Menopause and Hot Flashes

My fan...less than 2 dollars at Pier One Imports

It works wonders

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Hey Girls,

Hate to tell you this, but it’s inevitable; your period is not going to last forever. Mine left, came back, left, came back, left for fourteen months, and came back again! This time I think it’s gone for good.

My third and last child arrived when I was forty-two years old. Ovulation continued to occur monthly until I was forty-five. During the next year, my signs of ovulation became milder and questionable. “I’m beginning menopause,” I thought. My mother told me her last period was at age forty-six (although she had a surprise two years later, but that’s another story), so surely my last one was just around the corner.

Ha! Not so.

That thing lasted off and on for the next six years. And, I’m still not one hundred percent certain that the last egg is gone - and I’m fifty-one!

My gyno is puzzled. My numbers say “menopause” and my sono looks good, but still, less than a year ago another egg came from out of the woodwork. Hmmmm…

Let’s talk about hot flashes.

“Ohhhh…I’m so hotttt.” Sounds like I'm talking to my husband, but I’m usually taking my hands out of hot dish water to pull my hair off my neck and up into a ponytail.

Seriously and thankfully, my hot flashes are mild and seldom. To some degree, they are controllable. I can always connect a hot flash, aka power surge, to something that I’m doing.

List of possibilities:

- sleeping in too much heat

- flat ironing or curling my hair in a hurry

- blow drying my daughters’ hair when I’m not in the mood

- drinking a hot beverage when overdressed

- being overdressed (sometimes anything more than a bra and panties)

- frustration with my child/children

- driving my car wearing a coat

- the first challenge during my horseback riding or tennis lesson (Sometimes I have to take off my sun glasses and wipe away steam so that I can see. Yes, my hot head caused the steam on the sun glasses.)

- hard candy

Do you see some common threads?

If I can avoid heat, sugar, physical challenges, and frustration, I’ll never have another hot flash.

So far, menopause is not bad. I deal with the glow and the grease that pops out of my facial pores during the flash with a tissue, and the sweat that may occur while sleeping, with a fan. Mentally, I'm actually much calmer and I feel somewhat free. After the irritability of PMS and perimenopause, I could only go up. Or, was it my three stair step toddlers/preschoolers taking me over the edge? Hmmmm…

From what I’m told by various friends, symptoms range from very mild to extreme. Most handle it with a sense of humor. More than once, I've been told that speeding down the highway with your head out of the window is a good remedy for a hot flash.

Regardless of how and when menopause happens to you, keep in mind that many other women share your particular symptoms and emotions. Let’s stop comparing, competing, and whispering. After all, we’re sisters. :)

Anything you want to say about menopause? Any info or suggestions - especially for those that have had surgery or extreme symptoms? Got anything to add to my “cause of a hot flash” list? :)