Melissa Joan Hart Explains It All: Hot Flashes, Menopause, And Turning 50

• Actor Melissa Joan Hart is opening up about experiencing moderate to severe hot flashes during perimenopause and why she’s encouraging women to talk more openly about menopause.
• Hot flashes affect up to 80% of women during the menopause transition, and symptoms can interfere with sleep, work, and everyday activities.
• Health experts say women experiencing bothersome menopause symptoms should talk with their healthcare professionals about treatment options and how to manage their symptoms.

Actor Melissa Joan Hart has a vivid memory of her mother standing in front of their open freezer to cool off. As a child, she didn’t understand why. Now, as a 50-year-old woman, Hart knows that her mom was experiencing hot flashes. 

“[She’s] only 20 years older than me, so maybe I missed the part where she was going through [menopause], but there was no conversation about it,” Hart told Healthline. “I feel like it’s just becoming a hot topic with women, where…the taboo is going away from it now.”

Her own perimenopausal symptoms started with night sweats.

“[It] was really jarring, and the first few times, you’re not really sure what that was…do I need to turn the air down or what’s going on here?” Hart said.

Over time, she learned that she was experiencing moderate to severe hot flashes, which affect up to 80% of women during the menopause transition and can persist for 7 to 10 years.

Doctors categorize hot flashes as mild, moderate, or severe, said Diana Bitner, MD, OB-GYN, at Corewell Health.

“[So] if they’re mild, it’s a sense of warmth (maybe in the chest, or the neck, or the face). A moderate hot flash is where there’s associated sweating, and a severe hot flash is something that stops you in your tracks, wakes you up from the middle of the night,” Bitner told Healthline.

Hart has mostly experienced hot flashes while home or at her three sons’ activities, and they have yet to interfere with her work. However, according to research, one in three women report moderate to severe challenges in managing their work due to symptoms related to menopause.

“It’s just so sad that about 10% of women leave the workforce due to menopause,” said Bitner. “And so it can really affect our ability to perform at these key years of not only institutional memory, but also of earning power, and it can really affect the whole community.”

How to talk with your doctor about hot flashes and menopause treatment

Bitner said women should feel empowered to bring up their menopausal symptoms or questions with their doctor.

“[This] is something that was taboo for so long…women didn’t really talk about this, whether it was because of embarrassment, or [they] weren’t sure if anyone was experiencing it,” she said. “[There’s] no reason, in this day and age, we need to suffer through it…it’s something that there are treatment options for.”

In fact, Bitner said providing specific details about their symptoms, such as how many mild, moderate, or severe hot flashes they’ve experienced over the past week, can help doctors better assess patients’ needs.

Hart plans to discuss treatment options for her hot flashes with her doctor soon. In the last few years, she said she has put emphasis on her midlife health.

“I just was sick of waking up with aches and pains in general [thinking], ‘is this the rest of my life?’” she said.

She started listening to self-help books in the car while driving her kids around and found ways to put herself first.

“My kids are a little bit older, so I kind of have that freedom to be able to do that,” she said. “[But] along with getting older, comes the menopause, comes that different time in life. And I think it’s a good time to reevaluate [how] our bodies can’t handle what [they] used to handle, and let’s figure it out.”

Why menopause awareness matters

Hart has partnered with pharmaceutical company Bayer on its “Life Doesn’t Stop for a Hot Flash” campaign, which encourages women to discuss menopause symptoms with their doctors and promotes Lynkuet, a hormone-free prescription medication for moderate to severe hot flashes associated with menopause.

“It’s called ‘Life Doesn’t Stop for a Hot Flash’ campaign because it shouldn’t, because we should be able to push through, and this should be a time in our lives when our kids are getting older, and we’re able to kind of reinvent ourselves,” said Hart. “And I think it’s an exciting time, and it shouldn’t be something that we’re afraid of.”

She is embracing speaking openly about midlife health.

“I hit 50 this year, and it was, like, a huge milestone, and I think that’s something to be proud of, and not something to shy away from,” she said.

Hart also hopes to challenge the longstanding barriers women face in Hollywood as they age, including fewer opportunities for leading roles.

“[I] think we’re seeing that the generation before, and my generation, it feels like we’re pushing those boundaries…and we’re saying, you know, that women at this age have a lot to give, have a lot of information to share, have a lot of stories to tell and experiences and adventures still ahead of us, and, you know, we’re not ready to stop,” Hart said.

In everyday life, Bitner said that while some patients avoid talking about midlife issues like menopause with their doctors, she is seeing more patients who are confident being forthcoming.

As more women talk openly about menopause, she hopes to include men in the conversation, too. In fact, she invites her patients to bring their partners to appointments, so they can gain an understanding of menopause and the experiences their partners face, such as hot flashes, sleep issues, vaginal dryness, and discomfort or pain during intercourse.

“[Often], there’s, you know, comments that come up [from men who] say, ‘How do I talk about this without getting in trouble?’” said Bitner. “[We] want everyone to join this conversation…it doesn’t have to be just her issue because we know it’s not.”