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???

An announcement by the BMS is not a theory. Their announcement is based on scrutiny of all the evidence - which a press release (being a summary for the press) does not detail. If anyone reads the research then every piece of scientific research shows that the 'window of opportunity' exists.

Conversely, there is no evidence at all that women have a menopause in order to prevent cancer. This is pure speculation aka fantasy.

Evolution takes millions of years. Life expectancy in 1900 for women was 48 - so most women didn't have menopause. It could be argued (using the same 'logic') that women were better served by short lives as they then didn't suffer the diseases of longevity!

The reason this forum is not visited much is due to the demography of mumsnet; not that many women using Mumsnet are 50+)

It's not logical to suggest they aren't using this section due to posts about HRT. How would anyone know ? Women post asking for advice. Some of us believe that the advice of renowned international experts is worth repeating rather than our own theories that may condemn women to years of suffering, if they are based on prejudice and belief rather than science.

Pinkfrocks, your life expectancy stats are correct but you don't mention that due to the high mortality rate of under 5 year olds this brought down the life expectancy figures down disproportionately. Therefore if you took the life expectancy of a man at five rather than birth his chances of reaching seventy five were far greater once he had his fifth birthday than before.

Looking at numbers of population in each decade of age would be a perhaps better way of looking at this, so the numbers of woman at fifty, sixty and seventy during the 1891 census - this is information that government collected during the census from 1841 - 1911

Yes, you are right on that. But my point that evolution takes millions of years rather than dozens still stands.
However you look at life expectancy, it doesn't change the fact that women now are spending a third of their lives post-meno, more than at any other time (for the vast majority of women.)

It doesn't change the fact that once women are oestrogen- depleted, they suffer disease. This includes heart disease (women's rates rise to be the same as men's once they are post menopause) and osteoporosis affects 1:3 women. Lifestyle measures can of course help, but osteoporosis is linked to genetic factors such as build, weight, (small women have a higher risk) and hereditary factors. There is a lot women can do to offset these, but sometimes it's like trying to fill the bath without the plug in; oestrogen is necessary for bones which is why bone density declines with age. Being active can offset this to an extent but not totally in all women, which is why drug treatments exist to help.

It also doesn't alter the fact that women who use oestrogen-only HRT ( hysterectomised women) have fewer cases of breast cancer than women not using any form of HRT, so oestrogen can't be to 'blame' for cancer.

There is no evidence to my knowledge that the menopause exists to prevent women from developing cancer; this would be based on the premise that hormones cause cancer per se, ( oestrogen and progesterone are only 2 of the many hormones we have - what about the rest?)whereas the evidence to date proves otherwise.

HRT is becoming more and more person-specific. Look at some of the research papers of Nick Panay, for example (previous chairman of the BMS) - all of which are on his website - and see how the one-size-fits all HRT will one day be a thing of the past. Women will be able to be prescribed doses tailored to their individual needs, perhaps in tiny doses, or whatever is required, to optimise benefits and minimise risk. This is what I've used for many years under the guidance of my consultant who is a consultant with expertise menopause, and in the country. By becoming more aware, women can discuss this with their GP and obtain the same treatment and products on the NHS.

But the point surely of this thread is- don't shoot the messenger - only reporting what is out there is anyone cares to read it.

hahahaha
bit muddled with the evolutionary argument eh!
obviously the window of opportunity thing is a theory / construct / metaphor
Very hard to have a rational discussion with you guys??!

there is a link between Exposure to estrogen and cancer, hence tamoxifen (which blocks the estrogen receptor) is used in breast cancer.
??
Androgens are linked to prostrate cancer in men, growth hormone levels and linked to cancer levels??

No muddling at all on evolution.
No one can argue that life expectancy (across the whole population) has not continued to rise and consequently more and more women are living longer, post menopause.

I'm not sure what the 'argument' is about?

