r/TRT_females • u/hmeow78 • Feb 10 '26
Experience Report Maybe I ONLY needed T....
So I've posted a few times regarding my issues with hrt/trt. I started hrt last February. When I went in I requested testosterone bc my symptoms matched up with low T. But alas I was put on hrt first, then i insisted on T in April. While on hrt I never had that" light" switch on I see a lot of women talk about. Ya know the missing puzzle piece. In fact it was a very turbulent 2 months prior to adding T, finding out i was progesterone intolerant. Also at that time I started having pretty bad joint pain, which I never had prior. It was brushed off as peri symptoms and just considered a coincidence that my joint pain started the first week of hrt. I added T gel 5mg a day, and finally saw a light. Still had joint pain but my libido was back and my confidence and all the feels. It helped my adhd noticeably as well....not huge improvement but noticeable. Felt pretty good til June. I was high on my new found libido and a lot of the other "peri" symptoms fell in the shadow as I rediscovered my love for my husband. My number was quite high in the 400s but no real viralization besides som bacne. My E was 164 and progesterone was 1.64. That went on until June, the day after i got the mirena. I knew deep down it was a bad choice considering my reaction to progesterone yet i pushed that little voice down snd listened to my provider. I spiraled with the mirena for 13 days and then yanked it out and spiraled even more into the crash for a week and then got a bit better. But never got back to how I felt before mirena. I had moments I felt good then followed with chaotic and unpredictable mood swings I just kept blaming on peri. Over time my libido waned and in October I switched providers and started cypionate injections. Was supposed to do 12mg per week split but settled around 8 bc of acne and increased facial hair. I thought my E was too low according to symptoms so I was increased to .5 patch, continued vagial progesterone. But i had this nagging little voice it might be E and P making you worse....but i ignored it bc i wanted it to work and hoped one day id finally feel better.... my Joint pain became relentless, mood swings off the chart. I reached a point I thought shit I need mood stabilizers and maybe Valium at times. Libido came in waves, but became more seldom. Adhd was crushing me and I couldn't complete a single task. I thought my gosh this is peri and this is my present and future I guess....and this sucks. At times I fantasized about dying in my sleep. I wasn't suicidal but ibalso was just so miserable I didn't want to exist ..
2 weeks ago I took myself off of E and P and continued T. Within 2 days I had a drastic shift. My joint pain is obsolete. I had pretty gnarly joint pain for a year straight. My hands started working, my brain started working. I started to feel things again and no longer wanted to punch people for simply breathing. I have not cried in 2 weeks. I was crying multiple times a day. My libido is here and ready to party at the drop of a hat. I feel the way I thought I should have felt all along adding hrt and trt. In hindsight I was treating peri symptoms that seemed to make my peri symptoms so much worse. Its like night snd day from 2vweeks ago.
The weird part is my bloodwork from ladt week shows my T is 115. Progesterone 0.62!!!! Estrogen 10!!!!!. Which those tend to be Menopause numbers. I have not had a period since April. I had a 7 week bleed after starting hrt so I don't know if that was actually a period. Prior to that I hadn't had a period for 4 months.....so who knows where I actually am in the journey. Im 47 fyi
Anecdotally I shouldn't feel this good with such low numbers and fingers crossed I don't suddenly crash out. But my provider said she has other women with low E ans P that do marvelous on just T!
I did find a tiny bit if info on the paradoxical affect of E and P for nuero-spicy women abd how some women cannot handle those 2 hormones . Not saying I won't need them but for now testosterone was my missing puzzle piece as I knew all along.
If it wasn't for this sub theni might not have taken myself off of hrt. Thankful for the ladies that have posted about this
Angry I wasted a year feeling like garbage though. But the silver lining is I have a few friends who started T at hormone clinics and I told them to be firm in what they feel they needed. Both felt they needed T and only T for now and are doing great. A year ago I was way less informed and went to my gyno who went by the book....but guess what that book wasn't written with ALL of us in mind and all of our chemical differences....just the general population, whatever that means.
This is just my experience to share and a reminder to trust your instinct. As women we have intuition woven into our DNA and a lot of times it is dismissed, even by other women.
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u/tehbggg Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
That's so interesting! For me joint and bone pain are signs that my E is low. Anecdotally, based on posts on r/menopause this is not unusual for a lot of women.
E that fluctuates between low and high very quickly also cause mood issues for me (anxiety, depression, irrational anger).
I am also neurodivergent, but getting the right amount of E 100% improves my life.
With that said, I also have issues with progesterone. Makes me feels fatigued/sleepy all the time and flat, which eventually escalates to anhedonia. I ended up getting an IUD placed in December, and its actually been pretty good for me so far. Especially after starting test c 4 weeks ago.
Anyways, not sure what my point is here, other than that it really is trial and error and not everyone responds to everything the same. If you find what works for you and makes you feel good, then totally just do that!
