WomensStuff

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Testosterone Gave me my Life Back (usefulfictions.substack.com)

submitted 2 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone

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Curious if any women have tried taking T. I'm much younger than her but I've been feeling some of the symptoms she's talked about a lot, and I'm wondering if T might help. But obviously I'm worried about the effects of it.

Not looking for medical advice, just curious about other people's experiences.

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[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

All adults have some amount of both estrogen and testosterone. Having too much or too little of either can cause problems.

I think Hall's thoughts about the differences between men and women are a major stretch. She went from being a woman with a lifelong testosterone deficiency, to being a woman with normal levels from the treatment. Saying "men play life on easy" from that experience is a big leap to conclude from finding that's poker is easier after getting treatment.

Most activities become easier after getting treatment for a lifelong health issue. I experienced similar improvements in my field from reducing my T levels by about 90%. Can't reasonably conclude anything about gender from that. I can say, disorders suck, and effective treatments are pretty nice.

If you think low T is likely an issue, by all means get a blood test. Hormone levels are quite simple to check.

[–] celeste@kbin.earth 7 points 2 months ago

Her symptoms were similar to mine when I had anemia last year. I remember being like "maybe this is what getting old is like" and then I had a routine physical and whoops my vitamin d and iron were in the shitter.

I think if you're in your 40s and experiencing brain fog, memory problems, muscle loss, you should not just assume it's normal aging. But there are a lot of things it could be. It's useful to know it might be hormones, sure! Maybe people who don't get anemia are living life on easy mode, but I don't know how much I should generalize from my experience.

[–] foxglove@lazysoci.al 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I would be cautious, there is a big pseudoscience health scam going around convincing people they need to supplement testosterone - targeting both men and women. The current evidence is that there is no known minimum requirement of T in women, so be cautious about claims that women need testosterone supplementation - it's just not evidence based, and there are a lot of quacks trying to sell people on the idea. The article you linked was written by Cate Hall, a CEO of a bio-medical company that manufactures and sells testosterone, there is an obvious conflict of interest here.

Meanwhile we haven't even normalized women taking estrogen supplementation for menopause which does have good evidence is helpful for alleviating the awful symptoms from low E. I have heard so many stories of women having signs of low estrogen being told by their gynecologists they don't need it and they won't even run blood labs to test for low E.

[–] celeste@kbin.earth 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The comments on that article from trans women who experienced similar positive changes from taking estrogen make me think it's a very complicated issue and people might have different solutions to similar problems. But it might still be useful to give it a shot. Just, no guarentees. Someone said that T and E aren't exactly opposites, like men and women aren't really opposites.

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

T and E are chemically similar as I understand it.

[–] WrittenInRed@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah I can also anecdotally say the same thing. Basically every one of the symptoms she described I definitely experienced before I started HRT, and once I did they very quickly got way better. An "ideal" hormonal balance is probably something that varies a lot from person to person so if its something you (op) think might be causing issues I definitely feel like it's worth at least considering.

[–] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

I'm eagerly following as I know peri is just round the corner.

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago

Idk I would rather take E :3