My first inkling of symptoms was the repeated taking off and putting on of jackets. Five or six times in an hour. It was irritating me, so I’m fairly sure it was annoying my students. I started touching radiators obsessively and leaving doors and windows open – what was the matter with all the buildings? Why was I always hot? Removing my jacket mid-class one afternoon, I caught sight of myself in a mirror: from my neckline upwards, all the way to my cheeks and ears, a deep angry flush of red was blooming.
Immediately my memory flashed back to when I was first teaching, in my twenties, and a lovely middle-aged colleague I often had lunch with was always ruddy-cheeked and glistening damply. I remember at the time silently pondering why she always looked like she’d just run a marathon, why she didn’t wear lighter layers if her clothes were too heavy?
We would chat and laugh about life and friends and films and holidays, but never was the topic of her age, her struggles, her florid, perspiring face mentioned, as I mutely noted the beautiful array of handkerchiefs she kept to hand for regular mopping. Now, in my late forties, I was her.
I switched to wearing linen and the thinnest cotton. I didn’t wear a jumper, or any kind of wool, for years. This was torture – I love jumpers. But one touch of wool on my skin and I broke out in a sweat. One snowy late November night I found myself at a Christmas market in Galway, Ireland. The temperature must have been hovering around zero. I had observed the social niceties and taken a coat, but I carried it over my arm; what I was actually wearing was linen trousers and a t shirt. I got a lot of funny looks from the gloved, scarf-wrapped, woolly-hatted crowds.
Nights were not much better. Three or four times a night I would be engulfed in heat and sweat, the bedclothes clinging damply to my overheating body. I would open the window at two, three, four in the morning and let the night air cool me down. My husband’s bewildered voice would emerge from where he huddled under the duvet, “Are you trying to fucking kill me?” A good night’s sleep was a thing of the past.
I’ve always been one for research, so I read up on everything menopause and flush related. My GP confirmed that I was perimenopausal, muttered vaguely about HRT, I muttered back equally vaguely that I wasn’t keen, and that was that. Thus began my journey through the landscape of alternative remedies. Some helped, some didn’t. Nothing helped long term.
It became a sort of game with my body: a leaf or a tincture or an essence would briefly calm down the ferocity of heat, so I would stock up on whatever it was, jubilantly but silently, trying not to alert my treacherous body to the possibility that I was winning the battle. And then, just when I thought I might sleep through the night or wear more than a summer vest on Christmas Day, whoosh, red-chested, red-necked and red-cheeked, I would return to the mercy of my haphazard inner heating.
Favourite alternative remedy was the magnet. This glorious purple technology was fixed to your knickers and could be worn twenty-four hours a day. It worked! Flushes were squashed to a mere hint of heat; scarlet flesh subsided to a becoming rose pink; nights were gently interrupted with feeling balmy warmth, but no sweat baths. Dear God, I had found the Holy Grail. Unfortunately the Holy Grail was not, as I had been led to believe, ‘airport friendly’ and set off the security scanners at Heathrow.
“It’s a magnet,” I murmured significantly to the two security officers.
“What?”
“A magnet. A lady magnet,” I added helpfully.
“What magnet? Where?” asked the bewildered officers.
After they clocked my shifty glances downwards to my nether regions, they finally decided that I needed further investigation.
I was led off by security to a distant Police room, trying to reassure my bewildered children with feeble cries of ‘It’s fine, darlings! I’ll be back in two ticks! Stay exactly where you are!’
In the little Police room two female customs officers stood sturdily on guard, latex gloves at the ready. One was my age, one was about twenty-four. I dropped my trousers and displayed my magnet on my knickers, inside and out.
“It’s for the menopause…hot flushes…all that…”
“Really?” asked the officer of my age, “Tell me about it…”
So I did. She questioned me closely about its efficacy, cost etc. She took out a notebook and started scribbling. The younger girl stood looking blank. I smiled at her.
“Remember this. You’re way too young to need to worry about it. But you’ll need to think about it in twenty year’s time.”
The older officer snapped her notebook shut.
“Brilliant. I know what I’m shopping for tomorrow!”
I believe that the last ten years have seen more magnets pass through airports and staff are au fait with the concept. I would still suggest keeping it in your bag when you go through the scanners, however.
Alas, the efficacy of the marvellous magnet wore off and my trawl through the alternative remedies continued. Finally, I gave in and accepted the teeniest dose of HRT, but a diagnosis of breast cancer put a swift stop to that.
My overheating went on for five or six years, then, having come out the other side, the post-cancer drugs have brought it all back. I just live with it because, let’s face it, I’m still here. Hot, but here.
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