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[Tulip256]

I am 10 days into taking testosterone and feel great, it seems to have cured my acid reflux.

However I have gained over 1kg in a week and noticed a lot more tummy fat. On doing some reading it appears that testosterone causes insulin resistance in women. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this issue?

I would lower the dose but I tried missing a dose yesterday and the acid reflux came back and it is hard to measure out a smaller blob than I am currently doing.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dmrr.872

[Alex 2024]

Hi,
Be careful!! I accidentally overdosed with testosterone and ended up with more anxiety and permanent dark hair growth... very upsetting.
The sachets are VERY difficult to get a small and accurate daily dose.
I ended up stopping it because I couldn't cope but I do think it works well for confidence boosting.
Have you tried using a v small syringe to get an accurate dose and keeping a diary?
Would be interested to know how you get on if you try this.
I have to say I didn't get weight gain but my anxiety shot through the roof when I ended up with 20 times the max dose in my blood test!
Best of luck x

[Hollyboll]

Tulip - great you feel it’s helped.

There are people here with a lot more knowledge of T and effects so I’ll follow with interest.

I’ve read others make syringes work but I could never manage that - perhaps I should try again and ask for some expertise here …
but I’ve also been told that there’s no need to get too worried about the precise daily dose being identical every single day. As long as you make the sachet last the ‘right’ days, a little up or down one day isn’t the end of world. As long as you keep the dose right and constant over each x days, that shouldn't give you big fluctuations  -

Alex your horrid effects presumably came from big fluctuations/ change when you missed the change in concentration/ packaging as you posted elsewhere. That must have been awful and I’m really sorry, but tulip don’t be frightened- there was a reason for that x20 level and so probably those effects!

hth x

[Hurdity]

I am 10 days into taking testosterone and feel great, it seems to have cured my acid reflux.

However I have gained over 1kg in a week and noticed a lot more tummy fat. On doing some reading it appears that testosterone causes insulin resistance in women. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this issue?

I would lower the dose but I tried missing a dose yesterday and the acid reflux came back and it is hard to measure out a smaller blob than I am currently doing.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dmrr.872

Hi - I'm interested on what you're saying about insulin resistance. I had a look at that reference but couldn;t access the whole article so would reserve judgement about whether exogenous T can cause insulin resistance - I would want to see the studies where androgens had been given as pee this sentence:

"Androgen administration to healthy women was associated with development of insulin resistance. Intervention studies in women with hyperandrogenism were limited by small subject numbers and use of indirect methods for assessing insulin sensitivity"

I haven't read a lot about it but do know T is partly responsible for muscle development and maintenance. Therefore my view on this is that there is the potential to mantain muscle mass in post-menopausal women, and reduce associated exercise-induced fatigue, but this is dependent on taking sufficient exercise, otherwise metabolically there could be a tendency to put on extra fat rather than muscle. ie muscle doesn't develop on its own. So this could be a reason for weight (fat) gain - especially around the middle - which happens anyway in post-menopausal women due to excess of androgen relative to oestrogens despite both declining.

I doubt though that gaining 1 kg in a week would be caused by taking T - though I don't know -  the effects are longer term than this and gynae who originally prescribed mine in 2015 said effects can take 4-5 months to develop!!

I know I don't take enough exercise and could do with reducing by 7-10 pounds ideally - and have thicker waist than I used to....

Glad you are feeling better generally.

Re testogel sachets.

May I suggest changing to Testim if you can? I would recommend to anyone having difficultty measuring out blobs of T. Testim is 1% gel so 2/3 the concentration of the new Testogel sachets. Testim comes in little tubes with a screw top so you just unscrew the cap, squeeze out a little blob and scre it up again, I would suggest it is more viscous than Testogel and a bit more sticky, less runny. Being lower concentration then there is more scope for slight variation in blob size not leading to big variation in dose.

Hurdity x

[Tulip256]

Thanks Alex, sorry to hear your issues with T. How long did it take before you got the bad side effects  and were they completely reversed when you stopped it? Just a bit nervous about doing long term damage.

Hollybol Yes I think that is a good idea about monitoring the sachets. My 1st one lasted 8 days so I don't think I am overdosing but I think I probably need even less. The gel is more of a liquid so it is hard to get microdoses.

Thanks Hurdity. I am very interested in gaining lean mass. I have been strength training for 1 year and struggled to put on any muscle. Until the last week though I also had very low belly fat so maybe T will help with the muscle at the expense of the belly. I think I will get my hba1c measured along with t levels to keep a check on things. Also thanks for the advice on the testim, will look into this although currently getting it from superdrug and am not sure they provide testim.

[Joaniepat]

Testim gel is no longer being produced, since December 2023. You can Google it.
JP x