Please help- hot flushes shivering palpitations night sweats

[Wordsaremything]

i feel as if I've aged 15 years in the last three months. Just turned 49. Bloods done a while ago to rule out anything else. All that fine.

Symptoms are really ramping up. Cycle irregular ( can cope with that) but the hot flushes seemingly provoked by the tiniest stressor have been miserable in the hot weather esp at work where the air con is broken and a long commute on packed trains.

Now getting night sweats and palpitations alternating with a strange creepy/ shivery feeling all over my upper body.

So tired, largely due to constant nights of broken sleep.

Not keen on hrt. Just paid a fortune for goose down duvet and high thread count cotton bedding - do I need to rethink and get a wool duvet? I sleep naked (alone thankfully can't bear the thought of another body in there with me!) with windows open around house to try and get a draught - but then end up freezing with the sweating.

I had another terrible night last night and I could cry! This is not like me at all. Normally power on through physical discomfort but this is fast becoming intolerable.

Advice, sympathy? Please???

HRT is not 'medication' in the true sense- it's not a disease.

Menopause if for life. Some symptoms are short lived for some people ( flushes, sweats, insomnia, mood swings) whereas for others they last into their 70s and 80s. (I know someone who has gone back to HRT at 75 after a 6-month break)

Longer term consequences of the menopause include low bone density, heart disease ( women are protected compared to men up to the menopause) weak pelvic floor, vaginal atrophy, loss of collagen from the spaces between the vertebra (causing back pain) and loss of muscle tone.

We simply weren't designed to live a third of our lives post-meno. Up until a hundred years ago many women would die by the age of 50 and life expectancy was around mid 60s for a long time.

Medications are used to treat conditions or syndromes as well as diseases.

(peri)Menopause might be a condition, might be a disorder, or even a syndrome, depending which source you consult. If we're living too long, then living too long might be the actual disorder.

It's not medication because the molecular structure of most oestrogen and progesterone (the body-identical sort) is exactly that- the same as we'd produce ourselves.

But you're saying we should die sooner to prevent the problems occurring?

I don't think life expectancy is going in that direction just yet.

Update: I swapped my lovely goose down duvet for my old microfibre one and slept so much better - only woke a couple of times. Also didn't eat heavily last night and had no alcohol. Am still flushing but not so badly. More of the weird cold shivers but that's bearable. Acid test will be back at work on Tuesday. I've also found some magnesium ok from boots which includes multi vit and seemed to work with pmt. started taking those too. Will report back. Thanks all. The meno forums someone linked to is v useful too.

Not getting into discussion on hrt but a small thing that helped me in a practical way was finishing my shower in the morning with a very cold shower and a cold shower before bed as brought down body heat. Didn't eliminate flushes completely but definitely reduced them and made me more comfortable. Also good news is for me they went away. Get a teeny odd one now otherwise they are gone.

I go around freezing most the time in Britain. Maybe I'll be moaning with best of them when HFs strike, but right now it sounds like bliss in the winter time. You may laugh at me now or later or both :).

But does menopause have to be for life? Those who continued having symptoms or 'had' to go back on HRT - for all we know, they could be alcohol and caffeine fixated, living off mountains of sugar/carbs all day!

Anecdotes are not data!

I'm sure that for some women symptoms are more severe than for others. We're all different. But it could also be the case that lifestyle changes might help reduce symptoms.

I could have written your pits op I'm 49 next month and think I'm finally going to make a drs appointment. I'm on holiday in a hot country and finding the hot flushes unbearable. I've tried the boots menopause night tablets but not made any difference, I was keen to avoid Hrt but after 3 months of crap sleep going to see what's on offer. I'm looking forward to going home to the cool

It's intriguing isn't it, BIWI. Some cultures seem to celebrate or embrace or be totally fine with menopause. Is that a lack of recognition of real problems women always face (ignored due to "the patrimony" ) or are there things about our culture/western lifestyle/? that makes (peri)menopause much harder for us in the west.

I don't fancy being incapacitated at work. That would drive me to use Meds.

I think it's not that some cultures embrace it but that the culture won't allow it to be talked about, even in UK it's only recently that peri and meno is being talked about more openly. It was a complete shock to me the severity of my symptoms, I honestly thought I was going mad.

Yes, I think that's really interesting. 'Women's' problems, like the menopause and sometimes period pains are often ignored or minimised. I think the menopause is somehow even worse, as it's bound up with the whole issue of fertility and therefore our perceived usefulness to society. After all, what function can we perform once we can no longer bear children?!

?I've had no period for about 18 months and my symptoms have eased off somewhat.
Sleep is better although I find I don't need as much of it and being very strict about 'sleep hygiene' seems to be my best strategy ?.

