I never had hot flashes! What in the world was I going to do walking around all hot and sweaty all the time? The hot flashes started during chemo and they called it chemo pause. Not menopause. At my age this should have been familiar to me but you know how I do stuff, always my own way.
During radiation it got to the point that I could no longer rest at night because of theses crazy power surges that would attack through the day and night. After many complaints to the doctor they finally gave me a prescription for a medication that they said might help.
I guess this hot flash thing is kind of a mystery, they don’t know exactly why it happens but one thing is for sure. The hormone estrogen plays a big role. And the little pill did help some, not completely but any relief from this was good.
Six weeks after the radiation stopped came the Tamoxfin, the little pill that I would take for the next five years to block estrogen from my breast and give me assurance and make sure the cancer did not return.
If I thought the hot flashes were bad before I was not at all prepare for what was to come. I couldn’t go anywhere without having one after another and they would get worse when I was out. They would come about every half hour 24 hours a day.
I started reading about supplements and soon was taking anything that might possibly help. Flax seed oil, sage and more. One of the articles mentioned acupuncture. I can’t say I love needles and the last year I have felt like a human pin cushion anyway but I decided it was worth a try. Americans are conditioned to trauma when needles are involved. But these tiny instruments are about 1/8 of a human hair, that’s really tiny!
I was surprised at how comfortable and relaxing the treatment was and it has actually worked! This treatment has been around for thousands of years and has been very effective for me. For now I will continue to have weekly treatments with the tiny needles and pray it continues to work.
