The "FLAME DOLLS" (Menopause Support Group)

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Replies

  • juliapurpletoes
    juliapurpletoes Posts: 951 Member
    Just wanted to let you all know that it looks like there's light at the end of my "hot flash tunnel". I'm 58, and for the past few months it seems like the hot flashes are getting fewer and fewer. For the past 10 years I've joked, "I'm always too warm, so if I'm cold, the room/weather is REALLY chilly." I don't know if the weight loss has anything to do with it or not, but I'm very happy to not have them many times a day. Maybe by the time I reach my goal weight I'll have to turn the heat up during the winter.

    YES - SO GOOD! I sometimes wonder if weight loss has anything to do with the frequesncy of hot flashes......or if more body fat makes them seem more intense? But, I do know that alot of thinner gals still get them so I'd hate to judge that one!!! :tongue:

    .......for me the flashes and sweats lasted for around 10 years - starting in my early 40's.....a decade - holy cow!!! I used to get so annoyed...

    flame on gals!! :heart:
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    Just wanted to let you all know that it looks like there's light at the end of my "hot flash tunnel". I'm 58, and for the past few months it seems like the hot flashes are getting fewer and fewer. For the past 10 years I've joked, "I'm always too warm, so if I'm cold, the room/weather is REALLY chilly." I don't know if the weight loss has anything to do with it or not, but I'm very happy to not have them many times a day. Maybe by the time I reach my goal weight I'll have to turn the heat up during the winter.

    YES - SO GOOD! I sometimes wonder if weight loss has anything to do with the frequesncy of hot flashes......or if more body fat makes them seem more intense? But, I do know that alot of thinner gals still get them so I'd hate to judge that one!!! :tongue:

    .......for me the flashes and sweats lasted for around 10 years - starting in my early 40's.....a decade - holy cow!!! I used to get so annoyed...

    flame on gals!! :heart:

    I'd be surprised to hear that weight makes a difference - I am not overweight, but believe me, the hot flashes could be very intense!! When they first started, my daughter was still figure skating so I GLADLY volunteered to run the music on the ice and stood in the box on the ice rink with NO COAT on - it was pure heaven. I'll bet it I laid down on the ice, I'd have melted it, no problem!! The flashes aren't as frequent any more and only seem real intense around that time of the month, so I have been given a small reprieve!! I still can't believe that hot flashes don't count for squat as a calorie burn - really, shouldn't that have been part of the package as a bonus for having to suffer through this??
  • singer201
    singer201 Posts: 563 Member
    I have a very thin friend who is always cold, she knew she was having a hot flash when she felt comfortably warm--LOL
  • susanswan
    susanswan Posts: 1,194 Member
    Hey everyone! I am 48 years old....still have regular periods, no hot flashes yet
    but I have begun to lose hair. It's very disturbing to me....as I used to have a very thick head of hair, and now it's considerably thinner. I have very thin spots in the front of my head just about my forehead. I read that menopause may cause you to lose hair because of the fluctuating estrogen levels. I was tested for lupus, and thankfully it came back negative. Is there anything that can be done??? Has any one had any success with any natural remedies? I am going for my yearly GYN checkup soon, and am thinking about asking to be put on a low dose of HRT. I'd love to hear from anyone who is seeing this same thing happening. :bigsmile:

    My hair is thinning, too. Doing my own version of combovers. Not so funny when it is me! What can you do. Allergic to Rogaine, and the other products don't seem to work. I guess my only option is to live with it. I see other women like that, but it is very hard to accept. I am 54 in April.

    I lost 53 pounds 3 years ago just as my periods were becoming irregular. My GYN was SO impressed that I had lost so much and didn't gain the requisite 10 pounds instead. Well, I had gotten down from 205 to 152, but not down to my original goal of 135. I was exercising with weights and walking. THen all hell broke loose being small business owners and I let myself go to take care of business.

