Menopause Hot Flashes

Menopause Hot Flashes - While every woman experiences menopause in the natural cycle of life, more than seventy five percent of women experience flashes as a part of their menopause period. Hot flashes are most usually reported as a hot flushing feeling all over the body.

These flashes can make a lady who is standing outside in sixty degree weather feel as if she is experiencing eighty degree weather. Even if everyone else in your household is cold, you may feel like you have to open all of the windows or turn the air conditioner on. At the very next moment, though, you may be frigid or cold, just as occurs when you experience a fever.

Not only do hot flashes bother women going through menopause, they affect the household around them as well. For instance, many men report their spouses are so warm next to them in bed that they do not need as many blankets.

Sometimes hot flashes can be more than just an imposing feeling of heat. For various women they include dizziness. For others, heart palpitations occur alongside hot flashes. Still others have the feeling that their skin is crawling, while many women feel weak when a hot flash occurs.

Not all women expierence other symptoms though. Some women simply feel hot for a few moments, and then it goes away. Afterward, they feel just great. Others, nonetheless, find hot flashes to be both disastrous and embarrassing, as some flashes can carry on more than ten minutes.

Hot flashes are caused by motor fluctuations in the body. Most researches agree that the body's temperature is maintained by the hypothalamus, a part of the brain. During menopause, the hypothalamus is experiencing serious hormone fluctuations. As a consequence, the body cannot carry on the way it usually does.

Although these hormone fluctuations are the chief cause of hot flashes, other lifestyle factors like poor diet and stress can make them worse. Furthermore, in areas where there are more pollutants in the air, usually xeno-estrogens or synthetic estrogen substances, women tend to have extra hot flashes. Several researchers have concluded that women in industrialized countries experience three times the number of hot flashes than those who live in third world countries do.

There are also additional external causes for hot flashes. In some women, certain foods and beverages bring about hot flashes. Alcohol, caffeine in any dose, and spicy foods can do it for most women. For others though, serious exercise can bring about a hot flash. Warm weather seems to be connected to increased hot flashes for some women, but for others, it readily occurs without warning.

Many women who experience hot flashes do so for about five years. Nonetheless, some women experience hot flashes for ten to twenty years, even so their intensity lessens over time. Just three percent of women have hot flashes for more than fifteen years. Hot flashes can be predicted by heredity, and they seem to be far worse in women who do not sweat, who have little body fat, or those who do not experience natural menopause. If they are too severe or occur too often, you need to look into control methods with your physician.

Additional Menopause information besides hot flashes can be found here.