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Q: I feel uncomfortable when the temperature drops to 65-70 degrees. While many people enjoy this lower temperature and wear short-sleeve shirts, I have to reach for my warm sweater or heavy blanket at night. Is there something wrong with my body?

A: It’s true that certain underlying medical problems like anemia, iron deficiency or a sluggish thyroid can cause a person to feel abnormally cold, but there’s also a good possibility that there’s nothing at all wrong with you medically. If you’re thin, you’ve got less body fat to contain the heat. Just as those who are overweight may complain of the heat, those who are lean and skinny tend to complain more of feeling cold.

If you’ve lost a lot of weight through dieting or illness, the room may feel just a little bit cooler than others might find it.

I’d suggest a medical workup, including a supersensitive TSH blood test to check for an underactive thyroid; a complete blood count to look for anemia or infection; iron studies to look for deficiency; and a test for adrenal gland function if a potential problem is suspected. Make sure that if you’re on blood-pressure medication, the pressure is well-controlled but not too low.

That said, some folks are perfectly healthy and just like a cold or warm room. That may have to do with the sensitivity of their skin’s temperature receptors. A home that’s too cold or too hot? Sometimes, it’s just a matter of personal taste.

Q: I have Baker’s cysts behind each of my knees. I do the treadmill five days a week and only occasionally have discomfort behind my knees. I’ve been told that people who have Baker’s cysts usually need to have knee replacement at some point. Should I continue to exercise on the treadmill?

A: A Baker’s cyst is the result of a buildup of fluid whose job it is to bathe and lubricate the cartilage that cushions the upper bone in the leg (femur) and a bone in the lower leg (tibia). If there’s knee trauma, or inflammation from rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis, the cartilage is damaged in some way. That means those two bones will grind against each other due to a lack of adequate joint cushioning. The body attempts to deal with such irritation by making more joint fluid. Our bodies create a similar protective environment when we get a blister.

When there’s an excess amount of joint fluid produced as a result of inflammation, sometimes the joint space can’t neatly contain it all. What happens next is that the joint lining balloons out at its weakest point — a space in back of the knee. A bulging Baker’s cyst of joint fluid can be quite painful; other times it’s not painful, but just gets in the way of bending the knee.

Baker’s cysts indicate swelling and inflammation at the knee. To simply remove the fluid with a needle won’t cure it, because the fluid will just re-accumulate unless the knee joint inflammation is dealt with.

Keep up walking and exercise as you can, but I’d discourage running on arthritic knees. For pain, I’d use Tylenol and anti-inflammatory meds like ibuprofen; ice packs alternating with heat; and consider a steroid injection into the knee joint and the cyst area.

Rheumatoid arthritis needs disease-modifying drugs like hydroxychloroquine or methotrexate. Sometimes, surgery on the cyst and the knee joint is what’s needed to get rid of a cyst once and for all.