What are hot flashes?

Hot flashes are extremely common during menopause, impacting up to 75 percent of women. While not inherently dangerous to your health, they can be extremely uncomfortable and often interfere with your quality of life, especially if they occur frequently.

As their name implies, hot flashes involve intense feelings of heat that spread across your upper body and face. Flushing and red blotches may also occur, along with rapid heartbeat and perspiration.

Because hot flashes are so uncomfortable, they can interfere with sleep when they occur during the night, and over time may lead to chronic insomnia and related anxiety and even depression in some women.

Unfortunately, many women desperate for some relief are prescribed drugs, either synthetic hormones or even antidepressants, and gladly take them, thinking they're the only options.

In reality, there are natural ways to lessen the severity of hot flashes and get relief without damaging your health with drug side effects.

Imagine the sensation of a sudden wave of intense heat coursing through your body. Within seconds, you are sweating and you would swear that your skin is on fire.

You want to strip off your clothes and find the coolest place you possibly can - even if it is during the middle of winter.

Within minutes, or sometimes hours, the feeling will pass and the burning sensation will pass as quickly as it came.

If you have ever felt this way, chances are you are dealing with a condition known as hot flashes.

Hot flashes typically begin as a sudden sensation of heat on the face and upper chest that becomes generalized. It can be pretty intense, lasting between 2 and 4 minutes and followed by profuse sweating. Many women also have chills and shivering.

Physiologically, a hot flash happens for the same reason that you sweat in a sauna... the body is trying to cool down. The difference is, you don't really need to cool down, but your menopausal brain thinks you do.

A hot flash is one of the most common symptoms of menopause. You’ll feel your body heat up, and you’ll get a red, flushed face and sweat a lot. This can last a few minutes or longer. Women in menopause or perimenopause can get several hot flashes a day, or several a month. Hot flashes also happen at night (they're called night sweats).

Hot flashes are triggered by fluctuating (changing) hormones during menopause. During this stage of life, a woman’s body makes less of the sex hormone estrogen, which affects the hypothalamus (this gland regulates your body temperature).

During menopause, while your estrogen level decreases, the hypothalamus gets confused and thinks your body is too hot. That signals your body to circulate more blood and your sweat glands to produce more sweat, to get rid of the heat.

Try to figure out what brings on your hot flashes, whether it’s certain drinks (coffee or tea, for example), the weather (maybe it’s hot outside), stress, or certain foods (such as spicy ones). If you can identify the trigger and avoid it, that might help.

A hot flash is a sensation of heat associated with a red, flushed face, and sweating. This happens when the blood vessels near the surface of the skin dilate in order to cool. Sweating is another way to cool the body. The exact cause of hot flashes is unknown, but may be caused by circulation changes. Sometimes these happen at night and can interfere with sleep. Hot flashes affect every woman differently, but usually lessen in severity with time; however, some women report having them throughout their lives after menopause.

A hot flash is sudden, temporary warmth, with flushing and perspiring. In other words, you become hot, red-faced, and sweaty. Some women refer to hot flashes as "power surges."

Certain physical changes occur during a hot flash. First, the body's core temperature goes down, producing central cooling. Then heat is lost through the skin. Skin temperature measurements show that the skin gets several degrees warmer as a hot flash takes place. Perspiring and evaporation cause additional rapid heat loss. A chill may follow the hot flash.

A hot flash is a sudden sensation of intense body heat, often with profuse sweating and reddening of the head, neck, and chest. These symptoms can be accompanied by mild to severe heart palpitations, anxiety, irritability and, in rare cases, panic.

Hot flashes are the most common symptom of a woman's changing estrogen levels around the time of menopause. They strike unexpectedly, often at night, and usually last several seconds to minutes. Hot flashes:

• Affect some women during perimenopause, when estrogen levels are changing.
• Most commonly affect women during the first 1 to 2 years after menopause, when estrogen levels have dropped below a certain point. Women who become menopausal from chemotherapy, from surgical removal of the ovaries (oophorectomy) during hysterectomy, or from antiestrogen treatment for breast cancer are especially likely to have severe hot flashes.
• Continue to affect some women for 5 years or more after menopause.
• Can happen normally during stress or embarrassment for women of all ages.

Hot flashes are less commonly caused by thyroid problems, cancers, and psychological stress. Men commonly have hot flashes when taking hormone therapy for prostate cancer.

Several medicines are available to treat hot flashes.

A hot flash is a sudden sensation of heat, usually in the upper body, that may rise up from the abdomen—or in some cases emanate from the toes—into the chest, back, and head, and may be accompanied by perspiration. Other sensations may include heart palpitations and anxiety. A hot flash may last from about one to five minutes. Once the flash is over, some women may also feel chilled. Women with physical disabilities, such as spinal cord injuries may experience hot flashes in different parts of the body or only on one side.

The reasons women have hot flashes have not been fully explained. In the past, doctors postulated that the onset of hot flashes had everything to do with the decrease in estrogen as a woman approached menopause. However, not all women get hot flashes. What's more, researchers have found that the levels of estrogen do not differ substantially between women who have hot flashes and those who do not.

Other factors that may be involved in hot flashes include the body's core temperature regulation and brain chemicals. The body's thermostat has an upper set point, at which the body's blood vessels open up and perspiration occurs, in an effort to release heat. There is also a lower threshold, at which shivering begins to generate heat. Between these two extremes is a temperature zone at which the body normally functions. Doctors now theorize that the zone between the high and low set points in peri- and post-menopausal women who experience hot flashes is narrower than in women who do not experience any hot flashes.

Hot flashes are the most common symptom of menopause; 60-85% of menopausal women experience them. Hot flashes can disturb sleep and often result in frequent awakening. Hot flashes usually begin with a flushed sensation and a sudden feeling of heat from the waist that moves up to the chest, neck, and face. Accompanying symptoms include perspiration, palpitations, vertigo, nausea, dizziness, headaches, anxiety, weakness, and night sweats. Hot flashes last an average of 4 minutes, although they may last as long as 20 minutes. Hot flashes can be infrequent or as often as 15 times per day.

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