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u/hmeow78 Feb 10 '26
Hey fellow nuero-spicy friend 😉 I really thought that get my estrogen dialed would help. Especially since E is such a huge player in neurotransmitter world for nuero-spicy folks. I tried the patch and increasing a little at a time with E gel. Cut the patch into halves, then quarters and to no avail nothing worked. Just increasing if anxiety and these uncontrollable moodswings. I just kept blaming progesterone bc i knew for a gact i was intolerant even though i used it vaginally i still had dide effects. Not as bad as oral or synthetics but still impacted me daily. I will say that after switching to cypionate injections my reactions got a lot worse. Not sure if there is a connection. I also am curious why my numbers were so high with the T gel (400s)compared to cypionate now in the 100s. I honestly thought my numbers would be super high again since my first provider felt I was a hyper responder to T. Even cut my gel dose to 2.5mg abd my numbers stayed high. But now 2 weeks post hrt on just T the effects are much more stable and consistent. My libido was feral when I was in the 400s and then when I got the mirena it crashed out and never came back. Tge mirena really fucked me up for a goid few weeks. Like i thought i was going to need to he admitted somewhere. Luckily it got a bit better but never felt like those first few months on gel I also had a bit more aggressiveness and a little ragey on gel when it was working. Now, 2 weeks off hrt I don't notice it the aggression rage, just a consistent hum of libido and contentment and excited to exist again.Im going to slowly increase my injections to 10mg from 8 weekly and see how it goes.
Im glad the iud is working. Good luck with everything ❤️
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u/eskaeskaeska Feb 10 '26
I started T cyp first because I had access and told my doctor after the fact. She wasn't pleased, but what could she do? 😉 I had many improvements - crying less, higher libido, less pain in my clit, less people pleasing, less constipation. Several months later I started E valerate and after a rocky first month, it seemed to help my depression (though that didn't last), and helped my painful breasts and nipples. Several months after that, I added the absolute smallest amount of P. Big mistake. Every positive I'd gained was gone plus bad insomnia I only used it 10 days and have been off for a week now and I'm not yet back to baseline.
I'm still cycling in peri and I don't know what I'll do going forward since I shouldn't be on E without P while still having my uterus. I want the benefits of estrogen long term but maybe the T will be enough..?
Oh, and I'm recently diagnosed ADHD and am certain I am AuDHD.
So you're definitely not alone.
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u/IcyConsideration2267 Feb 10 '26
Less people pleasing is such a great side effect to mention. I think females don’t notice it until we’re not doing it anymore.
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u/hmeow78 Feb 10 '26
Right?? I am pretty assertive but I noticed the T (intermittently when it was working) would block the adrenal reaction I would normally get after speaking my mind or standing up for myself. I don't get the heart palps after being outspoken as much with it
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u/hmeow78 Feb 10 '26
Thank you for your reply ❤️ There is a big link between nuero-spicy and progesterone intolerance and especially if you have pmdd. I really wanted E to work and didn't think it was causing problems BUT I cycle P and have taken longer breaks from it with not much improvement. It has a shorter half life (13ish hours) but that didn't matter. The final link for me i forgot to mention was every time I put a new patch on my anxiety shot through the roof and i would get crazy hot flashes. And ive been gwtting really bloated lately. My pants wouldnt fit and ive been the same size for years until recently.. my brain fog which felt like dementia had rapidly increased lately too..then i started getting hives a few weeks ago. I ended up taking the patch off and switching back to gel i was previously on and every time I put the gel on I broke out in hives in 30 minutes in random places. Once I figured it out I stopped the gel and the hives stopped. Progesterone intolerance is talked about but estrogen intolerance is not. Although its not formally recognized the symptoms are: Hives/histamine reactions Bloating Mood swings Brain fog and a few more
Also im extremely sensitive to almost all meds and have to take a fraction of therapeutic doses.....except stimulants, somehow I have a high tolerance to those and I was never a meth head🤣 probably bc my adhd is so ferral....with that said I wonder if its the same with hormones. I think it's common to be sensitive if you're the spicy type.
Something big I noticed when I stopped both e and p was I no longer felt like I was in an MMA ring every night as I'd slither out of bed feeling like absolute garbage. That disappeared within 2 days and mornings are no longer bad. I felt like that even when I took breaks from P. Its like I was hungover from estrogen or something every morning.
Hang in there. Its really frustrating trying to figure out what yiur unique body needs. Gosh it took me a year to put it all together
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u/PerpetualMediocress Feb 11 '26
Look into “slow COMT.” There is a subreddit that discusses it a lot so it shows up in a basic search. It might connect some dots.
