I'm on tostran 2 % and started with trying to do a half pump daily. So the equivalent of doing a pump every other day.
However, over a couple of years (experimenting with dose & cutting out completely even) I worked out that it seemed to be a too high a dose of T that was causing a kind of "close to tears" /low emotional state every day. I googled and googled and asked gp. "does testosterone cause some ladies to feel depressed?" but found nothing. Although I think I did find someone on here who felt "less was more" with T and it had made them feel low. But most talk of feeling agitated. Unless my agitated is a bit tearful??! . I wasn't depressed, per say, just close to tears often.... like something sad/upset was welling up from below the surface.
I have now for over 6 months settled on doing what is approx a quarter, maybe even a 5th of a pump each day.
This is a guesstimate.... I tried to pump out a whole pump onto a surface, then tried to pump out what looked like half etc, then a quarter. I tried getting a little syringe from pharmacist to see if I could pump tostran into that and then dispense from the syringe. Didn't work. Too messy!
I now just depress the tostran pump as gently as I can against my upper arm and as little as I can. The minute I see a hint of gel I stop pressing, and then rub in. By eye, it looks like less than 0.25 of a pump.
It probably varies a little each day, but is definitely less than half a pump. I find it is enough to stop the muscle fatigue & post exercise exhaustion I was getting prior to starting T. It's also enough to keep my sexual response working. But the close to tears feeling is not everyday now. It does still show up before my periods though, but that is to be expected (always been that way for me.... and sometimes seems to happen mid cycle these days too ).
I'm 52, and also have 1 pump oestrogel, Mirena coil