Heart Palpitations and Natural Progesterone

Vasomotor symptoms, such as hot flashes and night sweats can best be described as a wave of heat passing through the body causing much discomfort and ‘flushing’ of the face, neck and chest, and occur in 85% of women entering menopause.

Although the hot flush is the most common symptom of menopause, there is a wide variation in its frequency among women in different parts of the world. In Europe and the United States, 70-80 percent of menopausal women experience hot flushes, in Malaysia 57 percent, in China 18 percent, and in Singapore 14 percent.

Depending on the intensity of the hot flash, some women may get headaches, feel weak, dizzy, tired or lose sleep. Some may experience palpitations, skipped or erratic heartbeats.

Some women experience heart palpitations before or as the flash begins and while it’s occurring.

Too much white sugar can also cause palpitations.

High levels of estrogen

One of the ‘theories’ behind the cause of hot flashes and night sweats in industrialised countries is that our brain has become conditioned to high levels of estrogen. When this estrogen is withdrawn - as is the case when we come off HRT ‘cold turkey’ or as our estrogen levels drop significantly at menopause - our internal thermostat (the hypothalamus) begins "shouting", trying to tell the pituitary to tell the ovaries to ovulate. The inability of the ovaries to respond is most likely due to a final depletion of eggs and their surrounding follicle cells.

This overactivity of the hypothalamus and pituitary signal begins affecting adjacent areas of the brain, which is often referred to as the vasomotor centre (that controls capillary dilation and sweating mechanisms), and women experience a hot flush.

It is argued that women experiencing perimenopause in third-world countries tend not to have such high levels of estrogen, therefore, changing hormone levels will not necessarily cause their internal thermostat to go into hyperdrive

Rhonda writes,

"I suffered for 5 straight years with heart palpitations, chest pains, nervous leg syndrome, the list goes on … Drs. had no clue what was wrong with me … I was finally introduced to natural progesterone in June of 2003 and I cannot get over how it has changed my life. I live a very happy productive life and have now gone on to educate other women about natural progesterone and what it can do to their lives."