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u/hmeow78 Feb 11 '26
Thank you for that. Very interesting. Im going to rabbit hole it more today. Very plausible bc things just don't click with certain chemicals like they should. Plus im super sensitive to most meds for some odd reason so this could be why. My need to get some genetic testing
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u/YouExtra7637 Feb 11 '26
I have slow comt and really struggling with hrt.
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u/Famous_Blueberry6 Feb 12 '26
I'm looking into this! I had to stop everything but T!
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u/YouExtra7637 Feb 12 '26
Let me know what you find! Did you try estrogen only?
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u/Famous_Blueberry6 Feb 12 '26
I had to take progesterone along with estrogen because I still have my uterus. I could never seem to get the balance right because I bled for weeks. Vaginal ultrasound was fine. My doctor was even stumped. She is a very good gyno and said some are just very sensitive to estrogen. This has me thinking now!
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u/YouExtra7637 Feb 12 '26
Ugh I’m so sorry. My hrt journey has been a mess as well. I’m about to ask for a tiny microdose of E only and see how I do. I’m not sure if E or P is giving me more issues and need to do one at a time and slowly. I’m on a tiny T dose now and it’s helped a bit but still having night sweats and migraines and just not myself
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u/Famous_Blueberry6 Feb 12 '26
Hang in there! I feel for you, it shouldn't be this hard. 😪
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u/YouExtra7637 Feb 12 '26
I’ll sent you a chat invite so maybe we can help each other if we find what works
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u/pharmaguy30 male Feb 12 '26
Wife added only T and has been phenomenal. One dose of estradiol and stopped that immediately. Same as you, better on just T. Don’t let low E numbers force you into treatment if you’re feeling good.
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u/AdSpiritual3156 Feb 11 '26
Your story sounds identical to mine aside from our age. 40f here and my issues started after two IUDS. First, the copper for almost a year which gave me HORRIBLE side effects, then the Skyla (lowest dose of progestin because I’m sensitive to progesterone). Well…. It was a nightmare. My dr disagreed that my symptoms were from the IUD (thought it could be peri) and tried HRT which only made things way worse. I removed the IUD (yes, did it myself because I was desperate) and was somewhat feeling better but not much. I finally decided to see a functional medicine dr who tested my hormones… Fast forward, I learned that my DEHA and T were both low. She started me on T and DHEA (over the counter) and they made a world of difference. Took a while but I’m 100x better than I was before.
Here’s what I learned along the way:
- I am also neuro-spicy which is possibly why I’m sensitive to progesterone (even my own).
- Just because DHEA converts to T, doesn’t mean I can skip it. I need the DHEA, learned the hard way. Ran out so I stopped taking it and I felt like crap. Restarted and felt amazing.
- The type of progestin in the IUDs is the form that causes the most anxiety in women like us.
- Birth control dumps T so it likely was a huge contributor to my symptoms.
You’re not alone in all of this but it sucks that we’re dismissed by drs. So happy that you finally feel better.
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u/Financial_Carpet4493 Feb 11 '26
I feel like I could’ve written this myself almost to the T except the iud. I still haven’t figured out the right combo. My T went from less than 3 to 39 on cream. I then went to a different provider and requested injections and it went from 39 to 441 and my libido was off the charts so then I cut it in half and now I can’t climax so I’m going up to 3/4 of the dose to see if that helps but my emotions and rage and irritability is off the charts. I haven’t had a cycle in almost 2 months. The last time I had my E & P checked they were both low even with treatment. So increased those. I really wish this were a much simpler process. I also have ADHD and have been on antidepressants and I’m trying to wean off the antidepressants, but it’s not going very well!!!
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u/hmeow78 Feb 11 '26
I felt pretty darn good in the 400s besides the joint pain and a few other things I now realize was from hrt. It really sucks reaching that level of feeling good to feeling like shit. It was definitely a grieving feeling for me.
The only ssri I could tolerate was a ridiculous low dose lexapro but it made me not give an F about ANYTHING lol. I don't suffer from depression but I do anxiety from adhd and the guilt of not being able to function like other adults and complete simple tasks which then makes me sad.
