Most of us are familiar with estrogen and progesterone, produced in the ovaries and responsible for female development and reproduction. But did you know that women also have testosterone? In fact, we have more testosterone in our bodies at any stage of life than estrogen – it’s that important.
So what is all this testosterone doing? It helps with many functions, but most notably growth of lean body tissue (muscle and bone), motivation, mood, cognition and sexual libido.
We have the most testosterone in our mid-twenties (you only need to remember how you felt at that age to realize that), but it drops by fifty percent by the time we reach 40 and continues to fall after menopause. More than half of our testosterone is made in the ovaries, so if these are surgically removed, women can become very deficient.
The common symptoms of low testosterone in women are night sweats, brain fog, low sex drive, vaginal dryness and pain, low motivation to get off the couch and even depression. When these symptoms appear together, we call this FADS (Female Androgen Deficiency Syndrome). The treatment for FADS is to restore testosterone levels back to where they were when we were younger.
Testosterone replacement for women can be prescribed as a compounded topical cream or hormone pellets (inserted by a physician). Dr. Hatfield will begin with a consultation to review your symptoms and check serum testosterone levels to determine if you are a candidate for either mode of treatment.
If you have symptoms of low testosterone, we encourage you to schedule an appointment to discuss Bio-Identical Hormone Therapy.

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