There is no F.D.A.-approved testosterone product for women. Insurance won’t cover it. Many doctors won’t prescribe it. It’s become a cultural phenomenon.
Spend enough time speaking to women who are taking testosterone — specifically, in very high doses — and you start to notice that they sound messianic. They’re often talking fast and intensely; they’re amped up; they’re describing what they clearly consider a miracle drug; and they have no intention of lowering their dose, despite the unknown risks or some problems with facial hair. After all, how can they worry about facial hair when they feel so alive? It’s nothing they can’t take care of with a quick waxing, which they now have the energy to do at the end of the day — right after they prepare a high-protein dinner for their family and before they put the finishing touches on their spreadsheets, close their laptops and light a few mood candles for the sex that they know will be great, maybe even better than the sex they had last night, even though they’re a day older.
“It’s changed my marriage,” Jessica Medina, a 41-year-old marketing consultant in Orange County, Calif., told me. With four kids in the house, and sex happening six times a week (up from “How about never?” pre-testosterone), she had to put a lock on the bedroom door. She and her husband had attended a “marriage growth” group at church for years, but it took testosterone for their relationship to be, as she put it, “100 times closer.” She was a little less emotional, a little less sentimental than she used to be, but she didn’t have time for that kind of thing, anyway. “It’s more like: Get stuff done, handle business, work out,” she said. “In order to do all that and still have time for our kids and their sports, there’s no time to whine about how hard it is.”
Catherine Lin, a single mother who ran a bicoastal fashion media company, went on testosterone in her early 40s to raise her energy. She got the boost she wanted, started lifting heavier weights, decided to pursue a degree in holistic nutrition and enjoyed an unexpected side effect: She started having orgasms for the first time in years.
If it’s not too invasive, can you describe what led to this? E.g. “I told my doctor I was experiencing []; she ordered tests of []; then we reviewed the results, discussed options [_], and she wrote me the script for testosterone cypionate.”
Takeaways From the Times Magazine Story on Testosterone and Sex Drive
Here’s when and why experts think testosterone should be prescribed to middle-aged women, and how it affects their lives.
Testosterone use has recently exploded among middle-aged women because the hormone can help revive libido. But many women are taking doses that are much higher than medical societies’ guidelines recommend. Increasingly, women in their 40s and beyond are experimenting with higher levels of the hormone than they produced naturally at any point in their lives; some are even approaching the levels of a teenage boy. These women report a dramatic return of their sex drives, as well as bursts of energy and improved muscle tone; but not everyone responds positively, and high doses can also have lingering side effects like hair loss.
Confusion about the hormone is rampant, and emotions about it run high — among both people who champion it and those who urge caution. “Testosterone is like a religion,” said Rachel Rubin, a urologist who specializes in sexual medicine. “People have very strong feelings about testosterone.”
For this story, I spoke with more than a dozen researchers and doctors in order to understand when experts believe testosterone should be prescribed, and how it affects women’s lives. Here are takeaways from the Magazine story.
It was in my BIEST sublingual for 7 years I’m pretty sure 1mg and after 7 years got blood drawn it was in the 220’s estrogen 557 - I don’t feel one bit different on or off HRT and those are high levels.
Please message me too. Lol. I’m currently on kisspeptin for peri menopause, BPC-157, TB-500, and GHK-Cu. I’m adding KPV soon, and eventually cjc-1295 w/ Ipamorelin (women are raving about this last one). HRT is my next step, if the kisspeptin doesn’t normalize my hormones.
