I am one of those people that think that losing weight would solve half the Americans health problems... but usually, that doesn't include menopausal symptoms, due to the fact that estrogen is stored in fat, so it makes sense that the fatter one is, the less menopausal symptoms they have... but I dunno. Glad it worked for you! Stay thin! :o) You GO GIRL!

I was in the same boat as you are 12 years ago. I went to an herbal store and spoke to the worman who owned it. She suggested Dong Quai. I didn't find chewing on a Dong Quai leaf helped much. Then I tried Solaray's phytoestrogen and that helped quite a bit. I went down to about 6-8 hot flashes a day and waking up to about 1 night sweat/night, sometimes none. I also found that keeping a bottle of cold water in the refrigerator, or a small cooler when I went somewhere, helped a lot. When I felt a hot flash coming on, I would drink probably 6 oz. of the cold water and it seemed to cool me from the inside, making the hot flash less severe. Then I became a Melaleuca customer and tried their EstrAval (contains dried soy extract, dried Dong Quai extract, and Dried Black Cohosh extract). I went down to 1 and sometimes no hot flashes/day, and while I occasionally get hot at night, I rarely have a night sweat. There is nothing to say these products will work for everyone, but I'd try them before I went to a perscription. Both Solaray and Melaleuca have good reputations for safe, effective products. I know Melaleuca is a registered pharmaceutical company the same as Merck and Pfizer.

Soy can work for some women; however, for the vast majority, soy is ineffective. Also, it is important to realize that soy contains plant-derived estrogens called phytoestrogens. These plant-derived estrogens may be just as unsafe as the prescription hormones... we just don't know. If you need hot flash or night sweat relief and don't want to take hormones, learn the truth about effective non-hormonal hot flash treatments at MenopauseUpdate.com. Learning the truth means learning the results of well-designed medical research studies. This is what you will learn on MenopauseUpdate.com. You will also learn the truth about the serious risks of taking hormones, including "bioidentical hormones". Currently there are 2 effective non-hormonal hot flash treatments that have been shown to provide long-term relief; they are gabapentin and oxybutynin. Go to MenopauseUpdate.com to learn how you can get started on one of these treatments and start experiencing relief.

To repeat some of what I've said earlier in multiple posts, I've taken a multi-faceted approach: sunlight therapy light for 30 minutes each morning during the shorter winter months making sure to eat healthily, esp. lots of legumes exercise (which for me also includes social partner dancing...not only provides exercise but physical interaction and music!) bamboo sheets have greatly helped with night sweats. I sleep much better. join a menopause support group or else start your own such Meetup group (I did, in NYC!) I take Rainbow Light Menopause One make it a point to be social....to get out of the house and be around other people. Go for walks...be around nature. If you are a night owl (like me), try your best to change your schedule little by little. Waking up earlier and going to bed earlier means you will have more waking hours in the natural light, and fewer waking hours in the dark, which in turn helps with serotonin levels and mood. Talk to a shrink if you are depressed and/or try to engage in cognitive therapy on your own. Be aware of how you are able to somewhat impact your own mood. For e.g., I noticed a pattern, whereby I was constantly assessing my mood multiple times per day. 'Am I feeling depressed right now?....Yup, I am. I am indeed feeling down...just like I was earlier today...just like I was yesterday. Ugh.' I realized that in doing that, I was then creating a sub-conscious 'reality' for myself, that if I am feeling down today, and I felt 'down' yesterday, and the day before that, that it stands to reason that tomorrow, and the next day, will also be the same. And how on earth can I expect to be in a good mood, if I believe this to be my reality, for the foreseeable future? Talk about creating a sense of doom for oneself. ;-) So.... I realized that this thought pattern I was exhibiting was not serving me one iota. Of course, we all know the expression of 'living in the moment'. I decided to purposefully try this at every moment of every day. 'Oh, doesn't this cup of coffee taste so good?.... this is so great that I just finished this work spreadsheet on my computer...I can now cross this off my to-do list.... this is great... Oh, this is a great song I'm listening to ...this salad I'm eating tastes so fresh!.... don't my two cats look so cute sleeping together..." And so on. By doing this, at the end of each day I found that I was able to look back and think 'you know...today wasn't that bad actually...'. And if I practiced living in the moment the next day as well, I could say 'this is great...today was pretty good...yesterday was pretty good...'. So that in turn helped to create my own new reality, which then helped me believe that the days ahead would also be pretty good! ;-) (If I assumed the days ahead would not be so good, they usually were not so good. But if I took on a more positive outlook, that my days ahead would be good, or 'pretty good', indeed, they usually were. While we can't control our emotions or mood entirely, much of it IS about perspective, and recognizing the ways we self-sabotage. And on that note....do not believe for one minute that 'older women are regarded with little worth' (as someone else here said). I am so utterly tired of women (and most often, it's American women) making this complaint. If you believe it, so it will be. No one wants to be around an older woman who is down in the dumps about her age. You could take two older women who look the exact same age more or less, and who have a similar appearance. One woman is confident, takes pride in her appearance, dresses attractively, does not feel her age is in and of itself a detriment; she is engaging, curious, outgoing. The other woman goes around believing that now that she's X-years of age, she's washed-up, and that society and men will 'ignore her'. She doesn't bother trying to dress nice, because she figures 'why bother'. Which woman do you think society is going to respond to more favorably. Which woman will more men find attractive? ;-)