Avoiding Excessive Perspiration during Menopausal Hot Flashes
Although you likely will be subject to many uncomfortable symptoms during menopause and hormonal transition, hot flashes are among the most common side effects of middle age and decreasing levels of estrogen. If you have ever experienced a hot flash, you likely are already aware that they often cause an excessive and embarrassing amount of sweating. Fortunately, there are ways to alleviate this perspiration, allowing you to regain more control over your life and avoid potentially embarrassing or uncomfortable situations.
What Are Menopausal Hot Flashes?
Menopausal hot flashes usually are characterized by intense sensations of heat that begin in the chest or face, and then spread throughout the body. Common side effects of hot flashes include a rapid pulse, a flushing or reddening of the chest, neck and face, and excessive sweating. Sweating is among the most common side effects of this condition, usually lasting for anywhere between several seconds and several minutes, but frequency and intensity varies between individual women.
Perspiration can be exceedingly embarrassing, and sometimes becomes so intense that you must pause whatever task is then at hand, sometimes even prompting a change of clothes due to dampness and discomfort. If you experience these issues, however, you are not alone, as nearly three out of four menopausal women experience hot flashes and sweating to some degree during hormonal transition.
What Causes Sweating During Episodes of Menopausal Hot Flashes?
The major culprit of excessive perspiration during menopausal hot flashes is not entirely known by the scientific community, but it is widely though that the lack of estrogen that develops within your body during menopause is at fault. Hot flashes are, more specifically, the result of a miscommunication between the body and the hypothalamus, the regulatory section of the brain that influences heat production and body temperature.
A lack of estrogen persuades the hypothalamus to command the release of certain chemicals that expand the blood vessels within the skin in order to create more heat within the body. Because this a
dditional body heat is unneeded, it causes hot flashes and often excessive sweating.
Hot flashes, dizziness and heart palpitations all belong to a school of conditions called vasomotor symptoms, as they relate to the alternating dilation and constriction of the body’s blood vessels. Each of these symptoms usually decreases in regularity and intensity following the conclusion of menopause, but some women will continue to experience them for up to ten additional years, if not well into old age.
Excessive perspiration is likely one of the most problematic of side effects that come as a result of menopausal hot flashes, as it is the most uncomfortable and the most likely to cause the development of an embarrassing situation. Because of this, it is imperative that you take the initiative to prevent and alleviate this condition.
Coping with Excessive Sweating During Episodes of Menopausal Hot Flashes
• Wear light layers of clothing that can be easily stripped away in case a hot flash occurs.
• Avoid beverages and foods that are common triggers of hot flashes, like spicy foods and excessively alcoholic or caffeinated beverages.
• Keep your environment cool when possible by lowering the thermostat or turning on a fan.
• Perform physical activity and exercise regularly.
• Quit smoking tobacco products.
• Lose weight through healthy dieting and regular exercise.
• Use herbal supplements.
Read more about the most common symptoms of menopausal hot flashes.
