I’ve only ever had a “warm flash” so far, though more frequently in the last few weeks. My face and throat feel as if I’m blushing, although nothing embarrassing has occurred, or my forehead breaks out in a light sweat even when I’m just sitting still and the room isn’t that warm.
It’s more irksome at nights. I can’t have anything tucked up around my neck or chin when I’m sleeping; I’ll go from chilly to uncomfortable in a matter of minutes and have to toss off anything that’s too close. Even though it’s still getting down into the 50s here at night, I’m sleeping with the window open a crack and a little fan on to keep the bedroom colder. I sometimes wake up with it down to about 60 degrees in the room and my nose, toes, and shoulders cold, but at least I’ve had a better night’s sleep and not so much tossing the quilt and bedsheet off and pulling it back over me at intervals.
I got my first migraine on the day my first period started. It should have clued me in, but I wasn’t sure exactly what my headaches were. Sometimes they felt like sinus headaches. My mom got really bad ones, but she attributed hers to a fall down concrete steps when she was about 19 (she was unconscious for a little while). But it wasn’t until I heard a doctor from ACHE being on interviewed on the radio (Terry Gross, IIRC). He listed five symptoms and said if you have two or more of the five, your headache was a migraine. I had 4.5 out of five. They were horrible and debilitating for years. Sometimes, I’d fluctuate between severe headache pain and severe nausea and vomiting for eight hours. But the symptom that really clinched it for me was that they’re connected in women with hormones. My migraines were almost always around my period.
Thank dog for sumaptritans. I swear they saved my life.
I was at the market with my sister, and I’d developed a migraine in the store. I was just trying to maintain while we finished our purchases, so I could get the hell out of there. The clerk said that when she started menopause her migraines went away. I was so looking forward to that! Sadly, for me, mine are fewer and less severe, but I still get them.
As for actual menopause, my periods were heavier and closer together for several years (like giant blood clots). Fortunately, while I had night sweats and warm flashes, I didn’t have the kind of ultra horrendous hot flashes some of you ladies have described. Once my periods stopped, they just stopped. Although I still get occasional PMS symptoms.
Yay I’ve discovered a new symptom! Now, when a hot flash starts, I get a horrible, prickly, itchy sensation all over my body but especially my chin. Oh joy…
So far it lasts as long at the hot flash which is about 1 minute or so. It hasn’t happened with the "warm flashes’ which seem to happen on and off, on and off all freaking day and night long.
My doctor has told me that my migraines would lessen or diminish after my hysterectomy, and I suppose they have been less frequent this past year unless something stressful like lack of sleep occurs to set one off.
The prescription I have is for Relpax (Eletriptan), which has been great. It takes about an hour to kick in, but takes care of migraines that would have sent me back to bed for the rest of the day. I’ve become a Relpax spokewoman since I started taking it, recommending it to friends or co-workers who also suffer migraines (“Ask you doctor if Relpax is right for you”).
Although sumitriptan works o.k. for me. I just have to make sure I take it in time. Nothing works after a migraine sets in. Or does the Relpax work even if you take it “late?”
Yes, it does. The first time I took one was after I got home from picking the prescription up at the pharmacy; I had a skull-splitting headache. The instructions say you can take a second pill if symptoms persist more than an hour, but the pain was gone by then. I don’t think I’ve ever had to take 2 for the same migraine.
I realized after I posted that I have been on anti-depressants (Zoloft, and then Effexor) since a couple of years after my fibroid treatments, and it was just recently when I went off of them. I’m a bit calendar-impaired, but I think I didn’t start having the warm glows until I was off the Effexor. Ladies with bad hot flashes - are any of y’all taking anti-depressants?
I’ve just been researching hormones and PMS, and came upon a lot of information on SSRIs. Apparently, estrogen is also a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and there are a lot of things that both estrogen and SSRIs are somewhat effective for.
So, I read that “SSRI’s are the gold standard for treating pre menstrual syndrome” (or something worse than “syndrome”, I guess) and for that purpose, you can take them when the symptoms begin, and stop taking them as soon as the period begins. That’s consistent with my experience with SSRIs. I told my doctor I was depressed, and I thought it was hormonal, and he said even if it was, I should try SSRIs first. And the Prozac worked within 2 hours, which isn’t typical for regular depression, but is apparently common for PMS-type depressions.
And the flip side is, all the references say that while estrogen is the gold standard for hot flashes, SSRIs are somewhat effective, too.
(see the section on"Depression in perimenopausal women" UpToDate)
I don’t know why this suddenly popped up as having new replies to it, but I just thought I’d update everyone that I’m now 52 & 1/2, and my damn periods are as regular as ever, and I’m not having anymore “warm” flashes. Last year, more than half of the ductwork at the place where I work was replaced. I’m assuming that has something to do with it. I also had a fibroid removed laparoscopically, even after two months of begging for a hysterectomy, and explaining that my mother died of ovarian cancer. They do not remove uteri from “fertile” women unless there is a “disease process,” and apparently a fibroid is not a “disease process.” I’m assuming that mostly means cancer.
