Hot and Cold Flashes, help!

[Cardinal]

Hi all,
I need some good advice and for someone to tell me what I am going through is normal, I hope.
I am 52, still have my periods every month. Except for the month of September 08, I missed the month. Now for the past three weeks, I get VERY cold, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. No matter what I do, put lots of clothes on, sit in front of the heater, I freeze. Then like a flip of a switch, I am so HOT I can't stand it. It is like an internal heat and that to is from top to bottom. Here is the stranger part. It all happens in the evening hours. During the day I am fine. But it seems once evening comes, Wham !!! it's off and on, hot and cold all night long.
Can anyone help with any idea what is going on?
I appreciate all comments.
Thank you

[WildChild]

Why not get in for a complete physical? In cultures that don't expect menopausal problems they don't have them. Could be your thyroid or some other imbalance. I figure I must be perimenopausal at 50 + and thought I might be having hot flushes a while back, then I realized it was over 100 degrees and I was just as hot as everybody else. The getting chilled is kind of different but winter is coming. Just get a complete work up and put your mind at ease. Raspberry leaf tea is very good for women, so is evening primrose - check out some natural stuff too.

[JohannaJones]

Although this post is from 2008 I feel that I need to reply because if I came across the post others might too. By saying that in cultures that don't expect menopausal problems they don't have them, the idea seems to be that it's all in our head. I have to disagree. I had heard of hot flashes as a woman goes through menopause but had never heard of the cold part of it. I've been experiencing pretty severe symptoms of going from hot to cold, especially at night, and found it pretty mysterious. I googled "menopause hot and cold" and found out it's quite common. I had NEVER heard of this cold aspect of menopause ~ so I couldn't be suffering from it because I expected to. So it doesn't follow that we get the symptoms because we expect them. I think this definitely makes your theory incorrect and felt it important to say so since it does a disservice to women and the obviously very real symptoms of menopause. My theory is that maybe some cultures aren't as expressive and don't discuss such things.

[WildChild]

Had a chat with my doctor about all this a while back as I was having problems with bleeding (was 50 then) asked her if this was due to menopause and she (is past 50) said many problems attributed to menapause are stress related or the result of other health issues including diet. My own experience bears this out to some degree, the only time I've started to experience hot flashes has been when having relationship troubles and I was very stressed and feeling down. Soon as I cheered myself up and started eating better and sleeping more regularly (stress related behaviors) the hot flashes stopped and haven't returned.

This age and change is about way more than the body. Our kids are growing or grown, we are further maturing in our thoughts and responses and may find that situations we have tollerated are becoming less acceptable. We are looking at passing the half century mark and asking ourselves if we have done what we wanted and needed to do? What does our future hold? Many people find themselves slowing down - my observation has been that it is often more mental than physical, they just start thinking "old" and that affects their entire body and responses.

We consume all kinds of chemicals in our food; antibiotics, artificial hormone receptors (BGH), various pesticides and other toxins and as our bodies are shifting in hormone production, these can mess us up (especially the artificial hormone receptors). It's small wonder that women and many men are experiencing some difficulties.

Read through some of the threads here and you will find women in their 20s and 30s reporting what we think of as menopause symptoms and many complaints of young men with no libido - this is more than "change of life". Just as we now know the ADD/ADHD are related to lead exposure, I think we will find that we have let the bad genie out of the bottle in other areas as well.

[Olympia]

Wisdom in positive thought.
And watching what we put into our bodies.
If you think about it, stress effects our cycle. Can cause us to be late or early, or even skip a month.
I was always curious as to why some women go thru it with little to none of the symptoms.
My oldest sister, to be honest. (I love her) but she can be a total PITA...breezed thru it like a dream.
Diet and stress as well as activness made the difference for her. perfect size 4. all of her life. Yeah, i know
LOL, one of those.. ...But she is a lousy cook! Ha. ..Ha..
My mother on the other hand, was terrible. She had at least 30 on the list of 35 symptoms..
So far i have only had a few hot flashes. But experience the vertigo often.