Haryana Man Feels Cold in Summer and Hot in Winter! What Could Be the Cause of This Medical Mystery?
Santram could be suffering from a medical condition that makes him feel warm in winter and cold in summer.
Who in their right mind would want to stay under blankets during the scorching heat of the summer and have a cold water bath during the bone-chilling winters? Santram, a middle-aged man from Deroli village in Mahendragarh Harayana does. He told ANI that, unlike the rest of the world, he felt cold during the summer months and hot during the winter months. During the summers, he can be seen wrapped under layers of blankets. And during the cold winter months, he chews on ice cubes to keep himself cool. While this might seem downright bizarre to anyone outside Deroli, localities have been accustomed to his strange behaviour. They say that he’s been doing it from his childhood.
This rare condition seems like a medical aberration that makes him experience reactions contrary to that of the weather. Some medical conditions do make you more susceptible to feeling cold even during the summer months, like hypothyroidism, hypertension, diabetes or anaemia. And sometimes, cold months can make you sweat buckets if you have underlying conditions like hot flashes, hyperthyroidism, stress, etc. But it’s mind-boggling how Santram experiences both reactions with the change in the weather.
Dr. Pradip Shah, HOD, General Medicine Specialist at Fortis believes that Santram isn’t bluffing about his condition. “There might be a disability in the thermostat centre of the body, the hypothalamus. It could be a probable reason why he is experiencing these contradictory reactions to the weather conditions.”
The hypothalamus is a part of the brain that controls the temperature in the human body. When it senses that you are feeling hot, it signals the sweat glands to produce sweat to cool the body down. If you are feeling cold, it tells your muscles to contract and start shivering to create warmth. Any problem in the hypothalamus could trigger such an anomaly.
“Usually, a tumour or a stroke in the brain can cause a mix up in the way temperature is perceived by the body. Since he’s been suffering from the problem since childhood, there must have been a developmental disability in the thermostat centre of the brain,” says Dr. Shah.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 14, 2018 12:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).