Night sweats - is there anything to make it stop?

[Janus]

Just that really! I am nearly 48 and must be going throught the menopause. Not that many symptoms but the night sweats are awful. It’s every night and I wake up soaking. I just sleep in a cotton vest and cotton pants but have to change both every night as they are wet. It’s really getting to me as I actually wake up freezing too as I’m wet and shivering. Is there anything to take to make it stop, natural or from gp?
Thanks.

I'm with FosterDog123 on this one. Natural if possible. I think I would take HRT though if the symptoms got too much. Fingers crossed atm not bad. That was an interesting question re the periods carrying on. I'll be glad when mine are done now.

Polly - to clarify, when I said our bodies don't care, I meant that they don't care that we're now living longer. The menopause comes regardless.

Also, when my symptoms were at their height, I was working full time in a senior management role, holding down a relationship and living with my disabled parents to look after them round the clock, so I know all about how to cope. I'm no tougher than anyone else, nor am I a martyr but hormone therapy just isn't for me.

Janus - give it longer than a week. It took 3 weeks before my sage supplements started to take effect.

As fosterdog says @Janus, i don’t think a week is long enough to assess efficacy of supplements. I would have thought minimum a month. Advice for general supplements is often 3 months.

Foster all I can say is that there are no medals for struggling on. I simply have no idea how you coped with a full time management role, which for some people is a 16 hr day, living with ageing parents etc if you were existing on maybe 2-3 hrs unbroken sleep at night for years on end. Which is what some women experience.

I know about the long term benefits to the whole body which HRT gives- brain, bones, heart, colon, skin, joints, heart. Even when the flushes have gone, the body deteriorates without estrogen.

You can't say it 'doesn't care' . It's whether you care or not about this. Your body is YOU not some separate entity.

Life is just too short to be suffering. We all lead busy lives. I went to one of the doctors mentioned a number of times on the Menopause Matters website and he sorted it. I don't have periods, hot flushes have gone. Could not be bothered with star oil etc.

I suspect some women just don't suffer too much during this time - my DM didn't and sailed through it.

Hillingdon so did you go on HRT then? I think my sleep is only disturbed because I wake up soaking and have to get up and change etc. If I could control that I don’t think I’d feel much different than I used to.
I will give the supplements a good month then, fingers crossed!

I did. Its made a huge difference. I saw Dr Pannay. I suspect seeing the responses on this thread that some women just don't have severe enough symptons. That is their choice of course.

Polly, I have booked back in next month and will do lots of reading. Infact, I might phone back and see if theres something sooner, I don't know if I can carry on with the whole mess of symptoms now. I run a business and am slowly losing the ends of the string on everything I do, its all become an uphill battle and my business is suffering.

I know some women who have sailed through with no HRT, they didn't have the same level of symptoms etc. We are all different.

Janus, it is a nightmare isn't it, I don't know how my husband can share a bed with me. I change in the night and we sometimes have to change the bed clothes and his too if I have cuddled up to him. My friend is further along the road than me (and now lucky enough to have HRT with no blood test as she is older) and she only ever had a hot flush from the breast up, really not nice at all whereas you sound like me, soaked from head to toe like you've been in the shower fully clothed? I don't wake up hot, I wake up freezing cold, do you? Can I ask what the supplements are you got? I have the Tesco menopause one but only started it yesterday.

Ooooh Your drs are talking bollocks. Sorry to be blunt. They admit that blood tests are not accurate but they won't diagnose on your symptoms. Yes, of course, they have to exclude all other conditions because it's possibly something else.

To be honest I'd not faff about with your GP any more. They aren't experts and when it comes to meno, very few know very much.

You need to insist on a 2nd opinion from a consultant - one who is sympathetic and who is a menopause / early menopause specialist ( not all consultants have the same areas of expertise.)

If your GP can't help, it's their duty to refer you on. If they refuse, you can see someone of your choice privately and it will cost you maybe £200.

I was also having night sweats, I'm 49. I started low carbing in JAN and they have almost gone. I only noticed when another meneber on the bootcamp thread commented her hot flushes had disappeared that I realised I was also having a similar reduction in my night sweats. I have also pretty much cut out alcohol and have drunk about seven times this year. So not sure if that makes a difference, but I do think diet makes a difference.

Janus I take black cohosh and it's really helped my sweats. I'm 47 and have very regular periods but they're extremely light - 3 days total and light. I really don't get on with artificial hormones - the Mirena also made me bleed constantly, so did POP so I'd rather just leave things alone if possible. Because of my age I could be prescribed HRT without tests, I believe the guidelines are for HRT after the age of 45 but again, going to try everything and it will have to be unendurable to take HRT as artificial hormones also very negatively affected my mood and I now have PTSD and depression from life events that I didn't have when I used Mirena and POP so I don't want to chance HRT.

Expat HRT is not artificial hormones. The Mirena is a synthetic hormone. Levenorgestrol.

99% of HRT is estradiol which is the exact molecular structure as our own estrogen, made from yams.

Polly it's not from my own body, it's from a yam, and every time I've diced with similar meds that affect hormones it has had extremely negative consequences on me. I simply cannot chance that with my mental health, which I work very hard to control. There is simply no way I would even try that unless my symptoms were even worse than my mental health, which is dire indeed. If it works for you, fine, but it has side effects and I am one of those people who is notoriously sensitive to hormones introduced into my body.

I also get sick of being told to 'wait for it to settle'. I cannot deal with that, again, due to my mental health.

Polly it's not from my own body, it's from a yam.

Your body doesn't know the difference. The molecules are the same. This is the science.

