Random Afternoon Hot flashes (related to BMs?)

[Katty]

I've had hot flashes on two different afternoons- they made a big enough impression on me that I'd like to figure out what's going on.
My temp and pulse are usually high and sometimes I get really hot after breakfast, but by noon-ish I can usually get my pulse down to around 85-90. When I had these hot flashes, sometime between 3-5pm, I'd get really hot and my pulse would jump up to 95-100. I wasn't doing any physical activity - in fact I'd been sitting for a couple hours. The room I was in was warm, but it's warm every day, so I don't think the room temp is the culprit.
I ate about the same amount as usual on those days. I forgot to note down the first time it happened, but I don't think they took place at the exact same time in my cycle. Right now, I'm on Day 8 and I had one this afternoon.

Eventually in the afternoon each time I had a good bowel movement. I cooled down after the BM on the first day, but today, after the bm, it seemed to take longer to cool down (admittedly, while the bm was good, it wasn't quite complete today, so maybe that is why).

How would the hot flashes be related to making a good bm? Is the hot flash from a jump in cortisol?

My cycles are generally pretty regular, but the last 2 months they were longer than usual, 36-37 days.

Any thoughts?

 

[tara]

Reminds me of the night sweats I used to get occasionally. They included harder faster heartbeat, sweating, and hyperventilation that I could only calm by getting up and moving (oh midnight housework, how I miss you:)). I'm assuming they were related to stress hormones, including maybe estrogen.

They improved and I don't think I've had one in over a year. I'm guessing what helped was one or more of: switching to nose breathing at night, eating more sugar (lots of juice etc, and a bit of sucrose), more of some minerals (eg calcium and Mg), and maybe keeping my bed warmer (counter-intuitive till I started thinking about it as stress hormone spikes). I'm not sure, but I think they improved before I started on progest-e - if I'm wrong about the timing, it could be that the progest-e helped.

 

[tara]

I often get slowed peristalsis during migraine, but I've recently noticed that this is often preceeded by what seems like very good BMs. I'm guessing a serotonin spike might play a role in both the good BM and also in the initiation of migraine.

 

[Katty]

Thanks for the response, Tara. Yes, I figured stress hormones were at play, but I'm just not sure why they'd randomly kick in when nothing else has changed in my day. I thought serotonin might be involved as well, but I don't know what more I could do to curb it.
Frustrating that I keep moving in the wrong direction.

 

[tara]

Just speculating, were you aware of how your breathing was around the time it was happening? Or were you engaged in something more emotionally stressful than usual? I guess you'd have noticed if you were hungry.
If it happens again, I'd be curious whether either bag-breathing or a gentle walk (mouth closed) would relieve it.

 

[Peata]

Estrogen? Are you using anything for that?

 

[Katty]

Just speculating, were you aware of how your breathing was around the time it was happening? Or were you engaged in something more emotionally stressful than usual? I guess you'd have noticed if you were hungry.
If it happens again, I'd be curious whether either bag-breathing or a gentle walk (mouth closed) would relieve it.

I don't remember taking note of my breathing. I was sitting at my desk (same routine every day) and don't remember any peculiar breathing issues. I don't think I was more stressed than usual. If it happens again, I'll try bag breathing. I tried bag breathing in the past (tried to be consistent with it for 1-2 weeks), but didn't really notice anything from it. It never helped lower my pulse. Maybe I didn't stick with it long enough.

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96844/ Estrogen? Are you using anything for that?

Not at the moment. I used progest-e for several months (9-12 ish) a couple years ago. It didn't seem to alleviate any symptoms and actually caused more bad ones. So I stopped using it.

Feeling frustrated and whiny lately. Started Peating 4 years ago and can't really get anything going in the right direction. It's frustrating because even if I'm not doing things perfectly, I'm certainly doing them better than before- when I was low carb, low cal, and ate lots of nuts and seeds. You'd think things would at least sort of move in the right direction. Ah well.

 

[tara]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96898/ I don't remember taking note of my breathing. I was sitting at my desk (same routine every day) and don't remember any peculiar breathing issues. I don't think I was more stressed than usual. If it happens again, I'll try bag breathing. I tried bag breathing in the past (tried to be consistent with it for 1-2 weeks), but didn't really notice anything from it. It never helped lower my pulse. Maybe I didn't stick with it long enough.

When I had night sweats, I couldn't calm my breathing without getting up and moving. I had not thought of bag-breathing at that time, so I don't know if it would have worked. But I would try reduced breathing exercises of various kinds to no avail - I think I needed to move to create more CO2 to bring the hyperventilation down. I never got the issue when I was up and about, only after being still for hours.

I think Peata's suggestion about estrogen could be relevant too.

 

[Katty]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96901/

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96898/ I don't remember taking note of my breathing. I was sitting at my desk (same routine every day) and don't remember any peculiar breathing issues. I don't think I was more stressed than usual. If it happens again, I'll try bag breathing. I tried bag breathing in the past (tried to be consistent with it for 1-2 weeks), but didn't really notice anything from it. It never helped lower my pulse. Maybe I didn't stick with it long enough.

When I had night sweats, I couldn't calm my breathing without getting up and moving. I had not thought of bag-breathing at that time, so I don't know if it would have worked. But I would try reduced breathing exercises of various kinds to no avail - I think I needed to move to create more CO2 to bring the hyperventilation down. I never got the issue when I was up and about, only after being still for hours.

I think Peata's suggestion about estrogen could be relevant too.

Interesting that you had to move around. The hot flashes for me happen when I've been sitting at a desk for a long time, so there could be something to that. Thanks for the suggestion.