Gloria Reuben on Hot Flashes & the Advice From Tina Turner That’s Guiding Her in Midlife

Hot flashes are a common symptom of menopause, with up to 80 percent of menopausal women experiencing the sudden shift in temperature. For Gloria Reuben, hot flashes popped up when she didn’t expect them — and they were seriously disruptive to her career and life.

“I remember more than a few times being in the makeup chair and apologizing because I started to sweat because I got a hot flash,” the ER alum says. Reuben now has a treatment that works for her, but she went through some intense experiences first. She sat down with Flow Space to talk about hot flashes, midlife, and what she learned from Tina Turner.

She started having hot flashes in her mid-50s.

The 59-year-old revealed that she started experiencing hot flashes about five or six years ago. “They definitely were not going away, so I knew that this very natural transition was beginning,” she says.

But Reuben says that her hot flashes got “more frequent and severe” with time, and they started disrupting her life. She began having hot flashes at work, noting that she would be in front of the camera doing a closeup during a “very important, dramatic scene” and experiencing a hot flash. “Not only did it make my physical appearance change in terms of sweat, it also created a feeling of worry and anxiety,” she says.

Dealing with the ‘little dragon’

Reuben says that hot flashes feel “like a little dragon” to her. “It’s woken up, it’s opened its mouth and it’s spewing that fire and I feel it coming up and up and up and then I start sweating because it’s hot,” she says.

Reuben says that hot flashes strike any time for her, making it hard to stay focused. “All the while I’m trying to hold my composure for the camera or on a date,” she says. “I wake up in sheets that are all crumpled up and wrapped around, and it’s not because of anything fun.”

The lessons she learned from Tina Turner

Reuben was a backup singer for Tina Turner’s 24/7 world tour in 2000. “I’m going to be 60 this year, and when I toured with Tina Turner, she was 60,” Reuben recalls. “It’s just beginning, baby.”

She shared the lessons she learned from the legend that are guiding her now in midlife. “Know what you want. Take care of your body. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind — I think that was in her DNA anyway, ” she laughs. “Take care of your soul. Be out there, be bold, be brave. Just bring it.”

She’s found a treatment that works for her.

To deal with her hot flashes, Reuben started taking Veozah, a hormone-free treatment option that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in May 2023.  

The oral medication  works by binding to and blocking the activities of the NK3 receptor, which plays a role in the brain’s regulation of body temperature, according to the FDA. There have been several clinical trials for Veozah, with study results published in The Lancet, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Each has shown slightly different efficacy levels. In general, research has found that the treatment cuts the amount of hot flashes in women by a half and starts to have an effect a week after women start taking it.

Now, Reuben says she has fewer hot flashes and night sweats. “The worry and anxiety have lessened a great deal,” she says. “I’m not nervous or anxious in front of the camera anymore.”