You are just as likely to have side effects from black cohosh or whatever; that's been linked to liver problems- it's not something we'd normally have in our body is it?

Personally I started getting night sweats about 6 months ago and this then progressed to unbearable hot flushes in the daytime. Work has been a nightmare!
Im only 44 so decided to try every natural remedy out there (though No knicker magnets in that list!). About 8 weeks ago I went to my go, after doing my research, and asked for hrt. All I can say, for me personally it has been a revelation and I am so so glad I am able to function again. I didnt appreciate how much it was affecting my day to day functioning.That said I am not anti vaccination and I will take any drug going if I believe it will enhance my quality of life!

'Your body doesn't know the difference. The molecules are the same. This is the science.'

No, this is MY body, and I know it better than anyone else, thank you very much. I can decide for myself what to try and if it works for me then I'm happy enough to carry on with it .

Ok. Fine.
But without trying something not sure how you know.

Do look into the risks of Black cohosh- it's not safe just cos it's a herb.

I've recently read on here about black cohosh being linked to liver issues, which has given me pause for thought, as my sage supplement contains it. Just when I'd found something that seems to be working too! Will keep on for now though and do more reading.

Without wishing to get into a competition of who's suffered the most with symptoms, to the pp who intimated that I hadn't resorted to hrt because my symptoms weren't that bad, at one point, I had to have regular time working from home, as I was flooding every hour and when I was in work, found it almost impossible to present or attend meetings due to severe hot flushes. Thankfully, work were incredibly understanding. I'm not looking for a bravery medal - hrt just does not appeal to me, rightly or wrongly.

'Ok. Fine. hmm
But without trying something not sure how you know.'

Because I don't need to try it at present as I have found something that works for me that has no impact on my mental health . There are many things that might benefit us, might not, that we don't try if we are not at a point of requiring them. That would seem an obvious and sensible conclusion to make about one's health, trying what may or may not benefit ourselves at the time when we have need of it.

'Do look into the risks of Black cohosh- it's not safe just cos it's a herb.'

You are assuming I'm stupid enough not to realise that and have not researched that myself . That's patronising, at the least.

There are options for the OP to explore and those have been outlined here and are also readily available should she chose to research them. I trust she has the intelligence to do that rather than being condescending to her.

I suffered terribly with Night sweats, they appeared right after my bypass and obviously I cant have HRT.
I use sage tablets and the GP put me on Gabapentin, as one of the side effects is it stops you sweating. It's been an absolute life saver.
It's now settling down and I only have sweats one or twice a month and usually after I have forgotten to take a tablet

'hrt just does not appeal to me, rightly or wrongly.'

Exactly, Foster and you are neither wrong nor right, you are doing what works for you now and doing further research into the matter. I use what I use after my own research and not wanting to tinker with either my mental health or my periods, which are regular and light just now, something that pleases me greatly (my hormonal acne has also largely cleared). I am perimenopausal at the age of 47. I don't need to use contraception, either, as my husband had the all-clear from his vasectomy over 7 years ago. It's a proven and permanent contraceptive and a choice he made of his own accord, again after much research, and we enjoy an active sex life.

My only symptom, so far, is hot flushes/sweats. As this works to control those, I am satisfied with the risks, as all things carry risk. In my case, I have to balance my extreme hormone sensitivity and my mental health.

Being an intelligent woman, if things change, of course, one should revisit and make another decision.

I'm definitely not anti-vaccination. In fact, I'm not happy with the vaccine schedule here, and have bought private vaccinations for my surviving children. My son was given a chickenpox vaccine when he was 3 as my now deceased daughter was undergoing chemotherapy and he had not had chickenpox. He was refused a booster on the NHS following her death, so I got one privately and will get another when he reaches adolescence. Similarly, I have saved up enough to have my now 12-year-old daughter vaccinated against MenB when we return to the US this Summer, as the second biggest age group at risk are adolescents and it is far cheaper there. The vaccine is licensed for children age 10 and up so I'll save up more to have our son vaccinated in Summer of 2019 when he will be 10.5. I also pay to get her a flu vaccine every year. My son has autism and refuses the nasal vaccine, but because he is still in primary school he is allowed a flu vaccine by jab on the NHS.

Thank you for the responses.
Oooh I have today got the combined Holland and Barrett menopause mood tablets which contain black cohoust and St. John’s wort and the Starflower oil capsules. To be fair on their website they do something called menocool which is just the cohoust and I wish I’d seen this in store as I’m a bit nervous of taking St. John’s wort as heard a few bad things about it. I’ve never had depression but it can be linked to that so I will keep an eye out. Starflower is also for night sweats so thought it best to combine both! And yes, I wake up with my vest and pants soaked, need to change every night and also freezing. I actually think this will be better in the summer when it’s warmer and I have a lighter duvet, to me it seems like this cold weather is making the sweats and then the chills much worse (that doesn’t even make sense really though!).
Expat, firstly I’m so very sorry for your loss. I too did not like the hormones of the Mirena, I feel like this thing really messed with me. I’m a very relaxed person but found myself short tempered with the children and husband and it just made me feel all wrong. With that and another tablet to stop bleeding I just kept bleeding and that felt like a lot of stuff being pumped into my body and none of it doing what it was supposed to, which was stop the constant bleeding. I would never go near it again but I do have friends who love it, everyone and everyone’s body is different. Funnily enough I’ve just had 2 of my children vaccinated against chicken pox yesterday. We have all vaccines offered, including flu jabs, as I just couldn’t live with the knowledge of not having it done.
I’ll update how the supplements work.