All There is to Know About Menopause Hot Flashes

One common symptom of menopause in women is the occurrence of menopause hot flashes. Hot flashes are experienced as a feeling of intense heat accompanied with sweating. In addition to these feelings, the heartbeat may at times beat a little faster than usual. When hot flashes occur at night, they are commonly referred to as night sweats. As a result of these flashes, sleeping problems often occur and this usually makes a person to be easily irritated and at times, have problems with concentrating on things.

When menopause hot flashes occur, they usually begin at some point especially in the upper parts of the body. The origin may be on the neck, face, chest among other places. Once the heat has been felt at this point of origin, it is then that it can afterward spread to other body parts. After it has spread throughout the body, the sensation of the flash may take 2-5 minutes for each occurrence to end. However, in cases where the hot flash is very intense, a person can either pass out or be subjected to rosacea (a skin problem that involves reddening of the skin). The occurrence of the hot flash may happen repeatedly each week or constantly throughout the day with their frequencies reducing over time.

There are two types of menopause hot flashes that occur in women during menopause. The first type being the standard hot flashes. These types of flashes often happen so rapidly, at times reaching their maximum intensities in as little time as one minute and then take very few minutes for them to gradually fade away. The other types of hot flashes are the slow or ember flashes and the hot and cold flashes. The ember flashes occur almost as quickly as standard flashes but are usually less intense and last for longer periods of time such as one hour or more. In addition to this, ember flashes may be undergone all year-round and may be felt for many years after the standard flashes have stopped taking place.

In order to treat menopause hot flashes, various treatments can be used. One type of treatment commonly used is the hormone replacement therapy. This treatment involves the replacement of hormones that may be at a lower level than that allowed by the body. When the level of some hormones in the body go down, the situation may easily trigger the occurrence of hot flashes. However, this treatment usually puts the patients on the risk of suffering from breast cancer, dementia or even stroke.

Therefore, it is usually recommended that when one decides to undertake this form of treatment, she should consume the lowest dose possible that helps to alleviate her symptoms. Another type of treatment used to treat hot flashes is the use of selective estrogen receptor modulators commonly known as SERMs. SERMs are a category of medicines that act selectively as either agonists or antagonists on the estrogen receptors throughout the whole body thus helping out with the relief of hot flash symptoms. Most of these modulators are usually obtained from natural sources and have therefore been scientifically proven to be relatively safer than other types of hot flash treatments.