    So 3 years later I am starting back at 168 pounds and aiming for 135 or thereabouts. Last time I lost about 1.1 pounds over time and built up some nice muscle to the point of losing some pear shape. Got into size 8 jeans! Now I'm almost into a 10, the exercise is getting me stronger and I am building back the muscle again and losing inches. I refuse to quit on myself again this time come Hell or highwater. I'm a lifer here. If I lose 1 pound a month, that will still be better than gaining a pound a week/month/whatever. It is still worth it to me. Count me in!
  • singer201
    singer201 Posts: 563 Member
    For those of you with thinning hair, do you have a father with male pattern baldness? It's carried on the X chromosome, so it affects women, too, just not quite as drastically as it does men. My dad was quite bald, and in my late 30's/early 40's, I experienced hair thinning. It's not patchy or really noticeable, but my ponytail/braid is half as thick as it was in my 20's.
  • juliapurpletoes
    juliapurpletoes Posts: 951 Member

    I refuse to quit on myself again this time come Hell or highwater. I'm a lifer here. If I lose 1 pound a month, that will still be better than gaining a pound a week/month/whatever. It is still worth it to me. Count me in!

    Hi Susan...what a story - thank you for checking in!! I love the sentiment of your post. :smooched:

    Don't ever quit on yourself - you've found home here and so glad you did!!!!

    HUG:heart:
  • Aitenev
    Aitenev Posts: 62
    For those of you with thinning hair, do you have a father with male pattern baldness? It's carried on the X chromosome, so it affects women, too, just not quite as drastically as it does men. My dad was quite bald, and in my late 30's/early 40's, I experienced hair thinning. It's not patchy or really noticeable, but my ponytail/braid is half as thick as it was in my 20's.

    I've had a problem with thinning hair also. I read somewhere that Biotin (B7 vitamin) helps hair and skin growth so I've been taking it for about 4 months now. Recently my hairdresser mentioned (unprompted by me!) that she thinks my change in diet has helped with the thinning patch. I don't know whether it's the change in diet or the biotin but for now I'm just going to keep up with both. Wow, one more reason to keep eating healthy! :happy:
  • singer201
    singer201 Posts: 563 Member
    I've been taking biotin for about a month, mainly for my nails. We feed it to our horses to make their hooves strong, and the usual first place to see improvement is their hair coat. I will watch for changes in my hair, too.
  • toalwaysbeme
    toalwaysbeme Posts: 33

    I thought it looked interesting, too - considered it seriously, but I'm just not so sure that I'd like a constant breeze blowing up my skirt all night, ya know?? :P

    yeah - I thought about that too....vaginal dryness.....no thanks!

    Oh I dont know about that. Ive been single and alone for over 5 years, a bedfan might be the only excitement I get. LMAO
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    For those of you with thinning hair, do you have a father with male pattern baldness? It's carried on the X chromosome, so it affects women, too, just not quite as drastically as it does men. My dad was quite bald, and in my late 30's/early 40's, I experienced hair thinning. It's not patchy or really noticeable, but my ponytail/braid is half as thick as it was in my 20's.

    I thought that male pattern baldness went every other generation - meaning that if your Dad had it, then you wouldn't but your offspring would...do I have that wrong?

    I have experienced thinning also, but I noticed that it occurs during times of increased stress and when I have severe headaches. Seems that I 'clench' my scalp for lack of a better description, so I consciously take inventory several times per day to relax my scalp (and the rest of me, too!) which seems to help surprisingly! So I have an hourly reminder that goes off on my Calendar at work to remind me to take a few minutes to get up and move (other wise I'm glued to the chair all day) and I spend a moment or two consciously relaxing. Sounds silly, but these little 'siestas' really make a difference!
  • DeeDeeLHF
    DeeDeeLHF Posts: 2,301 Member
    For those of you with thinning hair, do you have a father with male pattern baldness? It's carried on the X chromosome, so it affects women, too, just not quite as drastically as it does men. My dad was quite bald, and in my late 30's/early 40's, I experienced hair thinning. It's not patchy or really noticeable, but my ponytail/braid is half as thick as it was in my 20's.