Hot flushes are milder and not as frequent, they are such weird things though!
Very reminiscent of teenage blushes.

I didn't feel the need for medical intervention but I appreciate that my symptoms have been mild compared to some ?
?

The recent data shows that around 25% of women have symptoms - ie flushes etc- for 10 years or longer.

Menopause by definition lasts forever.
Living in an oestrogen-deficient state for 30 years puts women at risk from diseases that are linked to low oestrogen- osteoporosis ( 1:2 / 1:3 women over the age of 50 has it) and CVD. Not to mention things that don't kill but cause poor quality of life- bladder issues, prolapse, vaginal atrophy, depression.

The person I mentioned who went back on HRT at 75 is an extremely intelligent, highly educated woman who did everything she could in terms of lifestyle before using it.

I get frustrated at the implication that if only women had a healthier lifestyle they'd not need HRT. In a previous post I mentioned how I had a super-healthy lifestyle (as did my mum when she was having flushes in her 80s), a BMI of 19, and still had symptoms that couldn't be fixed with 'natural' stuff.

A healthier lifestyle is needed of course, but it's not always the answer.

?But If menopause is a deficiency why did we evolve to have it as a phase of life?

Do you think that the 'grandmother hypothesis' has any credence Pinkfrocks?

a super-healthy lifestyle
Also can you be more specific, is there an optimal life style?
My understanding is that we don't have have any real consensus on that one? ?

I guess the question I want to know is how many women have debilitating * symptoms for X-many yrs or longer (assuming no treatment). Some of the symptoms of menopause don't seem even slightly annoying to me (maybe because I'm not there yet admittedly). So that's why I'm trying to think in terms of "debilitating".

*debilitating as they define themselves, admittedly no other way to do it!

iirc it was places like Korea & Japan where they have a long precedent of lots of people living to a very old age, where (peri)menopause is not considered much of a problem. It used to be thought that soya in their diet was the only reason they managed so well, but now the idea is that cultural attitudes made a difference, too.

I tried to find something about what the 7th day adventists recommend, because they are so into healthy lifestyle & are long lived. Their documents seem to say all those usual messages they have about lifestyle at any age, plus HRT Meds are probably fine too.

I wonder if it is luck or genetics or some other factors as yet unknown which determine to what degree menopause is debilitating?

I struggle with the idea that women are inherently 'broken' at menopause ?and must be fixed by medication

I think much more research is needed, hopefully as 50 plus women increasingly ?have roles in public life our health will be seen as important.

suzanne- evolution takes millions of years- not a hundred.
I can't find your reference to grandmothers...???

Life Expectancy after 1800 (This is just something I found on a local history site.)

^Life expectancy rose further in Britain in the late 19th century. By 1900 in Britain it was about 47 for a man and about 50 for a woman.
Things continued to improve in Britain in the early 20th century. In particular death in childhood became far less common and by the early 1930s life expectancy for a man at birth was about 60. By the 1950s it had risen to about 65.^

Super healthy lifestyle? I can only speak for myself and appreciate not everyone will agree but what works for me is: 'clean food' (ie nothing in cans or ready made), no refined carbs (I'm pretty much following the Paleo diet), and no alcohol, caffeine, sugar (maybe 1 tsp daily as honey) and moderate exercise 4-5 times week.

Re. women in the east- it's thought now that diet does play a huge role because when women from Japan etc migrate to the west their rates of lifestyle -related disease increases.

Surely you are familiar with the grandmother hypothesis?
(If not you can just google it)?

debilitating for most women would mean being unable to sleep for days, weeks, months and years. Unable to sleep would mean snatching 3-4 hours a night at best. No one knows how many women are affected because on the whole women soldier on and don't always link their insomnia, depression and anxiety or tiredness to the menopause. My mother has never had a decent night's sleep since the menopause but when she asked for HRT over 60 she was told she was too old to start it due to risk factors.

grandmother-if you are talking about women being needed as grandmothers to look after grandchildren and therefore not being fertile themselves, so they can devote time to the grandchild, then yes- I know about that and think it's unlikely.

Sure I know how evolution works Pinkfrocks, but I don't understand your point here?
suzanne- evolution takes millions of years- not a hundred

women being needed as grandmothers to look after grandchildren and therefore not being fertile themselves, so they can devote time to the grandchild, then yes- I know about that and think it's unlikely

You don't think that the survival advantage conferred by grandmother's constituted a selective pressure?

debilitating for most women would mean being unable to sleep for days, weeks, months and years.

Ah, for me that would be due to having children. I'm told that reproduction is a biologically normal thing to do, mind. :).