Night Sweats – Menopause – Hot Flashes – Sleeping hot

Posts Tagged ‘Ovaries’

Almost all women get at least some hot flushes and night sweats  around the menopause; they’re a by-product of the "make more oestrogen" chemical messages that our brains send out when they detect falling levels of this hormone.

Our ovaries may work intermittently for some time, so the sweats often come and go, until the brain realises that the ovaries have finally stopped working for good – this can take several years.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can suppress menopausal symptoms until it’s all over. Current recommendations are to take HRT for short-term relief of menopausal symptoms. But some unlucky women do continue to have symptoms into their 60s, or even longer.

I’d recommend seeing your GP to check nothing else is going on, as there are dozens of other causes of night sweats , including an overactive thyroid, chronic infections, some drugs (for example, antidepressants) and some rare forms of cancer.

If your sweats are still due to the menopause, you could consider taking HRT even now, provided your GP thinks that it’s suitable for you, although the risks of stroke and heart attack do increase slightly as you get older.

Night sweats, or sweating at night so immensely that your sheets turn out to be drenched is a sign that there is something not right. There are many problems signaled by night sweats but could your night sweats be related to a ailment recognized as haemochromatosis?

Haemochromatosis is a ailment that is inherited from family members. Nearly one out of 200 of us hold the gene, which causes the body to suck up too much iron from foodstuff.

The body is unable to deal with this excess of iron, and the build-up causes injury to various organs and tissues, together with the liver, heart as well as joints. The symptoms exist only when the organs are already injured, which is why the illness repeatedly isn’t diagnosed until middle age.

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Many women seem to feel anxious about menopause — partly because they don’t have any choice.

“It is a necessary evil you have to go through,” said Dr. Robert Ogdee, obstetrician/gynecologist of Abilene Regional Medical Center.

But women may feel some relief when they understand the transition their bodies are going through physically and emotionally.

“What is happening is the ovaries are not producing any estrogen, so the brain is trying to tell the ovaries to kick in and produce more estrogen because they are not popping out an egg anymore,” Ogdee explained. “It is the quitting of ovulation every month that is the reason they do not pop out an egg or have a cycle, which is the true cause of menopause.”

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