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Original poster

Struggling with the mask - over heating

30 replies

Paranoidmarvin · 10/08/2020 07:00

My inner core body temperature is way above what it was before all this peri crap started.
So I have suffered a bit more in the normal U.K. weather let alone in this heat. I have an active job and have been sweating buckets for the last week. More so than any other year.

I took my son shopping in An indoor shopping centre this weekend to get him bits and pieces he needed for college. I went to an indoor one as I thought that would be better heat wise especially for me.

It was awful. The mask just made me hotter than I was already. I just got hotter and hotter in each shop I went to. To the point where I was overheating and felt faint.

This is not a I don’t want to wear a mask thread. As I will do what is needed and I will wear my mask. But it made my entire head hotter than I was already. And just felt like I was going to faint.

I’m not at the hot flushes stage yet just a general hotness all the ruddy time.
Any one else peri and struggling with this.

Any tips or ideas that u have to help with this next time I go out. Take a portable fan with me ?

I’m not going to not wear a mask but I will not be going to any shops unless I really have to as this was just awful.

OP posts:
Happydaysforever123 · 10/08/2020 07:01

Surgical masks are far cooler than material masks I have found.

Original poster
Paranoidmarvin · 10/08/2020 07:09

I have been using one of those. Ugh. I thought maybe a change of mask would help

OP posts:
JinglingHellsBells · 10/08/2020 07:14

I do almost all my shopping online- between Amazon, Wilko, Tesco, J Lewis and Ocado, I've hardly been in a shop for months- maybe 4 times and that was to break the monotony! If you are just going for bits and pieces for your son, ask him to look online- you can get most things.

Personally I don't find masks hot. I've used a paper one for the hairdressers, and material ones in a shop as I'm in and out in 15 minutes.

RumAndRaisinIceCream · 10/08/2020 07:15

I am at a similar life stage! I would get one of the hand held portable fans you can carry around. Or a small water bottle so you can spray your wrists/back of your neck with water

Iggly · 10/08/2020 07:18

Is your breathing ok? When I’m wearing a mask - if I’ve just walked fast or up some stairs, it’s harder to regain my breathing rhythm so I have to pull the mask away a little and recompose myself (not an issue normally, I’m in good shape!!)

Also is your hair down or up? Might be worth keeping it up. The weather is really hot anyway and you might feel that way regardless of a mask.

Original poster
Paranoidmarvin · 10/08/2020 07:33

@Iggly. My breathing is fine. Breathing in the mask is not an issue. I think it is just making me over heat on a body that is already over heated.

My hair is short. So nothing on my neck. I think I’m going to have to get a little hand held fan.

I only went as my son had not really left the house since March and he was desperate to go out.

OP posts:
FreshfieldsGal · 10/08/2020 08:04

Agree with the general hotness feeling. I always have a tin of Magicool with me (the proper one not the cheap pound shop version) and a small fan.
I've also found 4711 cologne on pulse points helps a lot (that was a tip from my DM!)

Mywifeandkids1 · 10/08/2020 08:05

Same! I suffer hyperhidrosis on my face and anxiety. I get very hot and sweaty in them and also get a headache. No advice to offer I’m afraid other than your not alone!

Bagelsandbrie · 10/08/2020 08:06

No words of wisdom but I feel exactly the same. It’s really crap.

InFiveMins · 10/08/2020 08:06

I would stop wearing one. It's clearly affecting your health.

FusionChefGeoff · 10/08/2020 08:07

Peppermint essential oil is supposed to be cooling so you could start carrying that and dab onto pulse points.

HotPatootiebootie · 10/08/2020 08:14

I have the same problem op. I'm currently on holiday and there is no exemptions from mask wearing indoors. Everybody has to wear them in shops. In the uk I'm exempt due to chronic sinusitis and ptsd linked to sexual abuse.

I found that these REALLY help me to stop over hearing and also somehow make it feel easier to breathe too. It's oddly like there is more air and much less claustrophobic. You can see I bought one, absolutely the purchase of the year!

Struggling with the mask - over heating
JinglingHellsBells · 10/08/2020 08:19

I would stop wearing one. It's clearly affecting your health.

Wow! InFiveMins

Not half as much as Covid would affect you or someone you passed it onto.

OP the law is a face covering you could wear a square type of scarf, folded and tied at the back of your head. Might not be so tight.

It is the LAW to wear a face covering. Exempt people are those with serious health issues and medics say that even people with asthma unless in the middle of an attack can use them.
Feeling hot is not exactly a health issue.

Original poster
Paranoidmarvin · 10/08/2020 09:04

@JinglingHellsBells I would never not wear one. But I may have a look at the scarf option

OP posts:
ssd · 10/08/2020 09:10

I have the same problem op.
But would a scarf not feel tighter and more restricted?

HotPatootiebootie · 10/08/2020 11:12

Just wear a visor instead of a mask. Much less invasive and it's still a face covering.

JennyTropic · 10/08/2020 16:36

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SeasideMaiden · 10/08/2020 17:44

Feeling hot is a medical issue for me. Just saying, re PP.

I'm exempt but wear one in shops. It's taken me a while to get used to it but I started doing that months before they brought it in as mandatory.

I collapse at the mere mention of summer. So I've had an awful time of things since about April with the warmth.

I've experimented with different kinds of masks or coverings and my favourite, heatwise, are from Lush. Fiddly because they're to be tied every time. But much lighter on me.

JazzleRazzle · 10/08/2020 17:55

Had exactly the same a few days ago! Trip into town shopping and got so hot with menopause and mask that I felt very dizzy and like I was going to pass out. I went into M & S and sat on the floor in a corner, against a pillar, of their fridge/freezer section with a cold drink for 20 mins until it all eased off and felt better.

DH hovered around me as he thought I was going to end up keeling over into floor. Luckily it was fairly quiet and no staff came over to ask why I was sat there, as am not sure how happy they would have been. Mind you, any attempt to move me and I would have been on the floor, until I had cooed down a bit, so they wouldn’t have been able to move me without a huge fuss anyway!

It is definitely something about the mask wearing that is making the heat worse. It like you are recycling the heat that you expel when you breathe out back into yourself so you are unable to keep a decent temperature.

Original poster
Paranoidmarvin · 10/08/2020 18:01

@JazzleRazzle this was me exactly. The mask made the heat worse. I hate being middle aged peri menopausal women at the moment. The heat. The hotter body temp. The mask. It’s a bad combination.

OP posts:
ssd · 10/08/2020 21:26

@HotPatootiebootie

Just wear a visor instead of a mask. Much less invasive and it's still a face covering.
Not in Scotland a visor isn't enough now.

I'm dreading wearing a mask for 8 hours at work, in a hot shop with no air conditioning Sad

torydeathdrug · 10/08/2020 21:32

Surgical ones are much cooler.

dh & the dc are fine with fabric ones but I get unbearably hot & flushed in them so I stick with the disposable ones now (I use each one many times, aired out if necessary & discovered quite by accident that they survive a few goes through the washing machine too - makes me feel less bad about single use stuff!).

KatzP · 10/08/2020 21:40

Having the same problem. I’m just avoiding going indoors as much as I can but not looking forward to returning to office and the tube journey in.

amazonkiller · 11/08/2020 08:21

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taeglas · 11/08/2020 09:13

I use a cooling towel.
www.amazon.co.uk/YQXCC-Cooling-Towel-Feeling-Friendly/dp/B07PV721TC?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
Helped to make indoors much more tolerable when mask wearing.