I'm starting to have hot flashes at night which can make sleeping very challenging. We all know how important it is to sleep well in order to function well during the day

Looking at various websites, it appears that stress is the #1 trigger for hot flashes. That is, if I can reduce stress levels, the hot flashes will diminish as well! A win-win! So it definitely seems key to get more yoga and meditation into my life.

It also seems like caffeine / chocolate trigger them and I did have sugar-free chocolate pudding last night. So I won't have any tonight and see how that does!

Check the ingredients on your chocolate pudding, it probably has cocoa in it instead of chocolate :-)

I'm having a whole slew of peri-menopausal symptoms:
Hot flashes/Cold flashes
lightheadedness/dizziness/nausea
Wanting to cry a lot
Irregular periods

There's more, but I would say the flashing and wanting to cry all the time are the most troubling for me.

My gyn gave me Lo Loestrin FE, a very low does birth control, to help with the irregular periods and other symptoms. His instructions were if it helps keep taking it if I want to, if it doesn't help or I feel worse stop taking it.

Well, it really didn't improve my symptoms and it did kill off my libido. So, I just took the first pack of pills and didn't start up the next one.

Some ideas from my friends for relief are:

Estraven
Vitamins made especially for menopause
Black Cohash

so I will start looking into those.

I'm really not interested in hormone replacement therapy. Fortunately, I work from home so I can put up with more symptoms than if I were working outside my home.

I have started to walk with my beginning goal of 30 mins at least 3 times a week. Immediately, I have noticed a remarkable improvement in my mood - I feel happier. Whenever I started walking before, I didn't have that result so this is interesting to me.

I also have too much weight on due to being in front of my computer all day every day. I'm sure if I can get even 20 pounds off, I'll simply feel that much better :-)

Within the past week, my husband put his hand on me and realized I was sweaty. He was surprised & I was like "told you". I wake up at night with my hair soaked in sweat, my pillow is wet, and of course, I'm totally covered with sweat. I just toss my part of the covers toward the middle of the bed and fall back to sleep - until I'm freezing cold! LOLs

Like you, I'm not giving up my coffee. I only had two cups in the morning. As for the stress, well I have two teenaged girls and work several jobs from home. Unless I get rid of everyone in my home, the stress will remain :-)

I'm waiting another 10 days or so and then I'll try some vitamins or something. If I come across something that seems to help, I'll definitely mention it here.

I did read somewhere that the symptoms can last anywhere from a few years to 8 or more years.

I'm at the starting stages...I didn't mind too much during the winter - though some wondered why I was still wearing tank tops...lol..., it's getting worse as it gets warmer out.