I did get tested for the BRCA gene-- had that been positive, they would have done a prophylactic hysterectomy, but it wasn’t. Which is good and all, but I really wanted a hysterectomy.
Anyway, the symptoms I had a couple of years ago, the doctor thinks, were from the stress of my mother dying, and all the crap you have to do when someone dies. I had to drive out east three times (once in a rented van), and fly once, in the space of three months. A funeral, two other memorials, and cleaning out her apartment.
So that’s that.
I have revised my schedule for the ripping with the bare hands. Ripping will commence on my 55th birthday, if I have not had any menopausal symptoms by then.
May I ask a question? I was still in my 30s when my mom died, so we hadn’t really talk much about menopause… Anyway, have any of you who have experienced hot flashes also taken Niacin? I mean the regular kind, not the flush-free version. When you get the Niacin flush your skin is hot, red, prickly and kind of itchy - is that similar to a hormone induced hot flash? FloatyGimpy’s description certainly sounds similar.
I didn’t get the prickly, itchy part; it’s a heat that comes from under my skin, like a fever but w/o the wooziness. There was one time my face flushed so hot and fast it almost hurt. Bit disconcerting in the Zaxby’s drive-thru.
I have never taken niacin, so I can’t compare directly. But I never felt prickly or itchy. I felt flushed and feverish. Sometimes I broke out in a sweat. Occasionally my face got so warm and damp that my glasses fogged up.
But mostly I felt feverish. To the extent that I sometimes wondered if I might actually be ill, but they would pass without any other symptoms. For a while I joked that I didn’t think I had malaria.
Bear in mind that people writing about menopause symptoms are likely to be the ones who had a bad time. Not everybody does.
My periods stopped – nice! Being frantically horny when there was no chance to do anything about it also stopped – nice! Being horny when I wanted to be continued. Good. Occasional mild hot flashes, no pools of sweat involved: mildly annoying, especially when I was sharing a house with my mother who wanted it too hot for me anyway; but a mild advantage when I was riding around on a tractor on a chilly day and didn’t want to go back to the house for another layer of clothes. They went away after a while, anyway. Moderate dryness, easily treatable, mostly doesn’t need to be.
My mother said she hardly noticed. In retrospect, the headaches she had around that time may have been related, though not recognized at the time as a symptom; but ibuprofen took care of those for me once it came on the market and I figured it out, and I’d been having them around my period when I had one, anyway. They’re also a lot rarer now.
So yes, some people have a really hard time with menopause. But you may not. Don’t worry about it unless it happens.
I’ve had niacin flush, and had the same question about hot flashes.
However, I haven’t had anything that I would call a “hot flash”. So, I’m still undecided.
Any ladies with severe hot flashes want to do an experiment? For science? It’s relatively easy to get niacin flush, just get a high dose niacin supplement!
I entered peri-menopause at age 42, which was a surprise because my mom didn’t stop until age 64. It started with the warm ups, but not exactly hot flashes and the nature of my periods changed, but they were still like clockwork, just shorter lasting and heavier. Then, it all changed in a flash. I had a super-light period that just didn’t stop. Along about day 32 it started getting heavier. Two days later, I was hemorrhaging. I called my clinic, which didn’t have a gyno and spoke to the nurse. She had me immediately hie myself to the branch closest to my office (she wanted to send an ambulance for me but the clinic was much closer than the hospital). When I walked in the door there, they had been notified and were waiting. What followed is a long story but to sum up, I was discovered to have PCOS and crazy amounts of estrogen in my system. Though we tried many alternatives to the initially recommended complete hysterectomy, I eventually lost both my ovaries. I went through menopause 4 times, as my body tried to adjust to changes in hormonal balance.
I’m now 58, and using a estrogen cream to make up for my total lack of estrogen (life is uncomfortable without a trace of estrogen). I’ll have a hot flash if I forget my twice weekly dose of the stuff. Apparently the PCOS runs in my father’s side of the family but, of course, my grandmother had long passed away and she never would have been comfortable speaking about that. At any rate, I’m very glad that we resolved the problem because medical menopause is like running into a brick wall.
I’ve had both. The niacin flush was MUCH worse. I felt hot, weak, and felt like I was going to pass out. My hot flashes, while annoying, were just heat without the weakness and nearly passing out.
I had surgical menopause five years ago and had about a year’s worth of hot flashes. Then they stopped. However, now I’m having occasional very mild flashes. WTF?? :mad::mad::mad:
