Natural Solutions for Hot Flashes & Night Sweats

With age comes wisdom and, at 43, I'm a lot smarter than I used to be. That's great. But there are some other things that come to a woman with age that aren't so great. Like the hormonal changes that come when we enter perimenopause. Hot flashes and night sweats being, in my opinion, the worst of the menopausal symptoms are what this article is about.

I've never had a hot flash, but I've had enough night sweats to make up for that. Some women suffer all day with hot flashes or power surges as they are sometimes called. Some ladies wake during the night with sweats. Some poor dears suffer all day and night with both!

My night sweats started out mild and worsened with time. At first, I would awaken during the night a bit damp, roll over and go back to sleep. Next, I would have to get up and change my nightgown before going back to sleep. Then, I began to wake up soaking wet. I would have to shower, change my gown and the sheets as well. When this happened four times in the same night, I knew I had to find a solution. I couldn't sleep anyway, so I used the time to do research. This is what I discovered.

The experts don't really know what causes hot flashes and night sweats. They generally believe them to be similar phenomena, attributable to the same cause; either too much or too little estrogen. They're not sure which.

Medical Science Offers Little Help

Other than HRT which is inappropriate for premenopausal women and which some postmenopausal women are afraid to take because of the increased cancer risk. Many physicians tell their patients to just wait it out, that the symptoms will subside naturally once they stop menstruating. Seeing as a woman can enter perimenopause in her late thirties or early forties and not complete menopause until she's in her middle fifties, that's a long time to suffer.

Nature to the Rescue