These are the results from my wife’s recent bloodwork. There’s a surprisingly large abyss of information about women’s hormone treatment out there, and some of the items don’t entirely make sense to me… was hoping for some information or explanation from some of the beautiful minds here. Results were taken fasted, 8 days after First Day of Last Cycle. Labcorp was testing lab.
I will have a some what similar panel done later this month. My dr is doing the test at a very different time in the cycle (day 21). I am getting the test done to see what can be done to help with peri menopause.
In my case an imbalance of progesterone/estrogen with low testosterone is the suspect.
Difficulty with sleep, anxiety, difficulty with weight loss, lack of results at the gym, unusual lethargy and lack of motivation. Goals are to pretty much counteract all of these. General just wanting to look and feel better.
Do any of the peptides tend to work better than others in your experience?
I’ll assume she is young. Testosterone and progesterone are options for her. She is making estradiol. Seeing LH would be nice though. DHEA is an option as well. Cannot say thyroid for sure, would like to see free T3 and Free T4.
Plenty here to familiarize yourself with if you guys dabble in TRT and HRT for women. Just remember a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Find a provider who wont mess you guys up.
HRT for women and cycling is as different as for men. If the symptoms you listed are the reason for cycling, I would instead think about HRT. HRT for women is in my experience more complicated than for men. Some just use testosterone, others use E2 and progesterone. Women are emotionally also more delicate than men. That why I’d advise to find a good HRT doc for women.
Update:
She was put on Test Cyp 7.5mg E3.5D and 2 other things for hair and skin - both of which will raise her progesterone. Provider said if any virilization effects are noticed at that dose, to lower to 5mg E3.5D immediately.
Her provider was actually very happy to see that her estrogen levels were high and did not want to change them at all.
@blshaw
Yes, 8 days after the beginning of her last menstrual cycle.
Will keep this updated if anything changes in hopes of filling the void of information that encompasses women’s TRT.
I dont think it is a lab error. She is doing 15 mg/week Test C. The number above is E3.5D trough ??? which indicates weekly mean even higher as per tables I have shared???
Perhaps a more appropriate protocol for woman would be testosterone in versabase applied to labia once to twice daily. Elimination half life is 1 hr so she will get pulsing and not be supraphysiologic 24/7. 1 to 2 mg Test per day in cream. Virilization can take time. I would recommend you guys reevaluate the protocol if you are concerned.
Big difference using 7 mg testosterone in cream vs injecting 7 mg testosterone. AUC very different. For a woman i would recommend Minimum Effective Dose strategy and it doesn’t require running low normal dude levels.
Let me know if you need more help understanding this.
Does seem a little high to me, but most studies I’ve read show menopausal women taking 5mg and reaching pre-menopausal T levels. 10mg indicated in a couple studies higher than norm T levels. Your wife is taking a hefty dose for women in my opinion. I know a decent amount about women’s natural hormones and menstrual cycles but I haven’t done any research on women taking injectable T. I can’t comment as to whether its harmful to stay the course or not. If I were in your shoes I would dial it down though to <10mg.
How is she doing? Free testosterone was fine. Many that I see run total testosterone very high to get pedestrian free test levels and good results, 0.5 won’t do it for them.
She feels good, she’s losing weight with little effort, energy levels are up, libido is increased, all good things. She actually wants to increase dose (mostly because if 15 is good, more would logically mean better, but I’ve advised against this).
About 8 weeks into her protocol, she was under a high stress environment and she had an unusually big acne breakout, but it calmed down a lot and is getting under control again.
If you have any experience in this department, she is considering asking for either Var, Phentermine, or Semaglutide for further weightloss (ive advised against var as im not sure if it’s worth the added risk of virilization, happy to take your opinions on this though).
Some have commented that a slightly lower dose could be a good call. Do you agree, or under what circumstances would you advise lowering dose? No virilization symptoms are present.
