Heat intolerance and muscle weakness

I have always had a little heat intolerance when it came to chronic illnesses. Mostly my migraine disease. Just made it worse. And then I couldn’t sleep which made it worse the next day. Anyway, now I definitely have issues with heat.

Now with the hot summer I am noticing the heat intolerance is making other factors come to light that are a problem. My doc thinks this may be MS related but I don’t have a diagnosis so I have no clue yet, until I see my neurologist.

Drop foot

Foot drop, sometimes called drop foot, is a general term for difficulty lifting the front part of the foot. If you have foot drop, the front of your foot might drag on the ground when you walk.

Foot drop isn’t a disease. Rather, it is a sign of an underlying neurological, muscular or anatomical problem.

Mayo clinic

I noticed immediately with the drop foot. I would get out of a hot bath and my foot would feel heavier and drag more. It would last for a bit too. So having a nice hot bath sort of made it hard to get about afterward. Had to shake that off before I went anywhere.

With the summer heat, it has been acting up so much. Just getting so heavy and dragging faster than it would otherwise. That made it hard to get around.

Muscle weakness

Now with the heat in the summer I noticed my fatigue getting immensely worse and with it my muscle weakness getting severe. With the drop foot getting worse. So it felt like my legs could barely carry me at all and were heavy. Stairs became a problem on these days. Incredibly hard to go up a few stairs.

Sort of a big problem without air conditioning. I looked up heat intolerance and it highly recommended an air conditioner. So I forked out for a portable one. And I have seen improvements already. With just mobility in the apartment overall.

And my capacity to exercise returned- it had became near impossible in the heat with that muscle weakness.

The tips

Here are the tips I read for the type of heat intolerance I am experiencing in the muscles and the drop foot. In other words, may be MS related. May not be.

• Stay in air conditioned environments in high heat and high humidity. Avoid direct sunlight and the peak time of day between 11 am -3 pm.
• Wear loose, breathable clothing- This actually will never be an issue for me. Since I have FM, I hate constrictive clothing.
• Drink cold fluids
• Exercise in colder times of the day. Or colder environments. I was told to make sure to do cool-down exercise and then drink cold water too.
• Not a tip mentioned but I tend to avoid hot baths. Got for warm showers or warm baths and cool it down at the end.
• Additional pointers from another general site said to avoid alcohol
• There was reference to cooling cloths or other cooling clothes.

It is profound the difference that it makes to my overall mobility. That heat alone would make it so very difficult to get around. The cold makes me feel as stiff as the tin man, still I think I might prefer that to this fatigue and weakness that make it impossible to function and get around without finding ways around it. Still have no idea of the cause of it. Not really. Not until I talk to my neurologist.

References:

National MS Society

Medical New Today

MS diagnosis