What do hot flashes feel like

[RosieChardonnay]

I think I have started peri because my periods have become more irregular. I'm 45. I have also noticed an increase in anxiety and brain fog ( sometimes a word or a name will not come to me). The only thing I am questioning is the hot flashes. Sometimes if I have a hot drink I feel very warm in my face. It lasts for a few minutes and then goes. This is relatively new to me but not really experiencing anything outside of this. I do not absoutley sweat. Would this be considered a hot flash?

That sounds like a possible. I have always been prone to suddenly overheating when other people didn't. Then in my 50s it would happen when I was sedentary & frustrated and not really related to temperature but plausibly related to Cortisol (I understand it's cortisol that causes the HF, and cortisol is a hormone you get when feeling pissed off... frustration is a mildly pissed off emotion, isn't it?). I'd feel overheated for a few minutes & then the hot would subside. I don't sweat either, just inexplicably suddenly feel too hot and then it eases off.

Weirdly I don't get flushes when I'm actually pissed off or ranty. And never when I'm exercising or moving. HF are purely sedentary things for me.

To me personally you know when you have to run to the loo with diarrhoea and you get that sudden heat that comes up your body into your face, it's a flush of heat with a bead of sweat.

It's that, that what mine felt like.

Once I got used to the sensation which is awful I could live with the odd one. But mine ramped up to about 20 a day and I'd had enough and the HRT oestrogen patches stopped them within 2 days.

I recently tried weening off HRT weight issues and within 2 days of dropping the dose they came back.

That doesn't sound like a hot flush to me. They're more all over the whole body, like a radio wave of heat going right through you especially the face. I'd go bright red (tho am very prone to this anyway) then go back to normal temperature. Whole experience would last a minute or so

You're not going to get every symptom with peri. Some people have no symptoms.

See that’s not what they felt like to me. Mine were just the face and they would last ages (at least half an hour)

I even doubted what they were, as they were so different to the experiences I’d heard about - but now I’m through the other side and they have stopped, so I’m sure they were. I sometimes got night sweats too, but not often.

I am on HRT, but that’s mainly because I had terrible insomnia. Can’t remember the last time I had a period (if you don’t know it’s going to be the last one, you don’t take especial notice of it - but 18 months later you suddenly think “hmm, it’s been a while…?” 😂)

Mine were just the face and lasted a minute or two. I carried a small folding fan (a cheap pop up thing) that I used. My flushes lasted about three months, so not all the way through peri. I did use soya isoflavones though and they knocked them on the head really effectively.

My hot flushes started at my toes & spread up my body, if I was in bed my back would feel red hot. My late dp always knew when I was having one because he ended up being too hot in bed. I used to sleep with the window wide open even if there was a foot of snow on the ground.

Mine came on like a blush, similar to a huge embarrassing fuck up. Started in the chest or face and a wave of heat would appear for around 20 seconds at random times of the day, I'd have to immediately strip off or flap my clothing to cool down. I'm 43.

Mine started in the core of my upper chest, like a wave of nausea. Quickly I’d realize it was an hot flash, and then they faded.
literally 1 minute max, I’d get about 6 per day.

You will know when the hot flashes are exactly that, you can be just sitting, doing nothing when all of a sudden your face just boils up. I mainly had upper body flushes during the day and whole body flushes during the night. I didn’t really sweat, maybe bit of perspiration on face. Horrible time, for me the broken nights were the hardest symptom, I didn’t have good nights sleep for a long time.

It was the insomnia that broke me though, I couldn't cope waking up between 2 and 5am and not getting back to sleep.

Feels like you are burning internally, particularly on the face. This symptom is common at night which makes sleeping very difficult.

Like coming up on MDMA, but v short lasting and not quite getting there. A bloody sham, I tell you.

Mine are more like that sort of blushing bright red all over with embarassment feeling.

Wake up feeling like I’m sweating, done the whole sleep talking in the early hours, procrastinating on the day had or day to come, asking things aloud. Been reading or wanting to say words backwards or mis seeing things for 18 months but I put that down to getting over a first general/post op as an adult.

Started to get random red faced in my early 30’s over 10 years ago like I had roseca. People would joke had my insides gone.

I’m unsure a recent report seemed to indicate I was more post menopause so very confused but in another way it does kind of make sense. Be rather glad to see the end.