Hot flashes after menopause

For a great many women, hot flashes after menopause are a real problem. Following the menopausal transition hot flashes can often persist well into old age. Hormone levels usually balance out after menopause but hot flashes after menopause are a fairly common complaint and therefore need to be dealt with appropriately. The information below explains exactly what hot flashes after menopause are and how best to combat them, so read on to find out more.

What are hot flashes after menopause?

Common symptoms of hot flashes in women include:

• A feeling of intense heat in the upper body.
• Reddening of the skin (flushing).
• Sudden, rapid heartbeat.
• Heavy sweating.
• Chills and shivering.

Hot flashes after menopause start with a feeling of intense heat in the upper body accompanied by an increased heart rate, a red hot face, chest and neck and sometimes extreme sweating. Hot flashes after menopause typically last between thirty seconds and five minutes. The intensity and frequency of hot flashes after menopause varies from woman to woman but they may become more irregular with age.

Hot flashes after menopause can also happen at night and can wake a woman from her sleep, leading to poor memory performance, irritability, and tiredness. Hot flashes after menopause that occur during sleeping hours are known as night sweats. Keep reading to learn about the causes of hot flashes after menopause.

What causes hot flashes after menopause?

The exact cause of hot flashes after menopause is uncertain but it´s generally thought that the hypothalamus (the area of the brain that controls body temperature) is responsible for overproducing heat. Declining estrogen levels related to aging are known to cause the hypothalamus to detect an increased body temperature and release chemicals that cause the skin blood vessels to dilate so that heat can be released. This results in hot flashes after menopause.

Hot flashes after menopause along with other vasomotor symptoms such as dizziness and heart palpitations (the term vasomotor describes bodily changes related to the constriction and dilation of blood vessels) usually decrease in strength and regularity following menopause, once hormone levels have settled but this is not always the case with hot flashes after menopause.

Stress is another common trigger of hot flashes after menopause and so it is important to keep stress levels to a minimum. There are several other triggers of hot flashes after menopause, so keep reading to find out exactly what these are so that you can try to avoid them.

Some women can have hot flashes after menopause in their 60s and even into their 70s. There are so many variables affecting how long women can suffer from hot flashes that it is difficult to measure when exactly they will cease. Hot flashes after menopause can become a real burden if they´re not treated correctly, so keep on reading to find out how best to deal with hot flashes after menopause.

Common triggers of hot flashes after menopause

Avoiding the triggers listed here will enable you to control hot flashes after menopause more successfully:

The following section talks about managing hot flashes effectively, so read on to learn more.

Managing hot flashes after menopause

There are a number of steps that you can follow to deal with hot flashes after menopause effectively. For example, basic lifestyle changes are recommended such as following a healthier, more nutritious diet and doing more regular exercise. However, because balancing hormonal levels is the way to deal with hot flashes after menopause, the best solution is to combine a healthy lifestyle with a hormone-balancing treatment such as alternative medicine in order to combat hot flashes after menopause.

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