    I've had a problem with thinning hair also. I read somewhere that Biotin (B7 vitamin) helps hair and skin growth so I've been taking it for about 4 months now. Recently my hairdresser mentioned (unprompted by me!) that she thinks my change in diet has helped with the thinning patch. I don't know whether it's the change in diet or the biotin but for now I'm just going to keep up with both. Wow, one more reason to keep eating healthy! :happy:

    I too, do the Biotin and it has helped a lot! My hairdresser noticed it also and like you it didn't help overnight but after a few months I suddenly had all of these crazy 2 inch long hairs all over my head! Crazy, because they were sticking straight up like a buzz cut. I have to use a styling product to get them to lay down. Still, after a year of using it my hair looks better than ever.

    D
  • DeeDeeLHF
    DeeDeeLHF Posts: 2,301 Member
    Hey everyone! I am 48 years old....still have regular periods, no hot flashes yet
    but I have begun to lose hair. It's very disturbing to me....as I used to have a very thick head of hair, and now it's considerably thinner. I have very thin spots in the front of my head just about my forehead. I read that menopause may cause you to lose hair because of the fluctuating estrogen levels. I was tested for lupus, and thankfully it came back negative. Is there anything that can be done??? Has any one had any success with any natural remedies? I am going for my yearly GYN checkup soon, and am thinking about asking to be put on a low dose of HRT. I'd love to hear from anyone who is seeing this same thing happening. :bigsmile:

    My hair is thinning, too. Doing my own version of combovers. Not so funny when it is me! What can you do. Allergic to Rogaine, and the other products don't seem to work. I guess my only option is to live with it. I see other women like that, but it is very hard to accept. I am 54 in April.

    I lost 53 pounds 3 years ago just as my periods were becoming irregular. My GYN was SO impressed that I had lost so much and didn't gain the requisite 10 pounds instead. Well, I had gotten down from 205 to 152, but not down to my original goal of 135. I was exercising with weights and walking. THen all hell broke loose being small business owners and I let myself go to take care of business.

    So 3 years later I am starting back at 168 pounds and aiming for 135 or thereabouts. Last time I lost about 1.1 pounds over time and built up some nice muscle to the point of losing some pear shape. Got into size 8 jeans! Now I'm almost into a 10, the exercise is getting me stronger and I am building back the muscle again and losing inches. I refuse to quit on myself again this time come Hell or highwater. I'm a lifer here. If I lose 1 pound a month, that will still be better than gaining a pound a week/month/whatever. It is still worth it to me. Count me in!

    Susan,
    It took me FOREVER to lose the weight but I adopted your philosophy that even if I only lost 10 pounds a year it was better than what I had been doing which was gaining 5# per year!

    As for 10 years of hot flashes!!! I am feeling despondent!!! :noway::sad: :grumble: :laugh:
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    For those of you with thinning hair, do you have a father with male pattern baldness? It's carried on the X chromosome, so it affects women, too, just not quite as drastically as it does men. My dad was quite bald, and in my late 30's/early 40's, I experienced hair thinning. It's not patchy or really noticeable, but my ponytail/braid is half as thick as it was in my 20's.

    I've had a problem with thinning hair also. I read somewhere that Biotin (B7 vitamin) helps hair and skin growth so I've been taking it for about 4 months now. Recently my hairdresser mentioned (unprompted by me!) that she thinks my change in diet has helped with the thinning patch. I don't know whether it's the change in diet or the biotin but for now I'm just going to keep up with both. Wow, one more reason to keep eating healthy! :happy:

    I too, do the Biotin and it has helped a lot! My hairdresser noticed it also and like you it didn't help overnight but after a few months I suddenly had all of these crazy 2 inch long hairs all over my head! Crazy, because they were sticking straight up like a buzz cut. I have to use a styling product to get them to lay down. Still, after a year of using it my hair looks better than ever.

    D

    So, what dosage of Biotin do the two of you take? How did you hear about it?
  • glcarr65
    glcarr65 Posts: 74
    What a great group of women!! I really enjoy reading everyone's stories.

