If it’s hot, I hate it! When MS temperature sensitivity torments you

You know you’re onto something when you start seeing a rise in MS symptoms.

Albeit temporarily, Uhthoff’s Syndrome (also called Uhthoff’s Phenomenon or Uhthoff’s Signs) refers to a pseudo-relapse caused by a rise in body temperature, and oh, do I hate it.

Heat exposure during the spring and summer months have me grumbling, wishing, and praying for a change in seasons, bad weather and low temperatures. If you live in Ireland, its temperate climate often reveals itself as if it was a hormonal teenage kid: there’s no rhyme or reason to its fluctuating patterns of behaviour for a period of time. Three seasons in one day often feels like a deliberate affair, out to get you to sign over your rights to wearing elegant clothes, especially now that each year Irish summers are getting warmer, and heatwaves hang around longer than should be allowed.

Anyone who intimately knows about Uhthoff syndrome will tell you how it upsets them as it interferes with their daily life and functional capacity, even if it is only considered a pseudo-flareup or pseudo-exacerbation. Neurological symptoms worsen for up to 24 hours, and your fatigue, balance, and visual acuity deteriorate, and your physiological and cognitive functions take a hit. Aside from warmer seasons, Uhthoff’s can also be triggered by – don’t laugh – hot food, hot showers, exercising, cooking or anything else that raises your body temperature by a mere 0.5° Celsius or 32.9° Fahrenheit.

In short, you’re in need of a cooling vest or layering up or down your oufits – think rainbow cakes or geological layers in the Grand Canyon. Choose outfits that will prove you are indeed more skilled at sensing thermal fluctuations than your TV’s weatherman, if not, heat exposure can hit you hard for up to 24 hours. Similarly, Uhthoff will have no problem making your MS look like the butt of the joke when Uhthoff’s symptoms turn you into an attractive social media meme.

Consider it ‘been there, done that.’

In short: I bloody hate spring, summer and anything or anyone who dials up the floor and central heating just because it’s 7AM or 11PM even when the house is already warm enough.

So, can we please agree that there are cold, warm, hot, and insanely detectable, escalating weather patterns and conditions that already impact people with neurological conditions? This is not hyperbole, me channeling Greta Thunberg or me wishing for a new wardrobe.

(Well… no, wait… A girl always wants a new wardrobe, right?)

(Oh, i do admire young Greta’s unwavering fight against CEOs, presidents and kings!)

I understand that if you don’t have MS, it is hard to grasp how a raise of 0.5° Celsius is enough to make you want to lie on a cold floor, run into the supermarket’s freezer department, eat lots of ice cubes or emigrate to the north or south pole. It does impact people who happen to have MS attached to their bodily functions.

I kid you not.

So, next time you see me with an ice cream in hand, dripping buckets of salty fluids, and in need of medical attention, it’s not the ice cream’s fault.

Read more about Uhthoff’s Phenomenon on my blog:

Heat sensitivity and MS?

Too warm for you? Heat sensitivity explained!

References:

Uhthoff Phenomenon, National Library of Medicine, NIH

Enjoying the Summer Weather, MS Ireland

Uhthoff’s Phenomenon in MS: Understanding Overheating, Healthline

Temperature sensitivity, MS Trust

Temperature sensitivity in multiple sclerosis: An overview of its impact on sensory and cognitive symptoms, TandFonline

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