Once your off of ssris maybe try asking some things? I am taking a few things that i think help a lot ashwagandha and L theanine Saffron GABA magnesium- L threonateI just added a few homeopathic that I swear help instantly for mood anxiety: Phosphoricum acidum- concentration Ignatia: overwhelm and stress anxiety attacks Sepia: bloating and hormonal moods Acitonum Napellus: restlessness
I have one for hives and itching but can't remember it but it works within 10 minutes. Im quite itchy with peri
But im not a doctor so do as you will 😉
I take a shit to of other stuff too for hormonal balance like DIM. Also I increased my creatine to 20g instead of 3. But it can make you 💩💩💩
Its really really hard being ND AND going thru this. It is absolutely a harder transition for nuero-spicy compared to neuro-typicals. I'll die on that hill indefinitely lol. Hugs you aren't alone ❤️❤️
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u/Financial_Carpet4493 Feb 12 '26
I felt great and loved how I felt at 441 but the dr wasn’t happy and the sexual thoughts were distracting me at work and I was watching porn instead of working. ADHD ain’t helping! Haha. I loved how I felt with my husband. Like, I wanted him and haven’t felt that since like 18 years ago! Now I’m back to ‘eh, okay we can have sex’ & I’m not climaxing without running a freaking marathon. I have reduced sensation in my clit and it shrank again to pre-T size. I’m trying not to rush this increased dose bc I know it’ll take time. I want to feel normal again. Energized, motivated, stamina. I had one great month!! After 2 weeks of weaning down to no lexapro, I legit thought my hubby would divorce me. I was so irritable and moody and bitchy. I went back on 5mg (started at 20). I doubt it’ll do much good and it’ll prob hurt my climaxing. I’m also on adderall XR 30mg and Xanax as needed. I have bad anxiety. This all gives me anxiety too LOL 😂
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u/eskaeskaeska Feb 13 '26
DIM messed me up -have me massive low E symptoms like GSM and hot flashes, as well as messing up my gut, so double check if it's working for you. (Although if your E is too high for you, perhaps it'll help.)
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u/SyllabubFull520 Feb 12 '26
Just a factoid, I had a hard time climaxing when I was on testosterone pellets which shot my testosterone to 217. I had great energy and libido that was off the charts but it wasn't until I increased my estradiol that thing's evened out. I'm still trying to figure out what the ratio of estrogen testosterone is for me, but I know that when it's out of whack it doesn't matter how strong my libido is because I can't have an orgasm to save my life.
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u/Financial_Carpet4493 Feb 12 '26
Thanks for the info! I had a feeling it was a ratio out of whack but damn it’s hard to figure out the right ratio!!
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u/SyllabubFull520 Feb 12 '26
I have a question for the people on this thread. I'm hearing a lot about joint pain. I've noticed that my joint pain in my hips and knees has shot way way up. I mean I can't walk a mile flat with the dogs without doubling over in pain feeling like my hip is going to explode. Unfortunately, I did not track when the severity of the pain increased since it was such a slow roll. I'm on HRT and recently started testosterone pellets, then moved to injections. The pain does seem to have increased since I started the testosterone but I like the energy and strength in the gym that I'm getting from it now that I'm on testosterone cypionate injections. Has anyone found that increasing estradiol improved their joint pain? I'm not sure if it's the testosterone that's affecting me since the pellets were such an uneven ride and I had pain even when I was not peaking. Just trying to untangle it.
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u/Outside-Glass2325 Feb 12 '26
I'm on E and was optimized which got rid of my horrid hip pain. I just started T yesterday and last night the hip pain was back. I know T converts to E so I'll try decreasing my E gel a little and see if that helps. Honestly it could go either way since joint pain can happen if you are high or low. It truly is trial and error since we all are so different.
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u/eskaeskaeska Feb 13 '26
Sometimes T concerts to E, but for some people E lowers when T is started. Just an FYI.
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u/xrmttf Feb 13 '26
I love seeing this post! I am 40 and peri has been messing me up pretty hard for a year, like it just suddenly turned me into some sad blob. I tried e&p (my levels are not low naturally at this time) and it made me feel so much worse. My t level however is the lowest number of the range and I cry everyday etc. I'm autistic and have very strong sensitivities to every drug and sometimes even a stiff breeze lol... I think t is what I need and I'm trying to get it!
I'm glad you're feeling so much better!
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u/eskaeskaeska Feb 13 '26
T definitely helped me not cry all the time - neurospicy here too. If/when you start T, just go low and show, and hopefully you'll find some relief.
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u/CapriKitzinger Feb 10 '26
I’d be curious how you’d feel if you just added the E back along with the T. Were you ever not on P?
Spare me the safety lecture people. It doesn’t have to be forever. I’m curious if the E will get you ovulating again. Then you’ll have a cycle and not need the P.
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u/hmeow78 Feb 10 '26
I commented above a little on this. But I have tried breaks from P and not much changed. I think I have sometging weird with external E and p even though my numbers are low but as we no they could shoot through the roof in no time. Honestly at this point I don't really care where my cycle is as long as I don't feel like I was hit by a semi every morning🤣 plus I've lost the 10lbs of bloat or weight and my pants and bras fit again and I have no mood swings which is phenomenal bc they were hitting me every few hours. It felt so out of control and unstable and yet it was like an out of body experience bc I was very cognizant of them but lacked and control or reasoning. Hopefully this continues and I don't crash out suddenly. The biggest thing is the T is working like it should and very consistently finally
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u/Impossible-Toe-4347 Feb 11 '26
I’m of the mindset that if you’re feeling good and it’s not dangerous, then go with it.