Body Talk
Determining whether or not your body has enough estrogen is easy. Your body tells you in three different ways.
If you have enough estrogen, you will have:
- No symptoms of estrogen deficiency
- Stable cholesterol lipid labs from year to year
- No bone loss.
If you do not have enough estrogen, you will have:
- Symptoms of estrogen deficiency
- Worsening cholesterol lipid labs from year to year
- Bone loss
Priorities
So, when it comes to answering the question, Should HRT for menopause include testosterone? … it’s all about priorities. It’s a matter of first things first. Because you are Mama Bear, you have to get your estrogen right first … before you focus on any other hormone. If you don’t get your estrogen right, nothing will be right.
As a female, 99% of your energy, motivation, and sex drive were dependent entirely upon estrogen. So, you need to alleviate them by replacing estrogen. And if you don’t take enough estrogen, you will not alleviate these symptoms.
You cannot use testosterone replacement to fix estrogen deficiency.
Face it: Testosterone cannot do estrogen’s job. This is consistent with the fact that insulin cannot do thyroid hormone’s job.
Do you think that any man would worry about replacing his estrogen if he lost all his testosterone? Of course not! No man would give a single thought to taking estrogen replacement along with or instead of testosterone replacement.
And that’s because men thrive on testosterone, not estrogen. Likewise, you thrive on estrogen, not testosterone.
So why is it that women think about replacing testosterone when they lose their estrogen? Why is the “Ask Barbie” question for today such a common one?
Well, the answer is simple … although completely illogical. It’s fear!
Somehow, women and society have come up with the crazy notion that estrogen is dangerous. But how can estrogen be dangerous when your own body produced it for almost 40 years? If it’s so dangerous, why didn’t it harm you during those 40 years?
Well fear is the most powerful emotion on earth. It is so powerful that it erases all common sense. And because of their fear of estrogen, people try to substitute the fearful hormone replacement with something that is less fearful. Of course, that makes about as much sense as Mama Bear trying to wear Papa Bear’s clothes. You will not succeed.
There’s nothing like the real thing, Mama Bear.
So when it comes to setting your priorities in order to achieve your goals, you have to start with estrogen. Starting with anything other than estrogen will never get you to the point of success. If you have your uterus, you need to take progesterone along with estrogen.
But, under no circumstance should you start with testosterone. Under no circumstance should you start with testosterone in addition to estrogen.
In scientific research, we call this “isolation.” It means that you can only study one thing at a time. Since you are Mama Bear, and your sex hormone is estrogen, you need to start with estrogen. If you start with both estrogen and testosterone, you will completely sabotage your experiment from the start.
So, if you discover that you do have enough estrogen, then you might consider adding testosterone … but only if you already have enough estrogen.
The goals of HRT for menopause fall into two categories:
- To alleviate the symptoms caused by estrogen deficiency
- To prevent the diseases caused by estrogen deficiency (heart attack, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s)
- Testosterone is to men what estrogen is to women. Therefore, while estrogen replacement can prevent the three diseases of estrogen deficiency for a woman, testosterone cannot
So, no matter what you do, it’s going to be a package deal. And the key is timing. Only consider testosterone replacement once you have achieved all your goals for estrogen replacement.
