Estrogen is an important part of Male Hormone Replacement Therapy -HRT Too much estrogen, too little estrogen… both can be extremely harmful if left unchecked for an extended period of time. Whether you’re on TRT – Testosterone – or not, estrogen plays a large role in how we feel, how much fat we store, bone density, etc. Estrogen is a VERY important hormone. Find out how estrogen affects your body and what you can do to keep it balanced.
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Is Estrogen Killing You? Estrogen in Male Hormone Replacement Therapy?
Hello YouTube. It’s Sam Ridgeway again with Live Like A Viking and today I want to talk about Estrogen.More than a handful of people have asked me why they aren’t feeling better on Testosterone Replacement Therapy… Why their TRT program doesn’t seem to work for them, like it works for me. I’ve also heard from other men, usually over the age of 40 and not on TRT, that they’ve started having issues with weight gain. It’s like their metabolism went on strike. In a vast majority of these cases, I am 100% certain estrogen is the culprit.
But isn’t estrogen just for women? Not at all. In fact, if left unchecked, estrogen can be deadly… and here’s why…
First of all… you need to have estrogen in your system. However, you can have too much of a good thing. Excess estrogen has been shown to vastly increase your risk of stroke, coronary artery disease, and increases your chances of having a heart attack. Excess estrogen can cause Sexual Dysfunction. It can cause you to actually lose muscle mass. It can cause you to lose bone density. It can cause depression. It can cause water retention. It can make you an emotional wreck. Excess estrogen has been known to increase the risk of diabetes, increase the risk of prostate cancer, and increase the risk of autoimmune diseases. It can also have aesthetic consequences such as weight gain and it can even facilitate a condition known as gynecomastia… also known as Man Boobs. Estrogen is some serious shit…
So how does excess estrogen even happen?
Well, just by getting older your testosterone levels start to decline and your estrogen levels increase proportionately. Your body also goes through a process called aromatization where it converts testosterone into estrogen. This process is sped up when you have excess body fat, especially around your midsection. So here’s the problem: Your estrogen levels start to rise, which makes you store more fat, and more fat facilitates the creation of more estrogen… which makes you store even more fat. You’re a smart group. I know you detect a vicious cycle here.
So all we have to do is throw testosterone into the mix to compensate for the estrogen imbalance, right? That’s exactly what TRT does, and it’s not a bad idea at all… aside from the fact that, as I’ve said, your body will take excess testosterone and convert it into estrogen via aromatization. Therefore, you can actually cause an estrogen imbalance through TRT. Since healthy testosterone levels are crucial to the overall physical and emotional stability of a man, how can you get testosterone levels to increase while not spiraling your estrogen out of control?
The answer is: You take an Aromatase Inhibitor like Arimidex, a.k.a. Anastrozole. This inhibits the aromatase enzyme and stops your body from converting testosterone into estrogen. Problem solved, right? Maybe. I say maybe because if you take too much Arimidex, you can actually crash your estrogen levels. You can give yourself the condition of Low Estrogen.
Well, Low Estrogen has to be better than high estrogen, right? I mean those symptoms of high estrogen sounded like you’re nothing more than a walking time bomb.
Low estrogen can cause sexual problems, joint cracking or soreness, you can be at an increased risk for fractures, fatigue, depression, you can lose your ability to feel emotions, you can get anxiety, you can eliminate too much water and become dehydrated, you can become irritable. And, just like some of the symptoms of high estrogen, you can increase your risk for Metabolic Syndrome, which increases your chances of heart disease, diabetes, and having a stroke. I’m trying to tell you, you need to take estrogen seriously.
So if all you have to do to keep estrogen in check is take a pill, what’s the big deal?
The problem is we all metabolize medications differently and we all convert testosterone into estrogen at varying rates. So while a standard dose of Anastrozole might be 1/2 a milligram, twice per week, that doesn’t work for everybody. To make things even more complicated, even when taking the exact same dose of medication every day, my estrogen levels will fluctuate from week to week. That’s right… diet, exercise, and stress also play a role in regulating estrogen. As if it wasn’t complex enough, now we have a moving target.
Hopefully you fall within the normal guidelines of AI dosing, which means you maintain healthy levels of estrogen when taking 1/2 milligram of Arimidex twice weekly. If you’re like me and that doesn’t always work for you, you need to get blood work done until you figure this thing out. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when I need more AI. Symptoms like my wedding ring becoming too tight… or I feel like I want to cry when a sad commercial comes on, my nipples become puffy… Yes Bitch, I get puffy nipples. So I might take 1/4 milligram of Arimidex in between regular doses. And while an AI will start to block estrogen production quickly, you have to give your body enough time to clear the existing excess estrogen out of your system… so don’t expect immediate results. It can take hours, sometimes days to feel the difference. See there, we just added yet another variable… it could take days to know if what you did to correct the problem… actually fixed the problem at all..
Keeping your hormones in balance is so important, and some hormones should take precedence over others. Estrogen happens to be one of those very important hormones. If you’re on TRT, and you experience any of the symptoms I’ve outlined in this video, it’s probably due to an imbalance in your estrogen levels. This is one of the main reasons I encourage having a doctor prescribe your medications. If it’s not pharmaceutical grade, you have no idea if the dosage of your current supply will be the same as your next. You also want a medical professional looking over your lab work. This should be common sense, but there are a LOT of people that take a Do It Yourself approach to TRT.
So to put this video into terms even a Troll could understand, High Estrogen Bad. Low Estrogen Bad. Stroke Bad. Doctor prescribed Testosterone Replacement Therapy, Good. It’s not that difficult to keep your estrogen levels in the safety zone. It simply takes a regimented schedule of getting your lab work done and you have to listen to your body. Look for patterns. Write down the symptoms I’ve outlined in this video if you have to. Pay attention to your emotions and watch for water retention… those are two of the easiest symptoms to monitor.
The bottom line, control your estrogen if you want to stay healthy. Because not doing so can have disastrous and permanent consequences.
That’s it for this video. Questions, Comments, Suggestions… put em’ below.
And remember, You’re Never Too Old to Live Like A Viking.
Until next time, Peace out!
