Hot flushes

Hi Junieju, you asked why are you having hot flashes? Here's your answer. Also, you can them all the way into your 70's, as long as you still have your ovaries.

Hot flashes are caused by a phenomenon called vasomotor instability. To understand this phenomenon first one must understand some basic physiology about the body. Blood vessels in the skin of the body can dilate or constrict (open up or narrow down), depending on what the body tells them to do. If the body gets hot, then it sends blood to the outside of the body by dilating or opening the blood vessels in the skin. This allows the heat of the blood, and thus of the body, to dissipate or leave and cool the body down. This is just like in an automobile when the water runs through a radiator to cool the car down. This ability of the body to cool itself is a regulatory mechanism for heat control of the body, and a thermoregulator in the brain directs this regulation. One may think of this as the body's thermostat. The thermoregulator in a woman's brain controls the body's heat and cooling regulatory function, just as the thermostat in a house controls the heater and air conditioner.

If the thermostat on a house is constantly changed, or someone is frequently moving it up and down, then the air conditioner of the house will be constantly be going on and off. This is similar to what happens in a woman having hot flashes; the thermostat in her brain is bouncing up and down. All of a sudden it tells the body it is hot, and tells the body to send all of the blood to the skin to cool the body down. First the woman feels hot as her thermostat has told her she is hot. Next the blood is sent to her skin and the flush or redness appears. Then the sweating begins as her body tries to cool itself off. Then, after only a few minutes, the thermostat resets itself and the woman feels normal again, but only later to undergo the same cycle again.While many things such as diet, caffeine, heat and stress are known to trigger hot flashes, the underlying cause is known to be a decrease of estrogen in the body. While the general mechanisms of the hot flash can be explained, the reason why less estrogen causes this instability of the body's thermostat is less certain. And, the more rapid the drop of estrogen, the more severe the hot flashes tend to be.

oops where's the edit button! You CAN have them into your 70's.

I also have had no periods for 6 years....hot flushes have continued in this tima also. And the daytime ones are getting worse too.

this is what it's like in our house day and night lol!!!