Hot Feet Can Affect Your Sleep

I always have hot feet at night. Some people’s feet are little ice balls but mine are smoking. It’s not athletes’ foot or from wearing python boots in July. They’re just hot. The tops of my feet seem fine to the touch, but the sole is several degrees warmer. I have to sleep with my feet out from under the covers. If I don’t, my feet bother me so much I can’t get to sleep.

I need a name for my affliction and maybe a foundation dedicated to its resolve. Well, “hot feet” in stupid Latin would be Hotus Feetus. And for stupid and lazy people, we’ll call it HF. There. I now have HF syndrome and The Institute for the Cure of HF.

So give generously to find a cure. All donations are completely tax deductible, like my bar tabs as a medical expense and my cat as my infirm dependent grandmother.

All my cures are self prescribed. I start with my feet out from under the covers. If that doesn’t’t work, I’ll lie on my stomach and bend my knees to a 90 degree angle. My theory being if I can get the blood to drain out my feet they may cool off. This only seems to work in the mildest of cases.

I’ve also stood in an empty porcelain bathtub. They’re cool and it sometimes helps. Or sit on the edge of the tub, put in the plug and stick my feet in a small pool of cold water. Sometimes holding them under a stream of cold water from the tap is the way to go.

I’ve also gone down to the basement to stand on the cold cement floor. This works well in the winter. In some extreme cases I’ve also gone outside in winter when its 20 below to stand on the ice covered cement walkway and a few times right out into the snow until my feet are so cold they hurt.

After alleviating my HF, I can almost always go back, get into bed, stick my feet out and go right to sleep.

So hot feet, although rare, may affect your sleep like it does mine.

Lately, I have been using a frozen pack. I got them in the bandage section of the drug store – they can be frozen or heated to treat sprains. I have a few that are about 11″ long by 5″ wide. I take one at a time out of the freezer, sit down, place it on the floor and gently rest my foot on it.

It hurts so good. Then I’ll switch to the other foot and keep rotating until it’s thawed out. If needed I’ll put it back in the freezer and get another one out.