High Country Reflection © lynette sheppard
This month’s menopause mailbag deals with hot flashes, anxiety, insomnia, and so much more. Please take a moment to offer your advice and support in the comments section for our menopause goddess sisters.
Menopause Goddess sister L. writes from the U.K.:
Hot Flashes
Okay here’s a strange one and I’d love to know if anyone else has had this happen. A couple of weeks before my birthday this year, the hot flashes started and they were intense. Every couple of hours, every time I drank coffee, 4.00 am every night. So I stopped the coffee, started wearing layers and slept with just a sheet to stay cool.
Here we are almost 2 months later and they’ve all but stopped. One or two a week, nothing at night now. Still not drinking coffee though. I’d been told they’d go on for years … can they start and stop like this? Anyone else had this happen?
OK ladies, any suggestions? Have you all had this happen to you?
MPG: I, Lynette, got hot flashes from drinking hot beverages – cold coffee was not a problem. And even that got better.
And R. shares her hot flash remedy / discovery:
Just a heads up: I quit eating all sugar (including fruit juice and fruit) and ALL hot flashes stopped.
If I really want sugar (read fruit or chocolate) , I eat a bunch of vegetables before hand and they slow down the ingestion of sugar so I still don’t get hot flashes. Pass it on, it may help others!
MPG: Thanks, R. Definitely worth a try. And remember, goddesses, to keep a hot flash journal with what you did immediately before to find out what your own specific hot flash triggers are. Every women is unique.
M. writes requesting help:
I am soon to be 48 and 12 months into hormone hell, as I affectionately call it. I have considered myself to be strong, fun loving and positive. My perimenopause bomb hit from out of nowhere. mainly insomnia and anxiety. Totally foreign! I am on my second ND, started bioidentical progesterone 2 months ago. reasearch and ttes/labs assured me this is perimenopause. What is most difficult are the periods of insomnia and anxiety. I Would love to share with other women, help getting through these normal, common, horrible symptoms!
MPG: Readers, please help. And M., you might want to set up your own goddess group. It literally saved all of us Venuses. Click on the links below for the How To Guide blog entries.
Creating A Menopause Goddess Group: A How To Guide Pt. I
Creating A Menopause Goddess Group: A How To Guide Pt. II
And S. writes to share her hair loss experience (which is way more common than we are ever led to believe!):
You are the answer to my prayers. My hair started falling out and I have noticeable scalp showing through. I believe it is from the HRT. I wasn’t sure how to stop, but after finding you, I have decided to cut pill in half and gradually stop taking bio-identical hormones. I have minimal wrinkles and I am concerned that skin will suffer…..bald or wrinkled….what a choice!
MPG: LOL, what a choice indeed. I remember wanting to take out stock in a hat company so at least I could cover my head. Sheesh, it’s a good thing we don’t lose our sense of humor!
Hot Flash Prevention – Avoiding the ?Triggers? | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com
All I Know About Stopping HRT So Far | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com
Holla for replacing Hormones | Kerri Zane
Choose The Right Menopause Remedy Part II | Menopause Goddess Blog dot com
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My lifetime of low grade chronic anxiety hit high gear when I became fully menopausal. I’m now on the right antidepressant (and I will never go off it!). Anxiety/Depression is huge in my family history, so it was probably a matter of time. But I went from through the roof to calm and ok within ONE day of getting the right med (I had to try several to find the right one). Brain chemistry is scary, but at least we have several choices of meds now. Talk to your primary provider, try therapy (I did off and on for years), exercise, have fun, etc. BUT if you need meds, don’t give up.
A.
Both smoking and being overweight can cause menopause to happen earlier. Treatments for cancer such as chemotherapy or radiation also can cause similar reductions in the age of menopause.
I am now over 60, I still have trouble sleeping some but I switched to soy milk and stay mostly away from white breads and all caffeine products. HELPED me a whole lot. I cut back on sugar a lot and that was hard due to my terrible sweet cravings. I have been HEAVY since I was in my 20’s and do not consider that a factor in my mood swings. I took Valium and Xanax in my youth but kicked that habit. It was prescribed for anxiety and helping me from having such horrid asthma attacks. What a completely stupid diagnosis. I do not smoke or drink and never have. I know my mother and my sister both had severe symptoms of night sweats and insomnia and I did not have it as bad.
I find the older I get the more moody but that is just old age creeping up on me at least that is what I have been told.
I was just in a Sleep Number bed store and they have just come out with a dual temp layer, which you can buy to put on the top of any bed. It’s not only a comfort layer, but has cooling | heating of the surface available on each side of the bed. I layed on the cool side. It was unbeleivable. Three settings, a timer, it’s the BOMB for curing temperature imbalances. Go see for yourself
Wow, thanks, Darcy. I am all over this! Off to the sleep number store for us!
In my opinion, the use of a psycho-active drug such as paroxetine,an SSRI anti-depressant, for treatment of symptoms caused by menopausal hormone deficiency is an abuse and mistreatment of women belonging in a medical museum as an example of medical iatrogenesis in women.
Paroxetine, Paxil is medically ineffective for treatment of hot flashes, or any menopausal symptom for that matter, Paroxetine, Paxil is one of the most addictive of the SSRI drugs, with warnings about severe withdrawal effects, loss of libido etc.
Menopause is a hormone deficiency state and the correct treatment is with hormones identical to those in the human body. Prescribing SSRI antidepressants for menopausal symptoms is a medical practice which should be halted immediately.
for more http://wp.me/p3gFbV-vs
jeffrey dach md
Dear Jeffrey, I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for voicing this!