Can Hot Flashes Start Again Long After Menopause
Inquire the doctor
Menopausal symptoms such every bit hot flashes may last for years afterwards menopause begins. Simply there are treatments that can offer relief.
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Q. I'one thousand 62 years old, and my last menstrual period was at historic period 51. My doctor told me that my hot flashes would end later "virtually three to five years," only I nevertheless have them. Am I unusual, and what tin can I do?
A. I wish you were unusual, but unfortunately your experience with hot flashes is surprisingly mutual. I say "surprisingly" because I was taught in medical schoolhouse and read in the textbooks that menopausal symptoms, when they occurred at all, lasted about iii to five years. And therefore that's what I and my colleagues told our patients. But subsequently about 20 years in practice, I had heard from many patients who were more than five years past menopause that they still were having hot flashes. My colleagues were hearing the same thing. Then it seemed the textbooks were getting it wrong.
In fact, in the past decade, a number of studies have confirmed that for some women, menopausal symptoms can concluding a long time after menopause. A Swedish study of 430,000 women published in 2002 institute that fifteen% of women age 66 and 9% of women age 72 however were bothered by hot flashes. A 2008 U.S. study found that thirty% of women still had hot flashes ten to xix years after menopause, and then did xx% who were more than 20 years past menopause. A 2011 study of more eight,000 Latin American women found that more than 60% reported these symptoms 12 years after menopause.
A 2015 study of over 3,000 women from all over the United States reported that among women who began to feel hot flashes before their menstrual periods stopped, the hot flashes persisted in nearly 70% of them 12 years after menopause. And here's an chestnut: I recently received a alphabetic character in which a woman asked what could be done for her hot flashes, which continued to plague her—at historic period 92!
What to practice? Tell your doctor that many studies show that your continued hot flashes are not unusual, and ask what treatments are available. In my opinion (information technology's a controversial surface area), hormone therapy is generally the all-time option for the first 10 years following menopause. But y'all are eleven years out, and that's when the heart disease risks of hormone therapy begin. And so I'd ask about other treatments, such as a drug called clonidine (Catapres, Jenloga), the SSRI drugs used for depression, and two drugs used to treat seizures and nerve pain—gabapentin (Horizant, Neurontin) and pregabalin (Lyrica). (I am non saying that hot flashes are a sign of depression or seizures, only that medicines used to treat those problems too are effective against hot flashes.) I'm optimistic that your doctor tin can observe a handling that relieves, and peradventure eliminates, the hot flashes
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Source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/is-it-normal-for-hot-flashes-to-last-long-after-menopause-begins
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