Exercise
You might not like this but I have read several times that women who exercise seriously ie sweat, increase pulse and respiration are much less likely to get breast cancer and much less likely to have menopause problems such as hot flashes.
Exercise
★★★★★
I believe there must be a link between exercise and hot flashes. I was plagued by hot flashes day & night, then started riding my horse for 2-3 hours daily, 4-6 times per week, suddenly I noticed I was no longer having them, but then when I got too busy to ride, they immediately returned; started riding again,. . . hot flashes subsided again
(Redding, Ca)
07/20/2015
I wonder if this has something to do with your lymphatic system flowing from the rhythm of the horse. A rebounder might help in this case too. 15 mins of jumping a day will get your whole system moving and is very good for your body.
Fenugreek, Wild Yam
★★★★★
For quite a while I used Organic Alcohol Extract of Fenugreek Seed and also Extract of Wild Yam for Hot Flashes, twice a day and it really helped a lot. My sister passed from breast cancer so my doctor wouldnt give me any HRT but this helped a lot. Another doctor did give me Bioidentical hormones and that has helped the most but if I didnt have that, I'd be taking the fenugreek & wild yam extracts in water 2 x a day. I haven't tried the ACV but I plan to. I'd much rather take it than any hormones, bio-identical or not.
Flax Seed
★★★★★
I've had good success with flaxseed. I just grind it up in a coffee grinder and I add about a Tablespoon a day to my food and the flashes have subsided.
Gaba
★★★★★
I recently had a neurotransmitter test because I tend to be too hyper. The doctor put me on "targeted amino acid therapy." It turns out that GABA (gama amino butyric acid), one of the things the doctor had me take cured my hot flashes. I use ___ encapsulations brand because of their high quality. I think one capsule is about 675 mg. I take one first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and then again after work (also on an empty stomach). Hot flashes and night sweats are gone! I'm 51 years old and just started getting hot flashes. They were coming about every 30 minutes. I've never found this information anywhere on the web so I thought I'd share my experience.
Garlic
★★★★★
I have stumbled upon a home remedy for night sweats, which I have had for the past year or more. It is fresh garlic. I changed my diet at the beginning of September to lose Covid weight and started eating a lot more veggies and salads. The one thing I have A LOT of every day, is fresh chopped garlic, about two cloves each time, which I grill first before adding the other vegetables.
About a day or two into eating garlic, my night sweats TOTALLY ceased. My body temperature regulates perfectly now. I am stunned because I tried all sorts of remedies and supplements and nothing helped.
Please try this if you wake up at night pouring with sweat, only to freeze a few minutes later after tossing aside the blankets. I would love to know if it helps others too.
(Florida)
05/10/2021
Oh I'm glad it helped you...Garlic triggered hot flashes for me.
Garlic
★★★★★
Am 52 years, I have severe hot flashes since 2 years; it is around 30 flashes a day. Before 2 months I took garlic 2-3 cloves a day cut it and swallowed it with my breakfast for throat inflammation, but from the first day I noticed sudden relief from hot flash. The garlic decreased it to not more than 5 flashes a day; even in the days I didn't take it (I sometimes stop taking garlic 7 days).
Note: The old Arabians doctors advise to take fresh coriander leaves with garlic to prevent its side effects on the brain and eyes, they said that bad gas from garlic elevates from the stomach to head.
Glycine
★★★★★
This might just be me, but taking glycine made a huge, immediate difference for me.
I've had hot flashes for about 8 years. At first, ACV helped. Then it didn't. For the last years the hot flashes were severe, accompanied by a feeling of malaise.
I tested the levels of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids and saw I was low on glycine (an amino acid). From the first day I started supplementing with glycine in powder form, all the horrible feeling of malaise disappeared.
For now, I still have hot flashes, but they are weak - no comparison.
I've played with the dose. I've taken from 2000 - 5000 mg. I don't really see a difference with more or less.
I hope that helps somebody.
(Idaho)
10/28/2022
Madelyn,
This may answer your question :
Art
(Idaho)
10/31/2022
That does answer my question! Thanks so much Art. I always find your posts so helpful. You sure are a gem!
Hypnosis
Hypnosis has been shown to help reduce hot flashes by about 65% in one study and is worth a try.
Ice Water
★★★★☆
This is going to be really obvious, but when hot flashes start, drink a tall glass of ice water or other iced beverage. It's not really a cure, only a temporary fix but it does help a lot. Of course, an hour or two later you'll need more ice water but it's helpful until whatever other remedy you're using kicks in, and works pretty fast.
