Sibylla Bostoniensis

For well over a year now, I've been managing presumed-perimenopausal sleep time hot flashes by means of an herbal supplement, black cohosh. I take one capsule before bed.

Since it had been a long time since I had any actual hot flashes while I slept, I was wondering if I actually still had, or would have, hot flashes in my sleep if I weren't taking it; I wondered if when they remitted, it had really been from the black cohosh or whether that was just a coincidence of timing.

I've been through many bottles of the stuff by now; I've always used the same brand, Nature's Bounty, because it seems to be reputable. Like one does, I got to the end of one bottle last Sunday, and opened another to populate my weekly pill case.

All last week, my sleep has been fubarred by one hot flash after another waking me up.

Yesterday I acquired another bottle of the same product, same brand from the same vendor, and took a capsule from that bottle.

No hot flashes last night.

Okay, so, apparently,

1) Yes, I am still prone to hot flashes while I sleep,

2) Yes, black cohosh is being effective at making them not happen,

3) No, it's not the placebo effect,

4) Something is wrong with this here specific bottle of black cohosh.

Dang, I would like last week back. I've been dragging my ass all week from exhaustion from being woken up so much.

In not unrelated news, tn3270 is SUPER excited to learn that black cohosh, Actaea racemosa L., is a fast-growing showy ornamental flower that grows up to 8 feet tall in shade, in a wide spectrum of USDA hardiness zones of which we're in the middle. Speaking as someone with a lot of childhood experience of skunk cabbage, I'm a little concerned that it's also called "bugbane" and described as "fragrant". Anyone know what the flowers of the black cohosh smell like?