ABSTRACT
If you have bought this book, you are likely to be having hot fl ushes and the fi rst thing to bear in mind is that you are not alone. The equivalent of 47 million women go through menopause each year worldwide (Hill 1996), and it is estimated that 70-80 per cent of women in the UK and the US experience hot fl ushes and night sweats during the menopause (Hunter and Rendall 2007). Of these, 45-50 per cent will seek some kind of medical or non-medical help. Although we are talking a lot about ‘symptoms’, we view the menopause as a normal part of a woman’s life rather than a medical problem. However, we appreciate that many women struggle to deal with frequent, intense hot fl ushes and night sweats. Just as childbirth is a natural part of women’s lives, there is a range of experience, and women should not feel like ‘failures’ if they do not happily sail through it or if they need some help to deal with it.
