Read the full video transcript below
Today's topic
Hello, and welcome to my weekly video blog. And today is week two of our hot flush month. And I'm going to be talking about five of the hot flush myths. There's lots of information around on hot flushes and night sweats, and some of it may be not particularly accurate, so I thought I would go through some of the main ones just to give you that little bit more information.
Myth 1: Hot flushes are the first symptom you will experience
Now number one is that hot flushes will be the first symptom that you get when you start the menopause. This is definitely not the case. I would say at least 50% of women will not experience hot flushes as first symptom. Very often today, a lot of women will start to get menopausal symptoms in what we call the peri-menopause, so this is the run-up to the menopause.
They may well still be getting completely regular normal periods, but their hormones have just started to very subtly change, and that can trigger menopause symptoms. And it could be anything, you know, every woman is going to be very, very different, so the first rule is that you could end up with other symptoms first, and very often, you don't associate them with the menopause.
So all I would say here is if you're roundabout the average age 45 to 55, even if you're starting to get regular periods and you're suddenly starting to notice a change in your general health, then that may be an indication that you're starting the approach to the menopause and as I say, hot flushes may be way down the list before they appear.
Myth 2: All menopausal women get hot flushes
Myth number two is that every single woman will get a hot flush. Again, this isn't the case. We've discovered that roughly 25% of women won't experience hot flushes at all, and if you go back to myth one, you know, that hot flushes is something that you will get, then a lot of women are going to their doctors, they're getting other menopausal symptoms, but they're not getting the hot flushes, and they're being told that they're not in the menopause.
So these two are sort of closely linked in a way, so hot flushes are not necessarily the first symptoms you will get, and 25% of women will not get hot flushes at all during the peri-menopause and the menopause.
Myth 3: Hot flushes feel the same for every woman
Myth number three is that hot flushes feel all the same, that every single woman will get the same type of hot flush.
There are loads and loads of different types of hot flushes. Some women will get very short ones, very minor ones, sometimes even just a feeling of heat, maybe if you were having a little bit of a blush or something like that. For other women, the hot flushes can be very intense. For some, they're very short, they might only last a second or two.
Some other hot flushes can really last maybe a minute or a couple of minutes. They can start from different parts of the body. Some women find that they just get a hot flush maybe from here on up, some women tell me that they can feel a tingling in their hands, and it starts from their fingertips and works all the way up to the face and to the head.
For other women, they've told me that they basically get them from the tips of their toes to the tops of their heads, that they just get a complete and utter total flush right away through the body. You might find, too, that some women get a little bit of a warning about the hot flush. They may find that they start off with a little bit of a tingling and then the actual flush will start, so there's a great variety of hot flushes around and certainly, not all of them are the same or feel the same.
Myth 4: Hot flushes are only hormonal related & only occur during menopause
Myth number four is that hot flushes are hormonal and only appear at the menopause. One of the really interesting things is that anybody can get hot flushes and night sweats. We've had young men coming to us with hot flushes and night sweats, young girls even in their teens can sometimes get hot flushes and night sweats, and middle-aged women and men - women who are not in the menopause can get hot flushes and night sweats. They are very often caused by the nervous system overreacting to something, and this is a very important point to make note, is that even if you're going through the menopause and your flushes are mainly hormonal, some of them that you're getting may well be due to an overly stressed nervous system.
And I've talked about this side of things a lot, and we'll try and put some links on the page to that particular side of things because it's a good way of knowing whether they're hormonal or whether they're coming through the nervous system.
5. Hot flushes will last for years
Myth number five is that once you start hot flushes, you will get them for years and years and years.
We're having women come to us now who were in a total panic because someone has told them that their hot flushes and their menopause is going to last for 10 years, and they're just thinking the worst. For the majority of women, your menopausal or peri-menopausal symptoms are going to last for about three to five years, from start to finish, and that's if you get them at all, because there's a lot of women don't really have any symptoms in any case, but for the majority of women, they're not going to last for years and years and years.
Some women find that their hot flushes will just last for a part of the menopause. They may find they get them for a year, and then they disappear, and then maybe some other symptoms come along instead. So I don't want you going away thinking that once you get hot flushes, that you're going to be saddled with them for a long, long time because for the majority of women, that's not going to be the case.
And a lot of women who get them for a lot longer, we end up finding that there are other health issues involved that are causing the flushes such as an overwhelmed nervous system, so please don't despair with that one.
What I will be talking about next week
Now, next week, which is week three in our hot flush month, I'm going to be asking, "Are your hot flushes normal?"
Because some women are panicking about the way they feel when they get a hot flush, so I'm going to go into that in a little bit of detail.
Hopefully this has given you a little bit more information that can help you cope a little bit better. So I'll see you next week, for another edition of A.Vogel Talks Menopause.