Inositol
★★★★★
Inositol has greatly relieved my hot flashes! I am 52, and I started having perimenopausal hot flashes about a year ago. Mine are related to estrogen dominance and falling progesterone levels, so any estrogenic substances (i.e. black cohosh, flax seed, etc.) only made things worse.
I used a DIM supplement, which is made from cruciferous vegetables and helps convert estradiol to estriol, very successfully for a year and this kept the flashes and being too hot at night at bay. Then the flashes came back. Mine are not as severe as many people's are, but they were only happening at night and really interfering with my sleep.
I started using a popular brand of an over the counter progesterone cream, along with Vitex (chasteberry) which helps the body favor the production of progesterone over estrogen to help boost my levels. This also helps some, but as far as the cream, I really don't like using hormones at all, even in a low dose. And the flashes weren't gone, they were still happening far too much in frequency and intensity at night.
I began giving my mother some inositol because it is relaxing to many people and helps them sleep. I took some myself one night (1000 mg.) to see if it would perhaps help me sleep through the hot flashes. Well, it had the reverse effect on me and kept me alert and awake for half the night, but I had zero hot flashes! I decided to mete out my dose throughout the day, and yesterday I took 1500 mg. altogether spread out over three 500 mg. doses. I took the last 500 mg. before bed, this smaller amount doesn't keep me awake, esp. if I take it with magnesium. I deliberately did not use the progesterone cream last night and did not have a single flash!
Ladies, I think inositol is definitely worth trying, you can find it at your local vitamin store and it is very inexpensive! I've seen very little research on it for hot flashes, but it works well for me.
Lastly, I eat a pretty low carb diet, favoring seafood. I take antioxidants, high doses of DHA, I drink a gallon of water per day, limit my coffee to two cups per day, and avoid sugars and grains. My diet is mostly Paleo, I guess, although I do eat a small amount of organic/raw dairy. The B vitamin complex I take, however, did not include any inositol, as many of them don't. Inositol is formed by the body from glucose, and I don't eat too many foods that favor glucose production, so I possibly had a deficiency. I also recommend taking the supplement cholin along with the inositol as these two work well together. I hope this works for some of you. Bear in mind that no one supplement works the same for everyone, but at the low price - inositol is definitely worth trying!
Iodine
★★★★★
I've always been the kid that goes to school or work in a T-shirt at all times except the dead of winter. Three years ago, the hot flashes became quite extreme in the morning. I'm a guy so it has nothing to do with menopause :p.
A few months later I started taking iodine (as potassium iodide, orally, roughly 4 mg daily, for a few months) and have been cured for 2.5 years now. I have better resistance to heat in general. When I didn't take iodine for many months, I got the hot flashes back, but they disappear when I take a drop of iodine again (lugol's this time).
There's a lot of fear mongering about iodine on the internet, so I was apprehensive about taking high doses, taking it for a long time, or recommending it to other people. But I haven't been able to identify any negative effects from this kind of low dosing. Only the first two weeks or so I experienced harmless side effects: occasional dips in energy; fluctuations in feeling cold, then hot again; dry mouth and thirst. I made sure to get enough selenium (found in brazil nuts, pork, ...)
Iodine
★★★★★
I have been meaning to post this for a while now. It's only right that I tell you about my results as I remember how miserable I was 6 months ago. About 1 year ago I started getting really severe hot flashes. I was a walking ember. No kidding, I would have one at least every hour if not more. I had to take a couple of showers a day. At night I would wake every hour drenched in sweat. I had 2 fans on me and still I woke up soaked. This went on for 5 months.
I tried all kinds of remedies like Vitamin E (which did a lot of very good things for my body, but nothing for the hot flashes), black cohosh, Chinese herbs, ACV and countless others. Nothing worked. I was so miserable and sleep deprived and at my wits end. It was unbearable. I was so close to resorting to hormones. Then one day I was cooking and accidently cut my finger so I went into the medicine cabinet and found my iodine. As I was applying it to my finger, I started to remember what iodine does...supports the thyroid which regulates hormones. So I painted a 6"x6" square over my stomach and it disappeared within 3 hours. I painted my arm which disappear pretty quickly as well and then that night I drank 5 drops of liquid kelp (ingestible iodine).
I only had 1 mild hot flash that night and slept through the night for the first time in 5 months. The next morning, I painted again and continued to drink the liquid kelp at night. I have not had one hot flash since and that's been about 6 months ago. I ordered Lugol's and I take it 3x's a week. Ladies, please don't discount a sluggish thyroid if you are having severe hot flashes. Try iodine before resorting to synthetic hormones. Iodine has been a lifesaver for me.
