Hello and thanks for the welcome. Interesting points Hurdity. Unfortunately as I'm an ex-pat living in the US, I have no access to the NHS and everything costs over here. I cannot take synthetic hormones as they make me very ill. I've tried quite a few but each time I was so sick and loopy it wasn't worth it. They certainly didn't make me feel any better. Testosterone does metabolize to estradiol so the understanding is that as long as I keep checking my hormone levels I can continue to take what I'm taking and get some estrogenic benefit. The estriol is a weak estrogen but its it an estrogen nonetheless, and as my levels were documented as low I wanted to try it. It has certainly helped with the all over body/muscle pain that I get during ovulation.
Regular GPs over here tend to not get involved in hormone therapy that isn't synthetic. You have to seek out a holistic naturopathic doctor to get anything like that. I have luckily found one quite close to my home that just opened a new office, so I am planning on making an appointment with them so I can continue to get my bioidenticals and keep having my hormone levels checked.
I have stage 4 endometriosis and also adenomyosis and from experience I know that synthetic estrogen affects the pain levels quite substantially. In fact, even using the weak estriol has increased my pain, so I am being cautious with it. However, without the testosterone I felt so bad that I couldn't function at all. I am in graduate school doing an advanced degree and had to take a semester off because I didn't think I could continue, so I'm taking these months to get myself sorted. I am willing to risk the androgenic effects just to feel better...and I do! Testosterone has been like a wonder drug for me. I've been on it for over a year now with no side effects so far which I am relieved about.
I am actually in my last year of a nurse practitioner program and when I graduate I want to work in a menopause clinic, or even open my own bioidentical practice. I am so appalled by the lack of available treatments for women like us that it would be my dream to be able to help others. I've been doing a lot of reading and this is such a difficult and tricky subject. So much depends on balance and hormones are so powerful. It's a challenge! Anyway, thank you for the welcome and I look forward to reading all the posts here.
