Describe Your Hot Flashes - Menopause Message Board

denise222 · 09-24-2004, 07:18 AM

I am 44 and dealing with perimenopause for over a year now. I have been lucky (so far) with the hot flashes and have had a few each month, but not bad. Here is mine:

1. I wake up at 3am, feel like my entire body is on fire and I'm wet with sweat. I stick my head in the freezer and place ice cubes under my boobs.
The hot flash last about 10-15 min.

2. During an average day, all of a sudden I feel hot. It's always from the chest up (never from the waist down) mainly my neck and head. I feel like I am going to melt, it last about 10 min or so. If I'm in the car, I turn the A/C on full blast and let it hit me in the face. (that helps alot)

That's the way the hot flashes feel to me......

ainfante · 09-24-2004, 08:03 AM

Yes, when I first started to get hot flashes, it was as if my body was burning, I had it everywhere, they call them hot flushes instead of flashes. I had this for about 2-3 months, then I would get them on and off, not as frequent. Now they have turned into drench city. It starts like around my breast bone,lower breast bone then rushes up, at least the prozac helped with the power surges, anyways i begin to feel like a heat wave, then I sweat on mychest, under my breasts, face and sometimes scalp. It is more frequent closer to when my period is due, like a week or so before, again my period is late, so here I go again, I even hot flash through my periods now and afterwards. I really don't have too many great days in a month. My PMS is not full-time, LOL

Andrea

joyka · 09-24-2004, 02:12 PM

Mine start on the arms and I get warmer and warmer as if someone has turned up the heat. Coffee makes it worse. Polyester clothing seems to also make it worse. At night I wake up and am very warm. I take off the covers for awhile and get cold water to drink. At work, I go to the ice machine and get a huge cup of ice and fill it with water or diet soda (no caffeine). My office is very cold but when I get hot flashes, I generally take off my jacket for awhile. After its gone, its back to freezing. I used to think that something was wrong with the heating system and kept a thermometer on my desk all the time.

noinwi · 09-24-2004, 05:08 PM

My whole body turns clammy and at the same time the heat starts in my upper back and rises to my head and face, much like becoming very embarrassed. When the HF's started about 6 years ago(I'm now 53), they were mild but often, several times an hour, lasting 3-5 minutes. I used to call them "moisties" because there wasn't actual sweat, just, well, moisture or clamminess all over my body. But they were so frequent that I went on HRT, which I've been off and on over the years.
These days(without HRT) they're less frequent, once or twice an hour, but they're more intense with profuse sweating from head to toe, still lasting 3-5 minutes. I get really chilled now after it's over.They've always been round the clock, interfering with sleep(blankets on, blankets off, blankets on, etc). I keep little cardboard "fans" all over the house so I can grab one when needed. So much fun!

BonBe · 09-25-2004, 04:00 AM

oh my yes it is so much fun isnt it. Here it is end of September and I still have on the ceiling fan in our bedroom. DH is in a pickle, blankets on and off and what not.

It starts in my face (during the day) and goes to my waist, arms included. Yes since a recent (still on going) bout of malignant melanoma for which I have had a rather nasty surgery, and now in follow up treatment, I find that the HF are worse and more frequent.

At night, my legs my back, my boobs my chest, (not face) become drenched causing me to change jammies nightly. Even my feet last night....whew what a night.

I had to have a CT scan the other day, and right in the middle of all that fuss (IV injection, drank gallons of 'contrast material' in the machine I had a HF which elevated my already elevated due to stress (cancer does this) blood pressure they had to stop the CT scan, and I mumbled its ok, just a Hot Flash/Flush/hourly soak haha the poor radiologist guy....

Oh the life of us women....but tis something we do not share with anyone else of the opposite sex...tis all ours...aint we lucky?

Bonnie Lea