Hot flashes!

[baker-in-exile]

I am 29 years old, so I'm not exactly the target demographic for your garden-variety hot flash, but I am 12 months post-partum and breastfeeding so it's not totally outside the realm of possibility. I've noticed that since I started my w30 I have been getting a LOT of them! I generally have them sometimes (go hormones...wonky as ever thanks to bf'ing), but it's been really frequent and annoying since about day 7 of my w30 (I'm on day 18).

I was coming here to ask if anyone else has ideas or has had a similar experience, but then I remembered something my midwife told me the last time I saw her (I was having irregular cycles + cysts after losing 13 lbs over 3 months): the body stores estrogen in fat, if you lose fat, you lose estrogen which can lead to the many symptoms of low estrogen.

So this makes me wonder...maybe I'm just losing a bunch of unhealthy body fat (YAY) on my w30 and consequently having a temporary bout of decreased estrogen...??

[Robin Strathdee]

It's most likely some hormonal adjustment. All the chemicals in our body work in relation to each other, so when you change a few, sometimes the others change up a bit. I get the flashes too, in the form of night sweats, when I a) eat junk food or 2) go back to squeaky clean after a few days of junk food. Add in the fact that you've got post-baby hormones playing around in there and I think you're right on track. Hopefully they settle down for you soon!