Night Sweats and Hot Flushes After Unilateral Oophorectomy

Hello everyone,

I've decided to write to you all because I am struggling to find much information about the different types or intensities of hormonal changes immediately after the removal of one ovary.

5 days ago, I had a 10cm complex cyst removed along with my left ovary. The surgeon said my uterus and other ovary looked good. 

3 days ago I started my period - on its due date - and the day after that started experiencing intense night sweats (to the point of having to change my bedding and clothes) and hot flushes which felt like waves of heat rising up my neck, into my cheeks and face and lasting a minute or two. Worse than anything was the night sweats though - freezing outside of the blanket, dripping wet and boiling under it. I have barely slept 12 hours since the surgery.

I'm surprised by how little information is out there about the hormonal "shift" that simply must occur in one's body when one 'stage' of the reproductive loop is removed from the equation. I wish my surgeon had given me more information but perhaps even more information would not have satisfied my inherent feeling that my right, remaining ovary is actually dead and I've gone into menopause.

More likely, I think, is that my ovary is stunned from the full cut surgery and losing its mate and that it will take time to wake up. But in the interim, are menopausal like symptoms something anyone here has experienced after the removal of just one ovary? I keep being told that no, I won't be menopausal if I have one ovary left, but the health of the ovary is still to be seen. I have no kids and would be completely shattered to go into early menopause (I am 33). 

I know it's early days - and last night I actually had far few 'wet episodes' which made me feel really positive today. I also spoke to my surgeon who said that it is a bit 'unusual' that I am experiencing menopausal symptoms but that she thinks my righty is just fast asleep and will be engaged again soon.

I wonder how my period might play a role and if this is a good sign that it arrived as expected 3 days after surgery? Could my right ovary and brain already have had negotiations and it's already employed and earning benefits, and I'm just feeling a "general" drop in hormones due to the shock loss of its sister ovary?

Someone, please encourage me that this isn't going to be my story...early menopause at 33 before I've had the chance to have a baby with the love of my life?

(Still waiting on biopsy results but my surgeon doesn't seem too concerned that this giant thing in me was malignant. It looked like a giant testicle! I got her to take a photo.......)

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