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My MIL is always cold. She's losing words but not the word COLD. I heat my house to 72 but that is freezing to her. She is bedbound and covered with minimum of 4 blankets at all times. Also, one of them is electric blanket. If she is unsettled for any reason it still comes out as.............."It's cold in here."
Honestly, it is very expensive to heat my house to 90............just to keep her head and shoulders warmer. (She's covered with blankets everywhere else) but nothing is good enough and the implication to visitors is that I am freezing her out. Her bed is in my living room (very high ceiling) so the warm air goes right up there.
A friend of mine said to try a scarf around her neck which would give the warm, cozy feeling so I just tried that.

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My father had the worst time with feeling cold. No matter how warm the house was, he was never warm. My mother now also has the problem of feeling cold. I think it is caused by not moving and having a low metabolic rate. They aren't generating any internal heat, so get cold to the core. I don't think there is anything we can do about it without killing everything else in the house with heat stress. We can encourage our elders to dress warm and use blankets, but what they will do can often differ from what we encourage.

This reminds me of a story I once read where the kids said, "Let's put on our shorts and visit Grandma." It was the middle of winter and snow was on the ground. So true. It is part of getting old for many people, not being able to get warm.
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BTW, I keep the vents in my rooms closed, so my mother can run the heat in her part of the house. Summers are the worst, but so far we've been able to work things out.
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I keep throw blankets on the radiators in the room she is not in. When she says she is cold (often) I go grab a "warmy" and put it over her shoulders. She moans...."ahhhhh heavenly" I used to do that for my grand-kids when I lived in NW. Indiana with them. When I had to leave them to come take care of Momma, I told them EVERY warmy is a big hug from Gramma, no matter where I am. :)
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this is common for elders. they loose brown fat so they have none to keep them warm. also if they have thyroid issues this also makes people more sensitive to cold and heat which a lot of elders have. In my house Grandma is freezing and my spouse is hot and I am stuck in the middle!
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I live in Pittsburgh and it was a very cold winter. (Last night March 26 - temp was 14 with wind chill of 3 degrees). Very expensive when using heating oil :( I guess what drives me crazy is she complains that "it's cold in here" no matter how many dollars I put into the furnace. Just venting.
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Well, we live in Florida and mom keeps her heat on 78 in the winter and spring. This has resulted in her popcorn ceiling starting to peel. When I tell her the house has too much warmth or humidity in it (she never opens a window and it's stagnant, smelling like coffee grounds and egg shell garbage mixed with puppy pee pads) she says she doesn't smell anything and I am making her feel bad. She is usually cold too. I think it's an age thing, really. Mom is petite, 5'0 tall and 94 lbs. Even in summer she will wear a sweater and her father (who lived to be 99) was always in a sweater, too.
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Ran into the same issue with my mom. Always cold. She is on blood thinners and that will lead to the cold perception. Also, getting older, losing body fat, things slowing down, will lead to the cold issue. Became an issue with the dementia and constant accusations that I removed the "insulation from the walls" and that the house "has no insulation", of which, is insane. The "warmy" suggestion above is a great one.
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My grandfather was like that. Even in the summer he would need blankets. It got to the point where he would be sweating sometimes and we would have to take the blankets off.
We made him a rice bag out of an old towel that you microwave and then put it under his feet. That seemed to help. I know they make them for necks and shoulders, but we tried those and had more success with heating his feet.
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