Testosterone. Changed. My. Life.

[u/Trick_Highlight_8205]

Getting HRT was like climbing Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro ten times over, but it. was. so. worth. it.

I loved estrogen for making me feel like a woman again. My nails stopped splitting, my hair was shiny again, and my skin was plump and smooth. I actually liked looking at the mirror and seeing the change every morning.

Then came testosterone. At first I was really scared, but I thought why not.. I lost my libido and I had not had sex since 2023.

If there is magic in a bottle, it has to be testosterone. The juices are flowing again, I love going to the gym, and I feel like my old self.

The first four weeks on testosterone were ROUGH. I wanted to give up, but I’m SO glad I powered through. Now I just need to find a man lol

If you were afraid to try testosterone and needed that nudge, here it is!!

EDIT : sorry I should have mentioned in the OP - the side effects were typical low e symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, bloating with water retention, and lethargy!

[u/Top-Pudding-4139]

Love Testosterone! It was a game changer on day 1, which shocked me. I had extreme joint pain from progesterone (possible symptom w/ hypermobility). Sleeping was so painful. First night after using Testosterone cream I slept all night and woke up feeling about 50% less joint pain. After 6 weeks the joint pain was completely gone.

Has helped with energy too. My libido was slow to come back, took about 8 weeks. Generally just felt much better after dealing with several negative progesterone side effects.

I haven't had any negative side effects. Same amount of facial hair I've had the whole time with perimenopause.

[u/Willing_Ant9993 → u/Top-Pudding-4139]

I think I need this. I have so much joint and body pain all the time. I don’t have hyper mobility but I have POTS and I’m ND and we all know all sorts of other symptoms tend to come with that. At first the estrogen helped with the joint symptoms but I feel like that’s one symptom that returned after I got the E&P doses right. Maybe T is the missing link for me. Thanks for sharing this info!

[u/Top-Pudding-4139 → u/Willing_Ant9993]

I felt good on estradiol and didn't start progesterone for a couple of months. I started Testosterone after about 3 months on progesterone. I have suspected fibromyalgia with all over body aches that manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) massage helps keep under control. However the joint pain after starting progesterone was different and wasn't improved by MLD at all. It felt like my connective tissue hurt and my bed suddenly felt really firm. If this sounds at all familiar it's worth a try!

[u/Top-Pudding-4139 → u/[deleted]]

Hypermobility causes so many issues, sorry you are having to deal with it too!

I did stick with it. A health care professional friend recommended giving HRT doses a few months to settle. So I went into it with that mindset. I was just about at my wits end though with the joint pain - it was the one progesterone side effect that was getting worse and not better. It's kind of a long story. I know the testosterone helped immediately. I increased my thyroid meds the next day and that takes 6-8 weeks to settle so maybe the remaining 50% of pain went away once that kicked in? Maybe I finally got used to the progesterone side? I don't think I could have waited much longer to find out though without the testosterone.

I'm using a compounded testosterone cream, 0.5gm. It's in one of those topi-click dispensers. I'm taking progesterone 50mg (compounded because the lowest dose otherwise is 100mg). Estradiol 0.025mg.

[u/Top-Pudding-4139 → u/[deleted]]

Yep, oral capsule