{"id":1073,"date":"2019-03-28T13:50:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2019-03-27T16:02:33","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T16:02:33","slug":"hot-flash-treatment-alternatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/?p=1073","title":{"rendered":"Hot flash Treatment Alternatives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hot flashes are generally self limiting, and yet some women will \npersist in having them. You and your gnyo can decide if you should \ntreat. Non-hormonal lifestyle changes will be very beneficial to many \nwomen as well. Hormones are thought to be the most effective, and there \nare hundreds of safe and effective dosages. Be wary of dosages and forms\n that are not safe, and be sure you have a health check clearance before\n you begin on any. There are many women who can not find relief with \nhormones, and many who cannot safely take hormones. There are a variety \nof medications used for depression, anxiety, and hypertension that are \nused off label for the treatment of Hot Flashes. Women want to know the \ncomparison of effectiveness of these forms of treatments, and yet few \ntrials actually do include all the approaches to treatment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

New\n studies have looked at some of these therapies as compared with placebo\n and lifestyle changes.f Menopausal women with moderate vasomotor \nsymptoms may find relief \nfrom escitalopram, low-dose dose oral 17-beta-estradiol (E2), or \nvenlafaxine, according to a recently published group analysis of \nindividual data \nfrom three randomized clinical trials that tested drug and non-drug \ninterventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When applying this data to your \nsymptoms, be sure to discuss with your health care provider. “A single \ntrial designed to provide direct head-to-head \ncomparisons of all six interventions would have required considerably \nlarger samples sizes that were not possible within time and cost \nconstraints.”  Furthermore, intervention-specific exclusion criteria and\n \nwomen’s preferences would have made recruitment to a single trial \ntesting all interventions impractical,” the researchers have been quoted\n to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine A. Guthrie, PhD, from the MsFLASH Data Coordinating Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Group Health Research Institute, and the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, and colleagues presented their findings in an article published online<\/a>\u00a0 in July of 2015 in Obstetrics and Gynecology<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trials included 899 perimenopausal and \npostmenopausal women with 14 or more bothersome vasomotor symptoms per \nweek. The study interventions included 10 to 20 mg escitalopram per day,\n nonaerobic yoga, aerobic exercise, 1.8 g per day omega-3 fatty acid \nsupplementation, 0.5 mg low-dose E2 per day, and 75 mg low-dose \nvenlafaxine extended release per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\n study showed benefit from all the medications tried, and in this study \nresearchers found no significant effects on vasomotor \nsymptom frequency or bother with aerobic exercise, yoga, or omega-3 \nsupplements. It is possible that trial participants had different \nsymptoms than the average person who does report relief from these \nlifestyle changes since most studies of lifestyle changes show a lot of \nbenefit.  Also there may have been flaws in these studies as most \nresearch only studies women with 50 or 60 hot flashes per week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These data suggest use of escitalopram, oral \nlow-dose E2, or low-dose venlafaxine based on individual risk profiles \nand side effect concerns is a reasonable starting point for treating \nwomen with bothersome hot flushes” the authors conclude. But, according to us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it cannot replace individual consultation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obstet Gynecol<\/em>. Published online July 8, 2015. Abstract<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot flashes are generally self limiting, and yet some women will persist in having them. You and your gnyo can<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-gyno-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1079,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.womenshealthpractice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}