    It is funny with the hot flashes,,, just when I think they are gone..POOF...they are back like crazy...
    I have been having many this week... Oh the joys of being a women!!:laugh: :laugh:
  • ronda_gettinghealthy
    ronda_gettinghealthy Posts: 777 Member
    This is a great topic- but trying to find it is tough on the search engine.
  • Southboundnana
    Southboundnana Posts: 32
    Hi,
    I don't think that I am still Hot, cuz I have finished the Menopause Crawl, (you know when you are so hot you want to crawl into the freezer). But at times I still get a little hot.

    I'm 52, and having the time of my life. My DH (darling Husband) has retired and we are getting to travel alot.
    I love it!
  • vikkij12
    vikkij12 Posts: 82
    bump till tonight
  • juliapurpletoes
    juliapurpletoes Posts: 951 Member
    OK - so not a night sweat for MONTHS, and Imean literally many months maybe 6....them boom last night (shaking my head....)

    :blushing:
  • DeeDeeLHF
    DeeDeeLHF Posts: 2,301 Member
    OK - so not a night sweat for MONTHS, and Imean literally many months maybe 6....them boom last night (shaking my head....)

    :blushing:

    Yes, hormones...can't live with them, can't live without them!

    For the record ladies, although some researchers say that you plant estrogen cannot replace bio-identical ones, I am having really great success with this Black cohosh and wild yam blend.

    D
  • RMinVA
    RMinVA Posts: 1,085 Member
    My flashes have abated in the past few months, and given some of the stories I have heard, they weren't really all that bad. The cooler winter weather has helped. I have also been taking extra Vitamin E and using soy milk. I have some black cohosh drops in the cabinet, but I am not crazy about the taste.

    I wasn't having horrible night sweats, but since my husband was having them too, I'm not sure how much was me and how much was our bed/bedroom. Anyway, we changed the mattress cover on the bed from one that has a synthetic top to one with a cotton top. Worked wonders!!
  • Enigmatica
    Enigmatica Posts: 879 Member
    I've been experimenting with Estroven supplements for about a week. They do seem to be helping. I started using the nighttime version first, and the hot flashes decreased from an average of 6 per night down to 2, after 3 days on it. Adding in soy burgers at night seemed to help too - down to 1 HF per night, and slept a lot better. (Soy is estrogenic, and all indications are that I've gone from way too much est to way too little. ::sigh::)

    Yesterday I started taking a daytime version of Estroven and only had 1 HF during the entire day. I'd been averaging 5-6 for the past 2 weeks. However, the other big change I made yesterday was to add 2 tbls of milled flax seed to my breakfast. Flax is another estrogenic. So that may have had an impact as well.

    My main interest is in getting to SLEEP again, so I'm happy that something seems to be working. Or maybe I just got lucky for a few days. I'm going to keep experimenting.
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    Missing all you guys - no one has posted here in a couple of days!!!

    Woke up at 2:00 a.m. dying of heat - thought it was a night sweat until I took inventory and saw that my daughter and both cats had joined me in the bed and ALL of them were laying on me!! Gah!! An entire queen-sized bed and four bodies are crammed into less than 12 inches of it with me on the bottom!!

    How are you other Flame Dolls doing? Have a great Monday everyone!!
  • juliapurpletoes
    juliapurpletoes Posts: 951 Member
    I'm still here!!!!

    i was noticing that now that I am exercising on regular basis and of course eating WAY better.......I just don't feel as "old".

    Didn't have a bunch of the typical menopause symptoms anyway.....(I don't count crazy mood swings since I am a scorpio,it's just our way of transitioning - like a volcano)

    I do feel more youthful because I'm more flexible and energetic.........

    I also decided (prompted by a post awhile back) that what makes me BEAUTIFUL (which is why I joined MFP - to feel more beautiful) is that I am beating away the FEAR that I won't be BEAUTIFUL as I age.

    No matter what, I am. :heart:
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    So, my daughter and I were watching some Rugrats cartoons a week or so ago, and one of the mother characters yells, "Is it hot in here or is it just me?" and sticks her head into the freezer. My daughter laughs, turns to me and says, "Mom, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't get that joke!".

