Synchronising hot flushes?

This last week has heralded the onset of hot flushes. Still, I’d rather have hot ones than cold ones, though they do disrupt my sleep somewhat. I didn’t think about it much as I’ve always tended to overheat at night, but last weekend I was extremely down, which isn’t like me, convinced that I’d never ever get anything published again in the rest of my life – etc., and was so tired I kept having to go to bed in the afternoons. (I’m now completely hyperactive but we won’t go there.)
It was Himself who took me aside the other day and said, ‘I’ve been thinking, Pop, and I don’t think it’s the writing that’s getting you down. You’re experienced enough to know that you get bad times but you always bounce back. I think it might be to do with your body clock.’ Dear man – remember this is from someone who’s never been married before.

I nearly smote my forehead, like they do in films, and cried, ‘oh me!’ Instead I Googled ‘menopause and perimenopausal symptoms’. And guess what – they were all there. Including ‘loss of libido.’

This is something that has a touch of rather cruel irony to it. The hormone treatment that Himself had for prostate cancer meant that he had the equivalent of the menopause and had continual hot flushes. And because testosterone is responsible for producing prostate cancer, they have to knock that out, so he lost interest in sex.

You’d think that we could have synchronised a) our hot flushes and b) our loss of libido, wouldn’t you? And yet, just as he’s finished throwing off the duvet at 2am, I’m doing it, and all the while I was longing to get my leg over, he’s now going through the same thing.

I'd be most interested to hear others' experiences. What do you use for hot flushes? I'm reading up as I go and off to see the doc next week for more advice. Keep your pecker up, as they say.