Reply To: DW Community Catch-up Thread
Home / Forums / Advice & Chat / DW Community Catch-up Thread / Reply To: DW Community Catch-up Thread
Perimenopause is the worst! I started going through it at 38 and then I developed subclinical hypothyroidism which made getting a diagnosis even harder. It took almost 10 years to find a Dr. who was willing to listen to me and figure out the problem.
I’d like to offer a word of caution that I learned from my experience. Taking just estrogen can actually lead to estrogen or estradiol dominance (unopposed estrogen) and create even more problems. Your body actually needs a specific ratio of estrogen to progesterone to testosterone to function properly and women can test in the “normal” ranges and still have symptoms because what’s right for one person may not necessarily be right for another. I can’t remember what the numbers are right now and all of my googling is only coming up with stuff about male hormones (of course). Anyway, I think I originally learned about it from a book – What Your Dr. Won’t Tell You About Menopause. Long story short, read up on the subject and talk to your Dr. about adding testosterone or progesterone to your therapy. In addition taking straight estrogen without progesterone or testosterone can lead to uterine cancer and heart disease. Here are a couple of links one from the National Institutes of Health and one with a chart showing the hormone ratios. There is another page on the second website under Female Hormones that talks about progesterone. Basically, don’t forget your other hormone levels are changing too. It’s no exaggeration to say that testosterone saved my life and sanity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7039145/
https://www.georgiahormones.com/normal-hormone-proportions.html