The Anatomy Of A Hot Flash

There may be those of you out there that have never experienced a “hot flash”, lucky you! Perhaps you are married to someone who just turned forty and you want to know what is in store for her or be prepared yourself for what she and you are about to encounter – good for you. Perhaps you are a woman who has had a very uncomfortable occurrence and want to know if what you experienced was indeed a “hot flash”. Well, you have come to the right place; the anatomy of a hot flash will try to describe what a hot flash is and what you can do about it.

Women can start to experience hot flashes as early as forty. The physical occurrence goes something like this:

You may first feel a chill, or an “aura” or and uneasy feeling that something is about to happen followed by a sudden and intense, hot feeling that happens on your face, neck and upper body. You may feel your heart race too. You could be sweating profusely or just get beads of perspiration on your upper lip. You may feel dizzy. There may be feelings of anxiety or that you are about to suffocate. You may also experience a headache, or weakness. If you did not experience a chill to herald the episode you may end the hot flash with a chill. This description is what 40% of menstruating women will go through. Hot flashes are uncomfortable and embarrassing if they happen in public. After the hot flash subsides they may have a reddened face or neck that is visible to everyone and further embarrasses the woman. If the physical symptoms of a hot flash are not uncomfortable enough the fact that everyone looking at her is wondering why she is sweaty and all red will make her feel very uncomfortable indeed.

Hot flashes can happen at night waking her with the uncomfortable chills, feeling of extreme warmth or with the wet clothing or bed sheets from her sweat. These night experiences of hot flashes can cause sleep disturbances that lead to daytime tiredness that may affect her ability to function at home, school or work.

Why do women get hot flashes?

Hot flashes can be caused by hormonal fluctuations as the woman experiences a decline in hormone levels in her forties and fifties. The exact cause is as yet, unknown. There are studies being conducted to determine the cause of hot flashes. There is some suggestion that certain lifestyles or even some medications can have an influence on whether or not a woman will experience hot flashes or to what intensity she may feel them.

Because estrogen has a direct effect on the hypothalamus, part of the brain which controls appetite, sleep cycles, the sex hormones, and body temperature it is little wonder that women experiencing the fluctuating hormones of pre-menopause and menopause have symptoms such as hot flashes. The hypothalamus is after all the body’s “thermostat” and when something is messing with it, then we can expect changes in the way the body perceives the feeling of “being hot” such as women do when having a “hot flash”. Since the brain tries to compensate for the confusing signals the hypothalamus is giving out it sends out a signal to the heart, blood vessels and nervous system to react to what the hypothalamus is doing which is why a woman experiencing hot flashes also feels her heart race, and her skin flush as well as those feelings of nervousness and anxiety. The heart racing, blood vessels of the skin dilating causing flushed skin and the blood vessels circulating more blood which heats up the skin as well as releasing more sweat from your glands are all a result of the brain trying to compensate for what the hypothalamus is doing. The sweat is supposed to cool you off; it is a normal body reaction to being overheated.

Women experiencing hot flashes used to have only one option for treatment and that was hormonal therapy (estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen and progesterone). Today women have other choices such as natural progesterone products that she can explore.

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