Hot flashes, fatigue, forgetfulness, mood swings, weight gain — sound familiar? Me too — there’s hope right here in Erie.

Pharmacy Innovations’ Fred Brundige, RPh, and Deborah Lehotsky, RPh, will be speaking at a Jan. 31 seminar about women’s  struggles with thyroid problems, adrenal fatigue, menopause, low testosterone and other hormonal disorders.

The seminar will be held Thursday, Jan. 31, from 7 –8:30 pm at the Ambassador Center’s Crystal Ballroom. The cost is $10 per person. For more information and to RSVP, click here.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa. She is the mom of three, stepmom to three and step-grandmom to one.

Tomorrow. Oct. 18, is World Menopause Day — who knew? Thanks to Marnie Mead for calling my attention to the holiday(?) Well break out the fans. On a serious note, there are some great resources in the Huffington Post article — read it here — that sends readers to the news at World Menopause Day.

The World Health Organization and the International Menopause Society marked the day to encourage education, awareness and more — because about 500 million of us, according to the stats at World Menopause Day, are hitting this change and that’s a lot of women.

At Her Times, Debbie DeAngelo wrote a great feature on how to deal with menopause symptoms – check it out here.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa.

Well it’s here — a month dedicated to menopause. Here’s a link to the month’s website.  It offers a clue to symptoms and everything else, and here’s a link to solutions. If you skip down past the HRT and prescriptions, you’ll see some natural supplements and alternative therapies that are always worth a try. The site also offers exercise advice. I exercise like a fiend.  That picture is of me playing pickleball.

The website dedicated to all things menopause includes dietary suggestions that we avoid caffeine, sugar, spicy food and alcohol. I’ve tried all that — it makes me irritable and if it worked, I’d weigh 80 pounds.

Here’s a cool link — literally to cool down hot flashes. It’s called Coldfront. These palm sized cooling packs sound like the opposites of those heat packs I bought for my kids to put in their pockets during skiing, football, soccer and all other sports. These reusable cooling packs look like a good idea and you get two in a pack for $50.

I’m going to test these out.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa.