I have started having hot flashes over the past year or so. I don't know what it is due to. I actually never had them when I went through menopause so I now know what everyone else was going through. I am 65 and can't figure out what this could be due to. I did not realize that so many other people had them post menopause. I went through menopause quite late (57) but about 2 years ago I had a surgery on a prolapsed bladder which is done laproscopically and it is customary with this surgery to do a hysterectomy. I use an estrogen cream vaginally 3 times a week post surgery as recommended by my surgeon. But whether I use it or not I still get the flashes. They did not begin right after the surgery but sometime later. My hot flashes often come when I am anxious about something or stressed and also seem to happen with some regularity after eating,particularly after dinner. They are often accompanied by nausea and dizziness as well. I have talked with a couple of doctors about them but no success in finding a cause. I hope you will at least be comforted by the fat that this is more common than you might have expected. I do wonder if it is one of those things with women's health that just has not been studied that much or gotten much attention. Seems like there are a lot of women's health issues that go unexplored for whatever reason. I started looking into this just a bit and came across an article in Journal of American Medical Association from back in 2008 that found hot flashes were more prevalent in older women who went through menopause later, in older women with higher body mass index and in those who had had a hysterectomy among other findings. The link to this article is
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/414566
Maybe our moderator knows if there is anyone at Mayo doing any such research.