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Hot flash! News flash! September is American Menopause Month!
Depending on your perspective this may or may not be something to celebrate. But the fact that there's a month in the year dedicated to the change of life acknowledges the many women struggling through a transition that hits us all differently.
The symptoms leading up to the end of our reproductive years vary from woman to woman so it's hard to get a gauge on what your personal experience might be. Symptoms include:
- Irregular periods
- Hot flashes
- Sleeplessness
- Dry skin
- Rapid heart beat
- Loss of libido
- Mood swings
- Vaginal dryness
- Urinary incontinence
- Depression
- Osteoporosis
- Hair loss and, a personal favorite
- Brain fog
Any of these sound familiar? Far too many of them were for me. Perimenopause rolled in when I was about 45. I remember visiting my doctor because I was having night sweats. I told him I was in menopause.
Knowing me as he does (I'm a doctor's daughter), he took my astute "diagnosis" with a slight roll of the eyes and a smile. Somewhat smug, he assured me that it was far too early for me to be in menopause. To pacify me, though, he took some tests. My estrogen was on the floor!
I take no pride in being right on this point. Menopause for me was hell. And it really felt that way. I was hot all the time. Day, night, it made no difference. I was just hot--not as in "boy is she hot" but as in sweaty, damp and uncomfortable. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.
Here's the anatomy of a hot flash. Just picture me as a match and somebody struck me. I remember so many times when I was literally on fire from the waist up. Never understood it but that's the mystique of menopause. Strange symptoms, weird feelings--anxiety as the adrenaline surged through me during each hot flash just as if I had run a marathon.
And a discussion of menopause wouldn't be complete without a few words about night sweats. A night sweat is basically a hot flash that hits while you're sleeping. Here's the drill. Wake up in the middle of the night in a panic. Nothing's wrong but your adrenaline tells you there is.
As you move up from deep sleep into consciousness, you realize you're cold. Wake up a little more and you realize the reason you're cold is that you are lying between 2 drenching wet sheets in sopping wet nightclothes. I--who sweats very little unless extreme exercise is involved--was amazed at the amount of sweat I could produce during a single night sweat. Buckets, I'm telling you. Just buckets.
I'm proud to say that I'm now post-menopausal. Yes, I've done the purge of the cabinet under the bathroom sink -- glass of wine in hand to celebrate being able to throw away boxes of Kotex and Tampons forever. And now it's over.
Well not exactly. I thought menopause had a beginning and an end. And for some women that's the case. For me the hot flashes still come although less frequently.
Over the more than 10 years since that first flash, I've tried everything from estrogen (natural and synthetic) to some exotic Peruvian herb. And I'm here to tell you I've only found one sure way to stop my hot flashes:
- Go into the kitchen.
- Open the freezer door.
- Stick my head in (this works so much better when the freezer is on the top or side!)
- Let the cold air drift out--especially over my neck.
- Stand there until the flash passes--which is actually pretty quick.
- Close the freezer door and hope that the next flash is somewhere near a kitchen.
Don't take my word for it though. What works for one, doesn't necessarily work for all. So between hot flashes, check out these websites that offer a myriad of resources to address your specific menopause symptoms or at least bring you the comfort of knowing you're in good company on the journey:
- Everything Menopause
- Minnie Pauz
- Menopause - The Blog
- Power Surge
- Cool News for Women
- Women to Women and
- Project Aware
One last thing -- if you've got some secret remedy for menopause symptoms, please share because millions of us are looking for new ways to survive the heat of midlife.
Signed,
One Hot Mama -- still.