    Well. So glad I could help!

    :laugh: Thought you all might enjoy the laugh too. (and just for the record, I do say "is it hot in here or is it just me?", but I don't go sticking my head into the freezer!)

    Have a fantastic day Flame Dolls!!
  • legacysh
    legacysh Posts: 464
    So, my daughter and I were watching some Rugrats cartoons a week or so ago, and one of the mother characters yells, "Is it hot in here or is it just me?" and sticks her head into the freezer. My daughter laughs, turns to me and says, "Mom, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't get that joke!".

    Well. So glad I could help!

    :laugh: Thought you all might enjoy the laugh too. (and just for the record, I do say "is it hot in here or is it just me?", but I don't go sticking my head into the freezer!)

    Have a fantastic day Flame Dolls!!

    Love this.
  • legacysh
    legacysh Posts: 464
    So I was not having HF for months, and now we're back to the insanity of all of it again. The inconsistency is killing me. I am what they refer to as a Head sweater- So in the morning My hair is gross. I tried a new AM/PM herbal support, but all I got from my husbands perspective is that I smelled like BEER at night. Then I had him smell the package from the pills, and he agreed its the pills. So I am switching. Any good suggestions for a brand of Herbal supplements with black cohash????
  • mmtiernan
    mmtiernan Posts: 702 Member
    Any good suggestions for a brand of Herbal supplements with black cohash????

    I used EstroLogic which has 100 mg of black cohash among its ingredients. REALLY helped to curb the night sweats. It also helped to tame the daily hot flashes - I still had them, but not nearly so extreme. I bought it through swansonvitamins.com.

    Hope this helps!
  • RMinVA
    RMinVA Posts: 1,085 Member
    I just have the black cohash drops that you add to water. I take so many supplements as it is, I can't bear to take another one.
  • DeBlue
    DeBlue Posts: 254 Member
    Wow what a supportive thread! Sheesh this inability to focus, the lack of sleep, and the on-again and off-again relationship I have with my blanket - it is exhausting.

    Last night I woke up at 1:30, so hot I thought I'd suffocate. My room is kept between 60-65 at night, and it still took almost 10 minutes without even a sheet before I could cool down. I suppose I'm lucky it is just heat, I don't wake up drenched or anything. But once I cool down, just as suddenly I'm instantly freezing. The shivering sets in and I think I'll never be warm. So I hold off and just put just the sheet on waiting for normal to return. Finally I'll fall for it and think it has passed. I'll pull the blanket only partially back on and before I can say ahh, the heat cycle starts all over again. And by this time my mind is racing with every possible worry it can search out. I'll flip on the television hoping to district myself from all that frantic panic going on in my head. Last night this went on for well over an hour, until eventually I drifted back to sleep. By 4:00 it started all over again.

    I know this has got to have an effect on weight management, so this certainly is an appropriate thread for MFP. Thanks ladies for being here and helping me feel a bit more like normal, for all the great ideas, and a place to vent!!
  • spirited_angel
    spirited_angel Posts: 142
    Hi im Dawn im from the uk and here is my story i lost weight 4 years ago i lost 10 stone and even though i didnt really change my workouts ect i started putting weight back on.i was moody and tearful i would sweat buckets etc I was told it was depression and put on medication,i put more weight on!! In 8 mths i had put back on all the weight i had lost and more!!I was still moody ect and it got worse so i went back to doctors and asked if it could be the menapuse,i was told no i was far too young!!I was 38yrs old!!I told him my mum was only 39 and as i had such a dramatic weight loss couldnt that send me into an early menapause so he agreed to test.Low and behold a week later i was told i was in full blown menapause.........i was put onto hrt and once settled i started to get all my weight back off.I have now lost over 12st and have maintained within half stone to a stone for over a year!!Hrt saved my life i think cos i thought i was going mad....i was so moody and angry all the time!!I even remebered smashing plates i was so frustrated ect

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