(Ontario, Canada)
12/20/2014
(Bc, Canada)
12/21/2014
This is very interesting & I am very thankful to you Elizabeth for sharing your experience which infact is generating many more questions in my mind to look answers for. I think I can explain the hidden connection between thyroid and hot flashes to some extent. The exact cause of hot flashes isn't known, but it's most likely related to changes in reproductive hormones (estrogen and progesterone produced by ovaries) and in your body's thermostat (hypothalamus), which becomes more sensitive to slight changes in body temperature. The hypothalamic/pituitary/thyroid axis (HPT axis for short, aka thyroid homeostasis) is part of the endocrine system responsible for body's metabolism and production of heat. Although there is no apparent direct connection between thyroid and ovaries except the complex feed back mechanism of HPT, but reproductive problems are known to occur with thyroid issues, such as infertility which is very commonly observed in patients with thyroid problems. Similarly, many poly cystic ovarian disease (PCOD) patients are also known to have autoimmune thyroiditis indicating some underlying connection between thyroid and ovaries. Thyroid responsitivity by the ovaries could be explained by the presence of thyroid hormone receptors in human oocytes.
In 1993, a study by Wakim and et all , for the first time confirmed the presence of T3 and T4 in human follicular fluid and the presence of T3 binding sites in human granulosa cells and suggest a role for thyroid hormone in the regulation of human GCs. Later on, the receptors of both TH and TSH were also discovered to be increased in the receptive endometrium, suggesting that they are important for implantation. Research in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2007 evaluated the ovarian surface epithelial cells for hormone receptors, including those for thyroid hormone. The ovaries from women who had had a hysterectomy were used. Researchers found that the ovarian surface is a target for T3 thyroid hormone and that T3 hormone increased the action of estrogen receptors. Could this possibly help explain the link between hyperthyroidism and ovarian cancer? But if thyroid hormone levels are low, this could have huge implications for the level of estrogens, as well as the functioning of reproductive system and libido. In 2003, Cramer et al. showed that serum TSH levels were a significant predictor of failure of IVF, as TSH levels were significantly higher among women who produced oocytes that failed to be fertilized.
In short, since Iodine is needed to produce T3 & T4 or in other word for the optimum functionality of thyroid, perhaps this explains how iodine intake possibly stimulated your ovaries to produce estrogen and to helped thyroid better control the body temperature through the HPT axis.
(California, US)
12/22/2014
Thanks for the explanation, Rahat, however a little more scientific than my simplistic understanding of the body's chemical make up, but thank you nonetheless. I do hope you find the correlation between the thyroid (T3, T4) and ovaries. I was a little apprehensive to post because I didn't see any other testimonies for iodine/thyroid and hot flashes, but it worked for me and if it helps just one other woman who might be suffering as much as I was, it was worth the post.
Also, as a side note and confirmation to your explanation, I have a menstrual cycle again after not having one for 7 months and an increased libido as well.
Iodine
Hi. This might help somebody: I have a weird condition where any iodine-rich food or salt sends me into weeks or horrible, debilitating hot flashes. Avoiding iodine-rich substances makes them eventually go away, though it is hard to avoid iodine, so it sometimes starts up again. I have tested this reaction many times and it is consistant. When I'm having a reaction, taking a very low dose (12 to 50 micrograms) of thyroxine (like Synthroid) usually helps get the reaction under control within a week. I've been to a couple endocrynologists about this and none of them understand what is going on, except that iodine apparently shuts down the thyroid temporarily and it may be that mine isn't starting up again properly after too much iodine. In addition to the hot-flashes, my symptoms are more like hypo than hyperthyroidism, so maybe that's why the thyroxine helps.
Be healthy.
Iodine
★★★★★
I'm in the process of experimenting with iodine to cure fibrocystic breast disease. I've had cysts since I was 13 and am now a menopausal 48 yr. old. (Can't even dicipher a self-breast exam since I'm so lumpy) I started with some kelp tablets and increased all the way to 8 per day. At that point the quantity of lumps was lessened but then a couple of them enlarged and were really sore. I then changed over to Iodonol tablets (iodine/iodide) and now the cysts are getting smaller and for the first time since I can remember, my breasts are beginning to feel like they are supposed to. My hot flashes have lessened also, which is curious and I wonder if the iodine is the reason.