Who cares if they already made a musical about menopause?
Going through “the change” in the broil of summer isn’t even remotely funny.
“Let’s go have drinks out on the patio,” your much younger friend says. “Let’s go listen to music in the park,” your husband says.
Really? When the temperature is approaching 100 degrees and a hot flash can make you feel like a pool of melting candle wax?
No, that’s all right. Unless there’s air conditioning involved, go have your fun in the sun on your own.
“I’d rather have labor pains,” Shunize Alvin said.
This summer has been no joke for the 60 year old from Roswell. She has been trying to cope with the bothersome symptoms of menopause as best she can by downing cup after cup of ice water, and spritzing it on her face.
She even committed a verboten move for a Southern woman of her age: she stopped wearing panty hose to church.
“When a hot flash comes on, you sweat your hair out, your make up off. It almost makes you want to lose your mind,” Alvin said.
“You feel like you’re being blow-torched,” said Karen Giblin, former Roswell resident and executive director of Red Hot Mamas, a national health advocacy group for menopausal women. “It’s like you could fry an egg on your chest.”
The medical definition of menopause is when a woman hasn’t had a menstrual period for 12 consecutive months. It’s those years leading up to that moment — perimenopause — when those aggravating symptoms manifest themselves as woman’s ovarian function and estrogen hormone levels fall.
About 25 percent of women never experience those symptoms. But for 75 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 60 — and the 1 percent who begin in their 30s or younger — they are a year-round affliction, and sometimes a multidecade affair.
When the temperatures soar into the triple digits, they can be much more of a burden. Night sweats, sleeplessness, chills and hot flashes are much more intense, robbing you of energy, the ability to focus and participation in a whole lot of other stuff you once enjoyed, including summer afternoons spent on the deck.
Hormone replacement therapy, which relieves many symptoms, was once a popular choice for women before a controversial 2002 National Institutes of Health study said it increased the risk for breast cancer, stroke and blood clots. A lot of women stopped taking it and never went back. But their hot flashes came back.
So what’s a woman to do between May and October, particularly if she’s not on hormone replacement?
“I always tell my patients, ‘If you’re thinking of going off estrogen, how about we wait until October?’ ” said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine.
Minkin has served as a consultant to some of the drug companies that make estrogen. For her patients who decline to take it, she tells them to realign their household budgets if they want to survive the summer.
“You have to keep your house as cool as you can afford to,” Minkin said. “If you can afford 65 degrees, do it.”
Cooler temperatures are imperative for a sound night’s sleep, something women in the throes of menopause rarely get.
“My husband is from Europe where they don’t really use air conditioning that much, and he hates where I like to set the thermostat,” said Giblin, who usually keeps the temperature at 72 degrees. “He says he develops icicles.”
Scientists have yet to determine the exact mechanism that causes a hot flash. Research indicates that it may have something to do with the function of the brain’s neurotransmitters, said Dr. Stephen Weiss, assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory University. While the body’s actual core temperature rises only a fraction of a degree during a hot flash, it feels as though it’s cranked up by a factor of 10. That heat will wake you right up, in a sheet-drenching sweat, followed by chills as your body cools down.
That’s why it’s important in summer, advocates say, to wear loose-fitting clothing made of lightweight natural fibers such as cotton and linen. That viscose blend sundress you bought on sale? Throw it out. Those jeans with that extra hint of spandex? Lose them. And for those of us wearing expensive shapewear to smooth out those extra few pounds accumulated during “the change,” well, just know that there’s going to be a trade-off for the appearance of a more svelte figure.
Alvin gave up on the extra garments long ago. She started running awhile back and now rises at 5 a.m., while it’s still relatively cool, to begin her workout.
Exercise is another combat weapon, said Dr. Margery Gass, an ob/gyn and executive director of the North American Menopause Society. The more weight a woman carries, the more likely she is to have hot flashes: the extra fat tissue makes it more difficult for heat to dissipate.
With mist bottles, hand-held fans and flowing skirts and blouses, Alvin can make it through a July day. To reward herself, she has a margarita each evening to celebrate.
Yet cocktails are a really bad move, Gass said. Alcohol is a known trigger for hot flashes because it causes blood vessels to dilate, sending blood to the skin, which causes you to sweat. And it disrupts your sleep.
Spicy food and caffeine are also triggers, Minkin said.
So what’s left? No iced lattes, no extra spicy salsa, no synthetic dresses no matter how billowy. These are supposed the be the joys of summer, right?
Renzie Richardson, who just moved to Birmingham from Cumming decided to do what she could to make peace with this phase of her life and keep cool.
She’s 53 now, although she began menopause in her early 40s. When it seemed her past lifestyle of eating whatever she wanted and maintaining her weight with little effort was over, she changed her diet. Out went fast food and lots of red meat. In came fresh vegetables, fruit, chicken, fish and multivitamins. She started exercising at least three times a week and incorporating resistance training.
Those changes helped her manage her stress, which is another trigger. Within six months of her new routine, Richardson’s hot flashes and other symptoms drastically reduced.
“Changing your behavior is the hardest thing,” said Richardson, a college training and development manager. “I still get hot flashes, but I get them when I fall outside of my routine.”
Alvin isn’t sure she’s ready to give up her margaritas, but she’s doing everything else she can to stay cool during summers, both personal and actual.
Those mist bottles she uses to spray her face when an internal heat wave approaches? She bought four cases of them. And she gave a few bottles away to friends, who, like her are, “going through.”
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