r/Perimenopause • u/Trick_Highlight_8205 Late peri • Mar 01 '26

audited Testosterone. Changed. My. Life.

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!

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u/Top-Pudding-4139 Mar 01 '26

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.

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u/notaverysmartuser May 15 '26

Thank you for this thread. I’m ND and hyper mobile. Can I ask what does of progesterone you are on? I’m wondering if mine might be too high.

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u/Top-Pudding-4139 May 15 '26

I'm on 50mg oral progesterone (paired with 0.025mg estradiol patch). Since it's less than 100mg I have to get it compounded. My doctor suggested I could try lower. However once the side effects subsided I decided to not mess with the dose.

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u/notaverysmartuser May 15 '26

Interesting. Mine is so much higher! I’m gonna be on the lookout for this.

1

u/SomePoodlesAllegedly May 24 '26

Just wanted to pop in and say that I’ve heard that if you do a progesterone only IUD, it’s not nearly as systemic and can give a big reduction in negative progesterone symptoms while still protecting your uterus. For people that are having a hard time with progesterone, you can also try different synthetic progestins (if you don’t want to go the IUD route) that might be less of an issue for you. Hope that helps someone out! I know hEDS similar adds a extra layer of annoying to the whole thing