At first, it catches you by surprise - that sudden feeling that your entire body is catching on fire. In what seems like a nanosecond you’re starting to feel sweaty. This can be particularly unnerving if historically you ran on the cooler side, always keeping that extra layer nearby. As the heat continues to rise within you, you may start fanning yourself or looking for some way to get to a cooler place. You’re becoming flushed. You may be looking around to see if anyone else thinks it’s too hot in here and finding yourself alone in the struggle. Depending upon the circumstances, you may start to feel a bit embarrassed. If there’s any possible layer to remove, you’re pulling it off now. Your heart is pounding in your ears and you may be starting to feel vaguely ill. You may try stepping outside or into a cooler room. Getting some cold water on your face or wrists may help too. The heat continues for what seems like forever as you try in vain to calm the heat down.
And then, thankfully, finally, just when you feel you can’t take it anymore, you start to feel a glimmer of cool. The hot flash gradually begins to subside. Slowly and steadily, you begin feeling more like yourself. You’re left feeling battered by the storm of heat. You become aware that you’re clammy, that your clothes are damp and that you’re tired. That was a lot.
Too bad it keeps on coming. Day after day, and sometimes at the most inconvenient times. You learn to dress in lighter layers, prepared at any moment to strip down in an effort to cool faster. At night you’re particularly vulnerable. Awaking sweaty, with damp sheets and pajamas, becomes the norm not the exception. Oh, how disruptive that is to getting good, sound sleep.
Crazy, annoying, frustrating….the hot flashes of menopause are all these things. Passing one year without a menstrual period may be the official marker for the beginning of menopause. But for many women, hot flashes and night sweats are the true tip-off that “The Change” has begun. Between 75-85% of women experience hot flashes during menopause. Left untreated, this unpleasant experience can come and go to varying degrees over a period of several years. For an unlucky minority, hot flashes continue in the years that follow, usually finally ending after fifteen years. That’s a long time to be going through life overheating unexpectedly. Over time the severity and frequency certainly lessen, for sure. But these moments of overheating remain inconvenient at a minimum.
Generations of women silently accepted the discomforts of hot flashes and night sweats during menopause. For the most part, they didn’t have a choice. Like most things pertaining to women’s health and wellness, menopause was understudied. Women before them whispered quietly among themselves about their discomforts if they dared mention this season of life at all. There was a general lack of awareness about how other things that seemed to be changing at midlife were related in any way to the cessation of a women’s menstrual cycle at midlife.
There’s reason to believe that we are on the cusp of a new era. There are a host of new products and services being marketed to midlife women with the goal of relieving the discomforts of menopause. Medical experts are conducting studies and writing books. The media is paying attention and presenting programming to highlight this body of research. We are developing a greater understanding that some women are truly impaired by the physical and mental health changes during menopause and that virtually all women are impacted in the years thereafter by the lifestyle and health choices made during this season. In short, it’s a great time to be a midlife woman.