A surge of overwhelming heat rose upwards rapidly from my chest, until I felt as if sweat was dripping off my head. And all it had taken to trigger my hot flush was reading an email at work about a tricky situation I needed to tackle as part of my job as a university student placement coordinator. Flustered and embarrassed, I quickly untied my silk neck scarf and pulled off my cardigan, then nipped outside the office, trying to compose myself. Eventually I sneaked back in, hoping nobody had noticed, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the same thing happened all over again. Aged 49, I was experiencing between 15 and 20 of these hot flushes every day, along with night sweats, and I