Is it that HRT is dangerous?
Is it that it ought not to be used?
Is it that the risks outweigh benefits?
Is it that women for whom complementary treatments and lifestyle aren't enough, should never use HRT as their 'suffering' is in some way linked to evolution?
Are we saying that menopause experts like Panay ( and my own who works with him) are fools, misguided, being disingenuous, and we know better?
Because that is what is coming across .

I think I'd like to be clear what the discussion is now about.

As for breast cancer and drugs like Tamoxifen, not all b cancer is eostrogen-dependent. Drawing a simple correlation between oestrogen/ cancer is just that- simplistic. There is no easy cause-effect.

Nick Panay updates on HRT

Very hard to have a rational discussion with you guys??!

No. The discussion is not with 'us guys' but with the whole of the medical world whose findings are being reported here by some of us.

I'm not sure how opinions based- presumably- on no medical training, no experience personally or professionally of HRT - are somehow more valid than research. Who is being irrational?

I'm not sure what the 'argument' is about
Some women don't find menopause problematic, I suspect that this is the best care scenario, a transition to reduced hormone levels which doesn't require pharmaceutical intervention.

I am interested in the factors which predispose women to debilitating menopausal symptoms or not, and how we could work on prevention, ie not needing hrt??

In addition to improving treatment for women who do need it

I think I am in line with Nick Pannay there:
??The main indication for HRT should be for symptom relief, rather than for the prevention of long-term problems, until we have better data on primary prevention. ??

When training to become a doctor how long is spent on learning about HRT? Or is this learnt through drug companies at the gp stage?

That was from his 'key points' on your earlier link

Obviously private consultants would be out of business if ??women were able to prevent menopausal symptoms
??

If someone is 'with' Panay on his statement in that quote, then they are presumably' with ' him too on the window of opportunity re. use of HRT? Unless it's a case of cherry picking.

See his website and look under presentations- there is a presentation there- slide format- which shows all the research and stats re. CVD, and the phrase 'window of opportunity'.

The idea that private consultant gynaecologists have only menopausal women as patients is ludicrous, as is the idea they'd 'go out of business'. Most consultants- including Panay- also work in the NHS. He runs the menopause clinic at the NHS Chelsea and Westminster hospital, just FYI.

And finally, HRT is not currently prescribed for prevention of disease. No one has said that here, so we are all in agreement! Wonderful!
HRT is for symptom-relief. If women benefit in other ways, long term, then that's great. Having said that, the most recent statements by the IMS focused on how at some point in the future there may be the possibility of prescribing HRT to protect women against certain diseases.

Gps and HRT- I think I read once that they get half a day's training on menopause which will presumably not cover much- and none at all if they are absent from that lecture. GPs only know a lot about a topic if they choose to have further training. The BMS runs workshops and conferences all over the UK to try to help GPs update their knowledge.

for anyone reading this thread with an interest in why human females have evolved with a postreproductive life span here are a couple of articles to be going on with

www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/peccei-meno.pdf

faculty.bennington.edu/~sherman/sex/evol%20of%20meno.pdf

I'm ignoring all your debate arguing and just saying am happy to be around melting women. Its BRILLIANT how you can be boiling and freezing all at the same time, during the hours of darkness.

Well it's been a useful 'debate' in as much as I've been prompted to look into related areas and have come a deeper understanding certain things.

But the problem of debilitating menopausal symptoms is for me a moot issue.
So, er thanks for your time, guys ??

Well I have finished the menopace with sage so will see if a couple of nights without feels different.

Please don't fall out on my thread . I'm sure we can all share experiences and ideas without it becoming personal. It discourages me from posting and I need to. It might also stop other women from contributing. Thank you.

Words I get you. I have enough academic discussion, analysing issues, and debating research at work. On Mumsnet's menopause board I'd like to speak with people about how to stop the sweat dripping down my legs and into my ballet flats

Wordsaremything - why don't you start another thread? I think the main person who hi-jacked your thread has gone, having stirred it all up! I do find the academic arguments very interesting but I agree - it's very rude to bring them up on someone else's thread without thought for the OP! A separate thread could be started specifically for this purpose and then everyone could argue and discuss without upsetting anyone!