Originally published on 14th April 2016 Last updated on 20th May 2024
Cold intolerance is often related to thyroid function, and most often hypothyroidism.
What is Cold Intolerance?
Cold intolerance is described as feeling very sensitive to cold temperatures. It is more severe than the normal feeling most people get when they are feeling cold. If you have cold intolerance, you probably feel too cold when everyone else feels ‘just right’ or warm.
Do you ever find yourself layering up when others aren’t?
The Thyroid Connection
As the main purpose of thyroid hormone is to run the metabolism, people with an underactive thyroid or hypothyroidism (and often not optimally treated) may have symptoms associated with a slow metabolism, such as cold intolerance.
The thyroid gland has to be functioning properly to burn calories and create heat and fuel. This is your metabolism. Creating heat and fuel is obviously very important, in particular for your body heat and energy level.
The hypothalamus, located in the brain, regulates our body temperature by speaking to the pituitary gland, which in turn tells the thyroid gland (via TSH) to increase or decrease the amount of thyroid hormone it is producing, which manages our metabolism. The two main hormones your thyroid produces, T3 and T4, are important in this process.
If there is a problem with this sequence, e.g. too little or too much thyroid hormone is being produced, our metabolism being affected can result in cold intolerance or heat intolerance.
More Symptoms
Feeling cold intolerance increases your body’s need for more thyroid hormone, which can make you feel more hypothyroid. Which is why you may have increased hypothyroidism symptoms when exposed to the cold, such as fatigue and brain fog.
This can cause your TSH level to rise and your Free T4 and Free T3 levels to drop.
Tests
If you are often colder than those around you, you should check your thyroid function.
Cold intolerance is not an illness, it is a symptom of an underlying condition, such as poorly treated hypothyroidism. Most people seem to feel best with optimal thyroid levels, as opposed to just being ‘within range’, so getting your thyroid levels optimised could really help improve cold intolerance.
People with normal thyroid function can produce more thyroid hormones to generate more heat. Those who rely on daily thyroid medication can’t do this. So some thyroid patients find they need to increase their thyroid medication dosage slightly at colder times of the year (though this should always be done by a doctor, not by yourself). Read more about this here.
Other possible causes for cold intolerance can include low nutrient levels, such as low Iron or Vitamin D levels, which commonly present in thyroid patients. It is also worth exploring these.
Have you experienced cold intolerance with hypothyroidism?
Get the book Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate: When You’re Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired, which builds on this article in detail. Learn how Rachel reclaimed her life when thyroid medication wasn’t helping.
2 Comments
Louise Hart
November 13, 2020 at 11:51 pmHave 6 nodules of which 1 is quite large
Was advised by 5 MD’s over 10 years to have thyroïdectomie which i turned down after fine needle biopsies which could not
ascertain that I had Cancer
my last thyroid blood work indicated that thyroid was still functioning but on the lower end. Now at 71 years of age find myself very cold temp 95f to 97 and have chills. other times I wake up in a sweat
Help
louise
Paul K. Suh
October 21, 2020 at 3:19 am1. many year go when I worked undergraduate laboratory, I worked with radioactive matter
2. about 15 year later, health doctor found my thyroid was swallowed
3. after doctors examination, the thyroid specialist operated to remove the swallowed part of
my thyroid.
4. I then continued to feel cold throughout the year, first mild, now severely.
5. I now suffer other ailments through out the body.
6. I now need your expert help to recover my health.
Thank you or your help.