Hot Flashes- The Most Unfortunate Truth

Firstly, a little hot flash history- the medical definition of hot flashes-

Hot flashes: A sudden wave of mild to intense body heat caused by rushes of hormonal changes resulting from decreased levels of estrogen.

When do hot flashes mostly occur and why?

Research suggests that hot flashes occur when decreased estrogen levels cause your body's thermostat (hypothalamus) to become more sensitive to slight changes in body temperature. When the hypothalamus thinks your body is too warm, it starts a chain of events — a hot flash — to cool you down. Your body heats up, heart rate increases, stress and perspiration occur and then you begin the cool down… finally.

Is there a cure for hot flashes?

No treatment is guaranteed to prevent hot flashes, but there are options that may help you manage your symptoms. The goal of treatment is usually to lessen the severity and frequency of your hot flashes. You can consider lifestyle changes, hormone replacement therapy, prescription medications, or alternative therapies. There is NO cure.

Does a hot flash cause anxiety or does anxiety cause the hot flash? Hmm

The answer is YES- for many people, hot flashes are accompanied — even caused — by anxiety. Anxiety during a hot flash episode can certainly cause a worse effect- increased heart rate, sweating, red blotches, panic- oh my!

And here’s some proof…

In one study, researchers followed 436 premenopausal women for 6 years and found that anxiety was not only a symptom of hot flashes, but that people with anxiety were 3 to 5 times more likely to have hot flashes. And when researchers returned to that same cohort in 2016 to analyze their symptoms at the 14-year mark, they were able to confirm the strong relationship between anxiety and hot flashes.

So what proves the effectiveness of an acupressure bracelet on hot flashes and menopausal symptoms?

This is an interesting and confirming study of the value of acupressure points H7 and SP6 on menopausal symptoms via acupressure bracelet-anklet.  

Effect of Acupressure on Early Complications of Menopause in Women-

The subjects were randomly assigned to study (wearing a special acupressure wrist brace, three times a week for 15 min, in both bands on Shenmen (H7) and Sanyinjiao (SP6) acupoints, in addition to receiving conventional menopausal care) and placebo (wearing a special acupressure wrist brace, three times a week for 15 min, but in a counter wise way, in addition to receiving conventional menopausal care) groups. 

Results:

The findings revealed a significant reduction in the number and severity of hot flashes, the number of night sweats, and state–trait anxiety severity (P < 0.001), but with regard to the severity of night sweats and trait anxiety, there was no significant difference between groups.

Conclusions:

With regard to the obtained results on the effect of acupressure on reduction of early menopausal complications, acupressure along with conventional menopausal care is suggested as one of the complementary medicine methods to improve the complications of this period.

In this last study the subjects wore both a wrist and ankle acupressure bracelet- acupoint H7 on the wrist and acupoint SP6 above the inside ankle bone.

 

What have I proven? And why bother>

Acupressure techniques can naturally reduce the frequency, decrease the severity or completely relieve your  menopausal symptoms. An AcuBracelet or Acupressure Bracelet can decrease the severity, duration and accompanied anxiety of hot flashes and can lessen the number of night sweats.

At the end of the day- anything that you try- do so with consistency and an open mind.

Thanks for stopping by…

 

References

The National Library of Medicine

Freeman EW, Sammel MD, Lin H, Gracia CR, Kapoor S, Ferdousi T. The role of anxiety and hormonal changes in menopausal hot flashes. Menopause. 2005 May-Jun;12(3):258-66. doi: 10.1097/01.gme.0000142440.49698.b7. PMID: 15879914.

Freeman EW, Sammel MD. Anxiety as a risk factor for menopausal hot flashes: evidence from the Penn Ovarian Aging cohort. Menopause. 2016 Sep;23(9):942-9. doi: 10.1097/GME.0000000000000662. PMID: 27433864; PMCID: PMC4993654.

Armand M, Ozgoli G, Giti RH, Majd HA. Effect of Acupressure on Early Complications of Menopause in Women Referring to Selected Health Care Centers. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2017;22(3):237-242. doi:10.4103/1735-9066.208165