH. Being very thin can make you cold as well. Does she perhaps have a low grade fever going on?? I get these a lot and they make me shiver.

I was freezing when my serum iron was four. It was that to the core cold that I could only get rid of with a hot, hot bath. Once I got my iron up that went away. I've had my thyroid tested (over and over) and it is fine.

I should have added that I had my thyroid tested during this period and it was within the normal range. However, when I stopped taking kelp, the cold spells returned. I don't know exactly what was going on because at diagnosis, I was very deficient in iron, B vitamins, and folic acid (that they tested for) and who knows what I may have been deficient in that they didn't test for.

When my dh didn't have his blood sugar under control, he was freezing. Especially after he ate his meals. I'm quite sure it's a diabetic problem. It took a fair amount of time before that improved.

He's not the one with celiac, I am. He is a type II daibetic.

Thanks for the input everyone. Sounds like she needs to get her thyroid checked to rule out any problems. I’m sure her GP will do all the necessary thyroid tests if we tell her our concerns about it.


Good to know. She had been getting IV iron treatments but the docs decided she was ready to stop those so maybe her iron and/or hemoglobin levels have dropped.


Interesting. She is a newly diagnosed diabetic (type 1) so that might have something to do with it. She does get horrible chills when her blood sugar gets too low.

Alex has been feeling really crummy today with cold-like symptoms so maybe the coldness/chills are just due to something as simple as her body fighting the virus for the last week or so. If she is getting sick, I hope her body is up to the task of fighting it, because that last cold she had ended up in pneumonia and a week long hospitalization. She’s definitely progressed in her recovery since then so I’m hopeful it will just be an uncomplicated cold.

Thanks again for all the information and ideas,
Ryan