What Helped With Hot Flashes: Estroven verses Promensil

UPDATE: Months later I am hot-flash FREE. Seriously. Mine were really out of control until I went through all of this. May my suffering and success help YOU, dear sister. May you also return to your own pre-change sanity.

HOW TO GET OVER HOT FLASHES

First time I tried to get relief from hot flashes my doctor claimed that the estrogen birth control pills (pharmaceuticals) that were formerly prescribed more often than mole-removal therapies were now considered taboo. Turns out estrogens created pharmaceutically were now believed to cause cancer. My M.D. had nothing else to offer me.

Because I was suffering quite severely, waking up in sweat, feeling like I needed to shower after every hot flash during the day, and because I was entertaining my boyfriend by suddenly ripping off all my clothes at times I wasn't romantically interested ... my resolve was to get help. I recruited some advice from herbal therapists and friends.

Turns out, a few of my middle-aged gal-pals had used an herbal supplement called Estroven and said it really helped curb their perimenopause and menopausal symptoms.

So I investigated and learned one cannot just go out and buy a product called "Estroven" anymore. That's because there are many products under that name.

• Estroven® Max Strength + Energy
• Estroven® Weight Management
• Estroven® Intimacy Pack
• Estroven® Nighttime
• Estroven® Stress, Mood & Memory
• Estroven® Energy
• Estroven® Peri Support + Weight

Because my hot flashes and night sweats were rather severe (even my hair would get wet) I opted to buy Estroven® Max Strength + Energy. Like any herbal product, I gave it six weeks before I started seeing results and for a couple of months thereafter it actually seemed like my hot flashes and night sweats had diminished. I was relieved. Almost giddy even. 

As advertised, the ingredients in Estroven Maximum Strength + Energy are: Black Cohosh, Soy Isoflavones, Magnolia Bark, Green Tea, and Yerba Mate.

The product had looked rather safe, harmless, and even supportive of anyone's health. Yet then again, after I'd been taking the product for about four months, the Estroven® seemed to not be working any more. I mean it wasn't working AT ALL. My hot flashes returned and they were worse than ever before. I was really suffering from an out-of-control body thermos and if I hadn't heard, read and been advised about menopausal symptoms I would have thought I was dying.

WHAT DO HOT FLASHES FEEL LIKE?

Hot flashes do NOT feel normal or healthy. I really felt something serious was missing from my diet. So, lo and behold, I started doing more research and learned that Estroven had been rated only 3 out of 5 stars by studies conducted by places like Wellesley Health. It only worked for SOME women. (It had only worked for me short-term.)

That's when I went to a natural health and vitamin supplement store and noticed the clerk behind the counter looked older than me but her skin was much more radiant, and she looked fantastically healthy. When I asked her for help with hot flashes, she pulled me aside and whispered that I should try a product that worked so well, the FDA reportedly pulled it from natural health food store's shelves.

Now? Women can only find this product in a traditional pharmacy. So I went home and did research on the supplement she suggested: Promensil.

Unlike Estroven®, Promensil is made from naturally occurring plant compounds, or more specifically, "red clover." Three products are sold by Promensil:

• Promensil - 30 count
• Promensil - 60 count
• Promensil PM - 30 count.

So I trusted my natural health-store advisor, who claimed Promensil was backed by clinical studies, and started taking Promensil - 30 count. Yet I did it with some caution because certain studies like the Wellesley rating rated it only 2 out of 5 stars. Similarly, Consumer Health Digest rated it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Six weeks into taking Promensil (which is not too cheap at $30 per package) I finally started noticing my hot flashes were beginning to lessen in severity. I might still be woken up with a couple of night sweats but they were nowhere near as severe as they had been and I could go back to sleep without having to climb into the tiny freezer above our fridge. I no longer felt like I needed to take a shower after experiencing one. 

Because both Estroven and Promensil have different ingredients that are both supposed to help balance out a middle-aged woman's hormones ... I started taking both of them together. 

Now? After two months of taking Promensil daily and an Estroven every other day (at times when I think about it) my life is completely back on track. I might have one or two hot flashes per day and they are barely noticeable except I feel warm.

UPDATE: After two months of starting Promensil, taken with Estroven, I have ZERO HOT FLASHES. Only other thing I've changed in my life is to stop eating soy products. Soy increases estrogen levels in the body and I felt intuitively that soy might be interfering with herbs that were trying to balance my hormones out.

That stated ... I'm hoping this new remedy of taking Promensil and Estroven together keeps working. Hope it works for ya'll as well. 

Love and light, 

~ SunTiger