Okay, now this isn’t funny.  First the medical profession tells us we can be free of hot flashes and the joyful and celebratory symptoms of menopause with HRT.  Then, they all start hollering that it isn’t safe (it probably is safer than rushing to the drugstore in a panic to replace our Premarin prescription and getting into a car accident on the way, however).  And in an abrupt about-face, the steely faced physicians who resist natural treatments as though they were a self-performed root canal, start recommending Black Cohosh for us poor “girls” enduring “The Change.”  Make up your minds guys, and let me explain hot flashes to you, because I don’t think you get it.

A hot flash isn’t just feeling like the room is a bit warm.  It isn’t wondering if the air conditioning stopped functioning quite up to snuff.  It isn’t even like a fever.  It is like having a sunspot suddenly take up residence somewhere in the middle of your chest and spreading all the way up to your face, turning it bright red, and then back down to your waist, following the trail of perspiration that trickles down your back.

When you are having a hot flash, nothing else exists except that particular moment of imminent spontaneous combustion.  There is nothing so all encompassing as the degree of heat that a woman feels in the midst of one of these things.  My furnace should work so efficiently.  All I know, is that at the time I am feeling the heat build, and can tell the point-of-no-return has been reached and the hot flash is inevitable, my world narrows considerably.

I have grabbed paperback books and fanned myself with them.  (I don’t recommend heavy ones - Stephen King’s books are far too thick and if you lose your grip from the sweat on your hands, you can get a concussion when it smacks you in the temple.)  I have tried to slyly sneak over to an open window, (mowing down anyone in my way is less than subtle but hey - A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right?)  to feel just the slightest flicker of a breeze.  I am always shocked when people yell at me.  “Hey, are you nuts?  Shut that window!  It is five degrees below zero out there!” 

I have had hot flashes so bad my glasses fogged up.  I have envisioned myself getting into a fender bender and trying to explain to the officer why my seat belt is stuck to me (I have broken out in a full sweat) and that the whole thing happened because of steam on my lenses.  “I didn’t see the 18 wheeler in the fog, officer,” and I am sure that would get me locked up at worst, and a really huge ticket and insurance increase at best. 

I have had hot flashes so bad I am sure heat is radiating off of me.  I am glad smoke detectors don’t work exclusively by temperature.  I could set one off if they did.  I know I must look like a mirage with the wavy lines shimmering around me, as I wonder if I have reached the point of breaking a mercury thermometer.

I thought Black Cohosh was the plan.  I did notice something that I originally thought was just hormone fluctuations within my own body.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.  In fact, it is questionable if the Black Cohosh is really Black Cohosh at all (and if it isn’t, what the heck is in that capsule?) 

But now I find out the FDA doesn’t regulate herbal remedies because they consider them a food supplement, not a medication.  Well, of course.  Silly me!  I often sit down at night with a good movie and a bowl of herbal pills to snack on.  I also find this disturbing because that means that God knows what is in my food - they aren’t really regulating either one of these things. 

So my red-faced, overly warm sister in misery - it’s not in your head.  The Black Cohosh does work IF you can find one that truly is Black Cohosh.  I suppose we could grow it.  Does anyone know how to grow this stuff?  Is it legal to grow?  Would I need to put black paper and tape on my basement window and buy those funky lights to grow plants that are somewhat questionable just to keep from ripping off my clothes in the middle of an office building elevator?

I wonder if men experienced these hot flashes if they would be so ho-hum about the whole herbal issue.  This is a so-what issue for the FDA it would seem, and the makers of the various Black Cohosh supplements don’t seem to worry about it much either.  I wish, in one of those corporate meetings, that just one woman would have a hot flash at that very moment.  Would they would all pay attention as she held them at gunpoint demanding a treatment that works?

Could this be why men object to the idea of a woman president?  I mean, if something really got her irritated and she had the unfortunate timing to have a hot flash at the moment she had her finger on the red button, could we really propel ourselves into a thermonuclear war?  I wouldn’t think that to be such a huge issue - the temperature would be cooler anyway!  Perhaps hot flashes are the root cause of discrimination against women.  It makes sense.  Women get, as do men, completely irrational when they are in a comfortable temperature and then are suddenly, with no advance warning, thrust into an environment that closely resembles a blueberry muffin’s birthplace.  Get real.  350 degrees is no big threat.

What I don’t get is why they don’t all seem to be more worried. This is not just a matter of comfort.  It isn’t a matter of health.  It is a matter of personal safety (remember the fogged up glasses), sexual discrimination, and potentially world peace!

Black Cohosh Supplements With No Black Cohosh

Adelle Tilton