Hot Flash! Red Hot Mamas Spreads Word About Big M

Off went the duvet. Then the thin quilt, the sheet and finally the nightgown. Four in the morning. Wide awake.

Light dawns: Dang nab it, forgot my hormones.

I fumble for the estrogen cream in the dark and wait. The hot flash subsides, but forget sleep. The “day” has begun, way too early for anybody but farmers and shift workers.

Who knew?

My mother sailed through the Big M unaided by pharmaceuticals and claimed, with one warning, that menopause was a cakewalk.

All things considered, my transition into official middle age has been relatively easy. I give thanks for Biest, a soy-based estrogen compounded mostly from estriol.

That’s not an ad. I stubbornly refused hormone replacement therapy until I read in “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” that reluctant HRT patients might accept this weakest form of estrogen. No problem, my European-trained gynecologist said. Been using this form of estrogen over there for years without adverse effects.

There should be better resources, even though Dr. Christiane Northrup’s classic book is a sensible source of information.

Karen Giblin’s experience wasn’t easy.

At age 42, “I was serving my third term in public office when I had a total hysterectomy and bilateral oophorectomy [removal of both ovaries], which put me into surgical menopause.

“I was having night sweats and hot flashes – the devilish duo, I call them – and suffering from memory loss, not being able to remember town ordinances, feeling fatigued and a bit depressed.

“A lot of women in my community of 25,000 people started calling me, asking me questions about natural menopause and surgical menopause, and I felt less isolated.”

They weren’t getting enough information from their physicians, who were propelled by managed care “to reduce office visits to seven to 15 minutes, if you’re lucky. That really isn’t enough time to explore what’s happening to you, what to expect, how to manage its course, treatment options and lifestyle modifications.”

Giblin started holding community meetings in which experts discussed scientific research and answered questions – discreetly written by attendees so they could ask personal things anonymously. Afterward, people hung around, chatting, laughing and comparing experiences. Two or three hundred people would show up.

She gave the free, once-monthly sessions a name: Red Hot Mamas. By the time the program had spread throughout her home state of Connecticut, she decided to trademark the name and its science- based educational program and took it on the road.

She established a Web site, www.redhotmamas.org, where women could go to read up, get a monthly newsletter, chat and ask questions of experts. Some optional products and research also are offered on the site.

That site and collaborators’ www.ourgyn.com get 275,000 hits a month.

Understandable, considering that more than 4,000 baby boomer women enter menopause every day with unanswered questions about how to prevent spreading derrieres, fuzzy thinking, insomnia, osteoporosis, chin hairs, stress, dry eyes and other shriveling tissues. And what to do about sex, how to do breast self-exams, when to get mammograms and whether to replace hormones.

There now are 70 Hot Flash Mamas programs across the country, each with roughly 1,500 registered participants. That’s 105,000 women (and some men, who attend to find out what the heck is going on with Herself.)

It’s still free to participants; hospitals and large medical practices sponsor the program for the public. The growth is by word of mouth.

A Red Hot Mamas program is starting March 1 at Retreat Hospital, in Richmond, (804) 254-9895 or www.retreathospital.com. The program requires registration.

The usually slow march toward menopause can begin in your 30s and usually has by 40, though 51 is the average age of entering what science calls the climacteric.

Red Hot Mamas invites you younger folks, too, so you’ll know what’s coming.

My mother warned me to maintain a moderate weight after 40 because fat was much harder to lose in menopause. She was right. I learned the hard way.

It’s another thing the mamas cover.