I have been trying to register here for days and there is something wrong with the registration process here so I found this user ID on the BUGMENOT website because I got fed up with trying to get my account to work. I'm just saying this since this is a public account I'm posting on so anyone can log into this in the future but I didn't want to wait for my account to be fixed.

All that said,I felt a strong need to post this here since I've read lots of your comments and posts in this forum. I have felt as if I'm losing my mind. I'm 49 and things have revved up for me over the last 8 months with the most severe hot flashes you can imagine. I actually passed out on the street from one back in November and woke up with a kind man standing over me asking me if I was ok. Pretty embarrassing and scary.

I have basically not slept for more than an hour at a time since October too. I cry a lot, want to die, hate life, go to work and come home and collapse from the crushing fatigue and I have had no desire to live since this all started. Before this I was happy and healthy.

I went to my gyn who is a competent dr but he doesn't focus his practice on this, he's more about obstetrics and he's a good surgeon. He offered me gabapentin, hormones or anti depressants. None of those were acceptable to me. I decided to just deal with it and breathe through it. Little did I realize it would become so debilitating I'd nearly lose my mind and not sleep for months.

Anyway, last week I went to my general dr who is like a father to me,very caring and sort of a dr House they way he looks at symptoms. I went for a sinus infection but when he asked me how I was I burst out crying and I told him I wanted to die and if this was mid life I didn't want to get to old age. He hugged me and we talked for a long while. He told me he wanted to try something. He prescribed a blood pressure medication called clonidine in a very small dose for me. If you are curious look it up. It basically rights vasomotor instability in some people. It's used for blood pressure on the label but it also is used for ADD, drug withdrawal, hot flashes for women who cannot take hormones. It keeps the blood vessels stable and open to lower pressure and by doing that it stops the constant opening and closing of the vessels which is what happens when you're flashing.

I have low blood pressure normally so I was afraid ,but I trust him so I took it. I took my first dose that night. I slept. And I didn't sweat at all throughout the night. I only woke up 3x instead of my normal 8 to 10. I am on a small dose, .1 mg. I take half in the morning and half before bed. The next two days I had virtually no hot flashes. Back to work now after some time off and the stress that triggers them even more is back and I still feel great. What happens is, I feel it coming on, I get that weird tingly feeling that comes before a bad one, i feel a bit warm,not at all sweaty and not that awful suffocating feeling and the itchiness at my scalp....I just get slightly warm and then....IT GOES AWAY. JUST LIKE THAT. It's as if a circuit breaker switch goes off in me and that medication tells my body...NO LEAVE HER ALONE AND CUT THIS NONSENSE OUT. I can only describe it as a very strong blunting of the hot flashes. I barely feel any now. I went from 25 to 50'a day to maybe 3 and those three are not even really hot flashes, I don't sweat I just feel warm.

it's amazing. I want to hug my dr and tell him he's given me my life back. I no longer want to die, I don't crawl into bed and wish I could not wake up, I don't have to dress like Mrs Roper or the golden girls in flowy layers because I do not combust when I take this medication. The only side effect I've noticed is drowsiness but it's not that bad really and it helps me sleep really well (something I havn't done in forever) and during the day so far my adrenaline seems to overcome it. I was told that I would get used to it and the drowsiness would diminish over time. I also am not irritable, I do not want to eat the house from stress and sadness, I feel hopeful about my life, I don't hate my bf and want him to go away anymore either.

In a nutshell, I feel like I have my life back. Three coworkers told me I seemed happy and my BFF told me my voice sounded different and I sounded like my old self. I'm sleeping and I bought three cardigan sweaters yesterday. I cannot express how I feel right now. I just wanted to share this. I hope something else can benefit from this. For me it has given me my sanity back.