Help with hormones! Low testosterone and estrodiol

[Charlyemmalouise]

Hello

I have an underactive thyroid and am currently in thee process of reducing my t3 medication, which I was taking too much of! I have just had a hormone test done and have very low testosterone/estrodiol. Extremely low, in fact.

Wondering if anyone else has had a hormone test done and found their sex hormones to be very low? I had the test done on the 3rd day of my period, so I am in the follicular phase. You can see the ranges and my values in the attached labs.

I feel like absolute death, and am really hoping that this explains it!

Any suggestions for how to start improving my hormones? I know that as long as they are this f*cked up, I will be feeling terrible regardless of what's happening with my thyroid...

Thanks to all the helpful people on this forum!

[SarahJane1471]

Please don’t take this the wrong way but have you discussed these results with your GP? 🤷‍♀️Or placed them on a Gynaecology forum?

[Charlyemmalouise in reply to SarahJane1471]

No I just got them yesterday and getting to a GP in the uk is not exactly easy 😅 I am hiring a health coach but whilst I wait for this I wanted to post here bcos hormones are closely tied to thyroid! I didn’t take it the wrong way don’t worry :))

[tattybogle]

Too much thyroid hormone will raise SHBG.. ... i'm not sure how it works , but i know SHBG affects testosterone and estrogen binding ...I think it would be wise to make sure your thyroid hormones are right before trying to interpret your sex hormone levels.

You've been on slightly reduced dose of 112.5mcg T3 for about a month so you won't have had time to test on 112.5mcg yet.. but your fT3 result on 125mcg T3 was extremely high @18 ish .

I think you might be putting the cart before the horse in assuming it is your sex hormones that are the problem here ... ? maybe wait and see that they are when you know you have got your fT3 back down .

[Charlyemmalouise in reply to tattybogle]

I honestly feel I will die before I get the ft3 down if I take it slowly. I’m down to 100mcg now and have been here for a couple of weeks.. considering dropping to 75.. is that a bad idea!!?

[Charlyemmalouise in reply to Charlyemmalouise]

And I agree that it isn’t just my sex hormones that are causing the issue! T3 probably needs to come down too. But I am desperate and feel I can’t continue like this for much longer. I have 0 quality of life and am barely functioning. My reasoning is that boosting hormones will help whilst I work on getting the thyroid right alongside it? 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️😅

[tattybogle in reply to Charlyemmalouise]

Honestly .. and i mean this nicely ....i think your reasoning is 'all over the place' and verging on 'frantic'....it's not a criticism .. we've all been there .. we make poor decisions when our thyroid dose is wrong, because we are so desperate to fix it .But i can't imagine that messing with your testosterone or estrogen levels right now is going to make it any easier to find the right thyroid hormone dose .. in fact it would probably make it much harder to know WTF is going on with anything.

i'm not experienced in taking T3, so you should take more notice of the opinions of those on here who do..... but i think you really need to know where you are now before you make such a large reduction in T3 dose as going from 100 to 75mcg.

personally (unless you are suffering from very fast heart rate or other signs of overmedication that need addressing more urgently ) i'd give it another week so you've been on 100mcg for 3 weeks, and then get fT3 tested again so you have at least some idea where your fT3 levels are on that dose.

[Charlyemmalouise in reply to tattybogle]

Thanks I appreciate this advice! And yes you are quite right, I am frantic!! I think anyone who felt like I do these days, would be the same. I don't mean this in a defensive way by the way, more an accepting one I am desperate to start feeling better and yes, clutching at straws, perhaps. I will give it another week at 100 and then test Ft3 again, and see if anyone responds to this with a similar story.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and try to help me. I appreciate every response I get!

[FancyPants54 in reply to Charlyemmalouise]

If you are still having periods you can't work out the state of your sex hormones from one test. You need two tests and they have to be run at the right time of the month. I'm not sure what those times are. You would need to look it up. Check the web site balance-menopause.com for all things menopause. There is a wealth of up to date advice for peri and menopause there. You would not expect to have high levels of sex hormones during your period. Everything is low then. It all hits rock bottom when you bleed so you can't take that test as informative.

Also, was this test run by your GP or a private finger prick test? If the latter, don't do another like that. They are unreliable and that helps no one. You need a proper blood draw for sex hormone testing. My HRT doctor told me that after they tested home test kits against proper blood drawers because they were seeing unusual results during the first lockdown. They thought home test kits would solve the problem of how to work remotely by Zoom. They didn't. I have used one and got a very unhelpful result.

As others have said, when desperate it's hard to be rational. Leave your sex hormones alone for now and concentrate on reducing your T3. If my T3 or T4 goes too high I feel like death.