How are hot flashes usually treated?
Traditionally, hot flashes have been treated with either oral (by mouth) or transdermal (patch) forms of estrogen. Hormone therapy (HT), also referred to as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or postmenopausal hormone therapy (PHT), consists of estrogens or a combination of estrogens and progesterone (progestin). Both oral and transdermal estrogen are available either as estrogen alone or estrogen combined with progesterone. Whether oral or transdermal, all available prescription estrogen replacement medications are effective in reducing the frequency of hot flashes and their severity. Generally, these medications decrease the frequency of hot flashes by about 80% to 90%. However, long-term studies (the NIH-sponsored Women’s Health Initiative, or WHI) of women receiving oral preparations of combined hormone therapy with both estrogen and progesterone were halted when it was discovered that these women had an increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer when compared with w
