Why Do I Have Hot Flashes?
Filed under: Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy, Estrogen, Symptoms of Menopause, menopause
The primary sex hormone in women is estrogen. It plays an important role for us as women from puberty all the way through our childbearing years. When our levels of estrogen begin to decline, uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes start to occur.
Estrogen is made primarily in the ovaries. Both luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) are necessary for the development of estrogen in the ovaries.
Having too little or too much of LH or FSH will throw your estrogen levels off and create a hormone imbalance. A small amount of estrogen is produced in the adrenal glands and other tissue, but not enough to correct the imbalance.
As a woman ages and begins her menopause journey, her supply of eggs will decline and her ovaries will stop secreting estrogen. It is then that symptoms like hot flashes will begin to surface.
Hot flashes happen because the loss of estrogen in a womans body will affect the part of the brain the controls the body’s temperature. Lack of estrogen tells your brain to turn up the heat. This, in turn, causes a hot flash. Many women describe hot flashes as a sense of warmth that begins on the inside and radiates out. Sweating will frequently occur as your body tries to cool itsel down too quickly.
Estrogen may begin to decline several years before a woman finally stops having a period. So hot flashes may be present for a number of years. This is not always true, and everyone is different. But I know for a fact that hot flashes can certainly happen for more than just a few years.
The best treatment I have found for hot flashes are bioidentical hormones. Replacing the lost estrogen in your body is the key to feeling good again. See a bioidentical hormone specialist for testing so that they can determine what your hormone levels are and help you with treatment.
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