Menopause, which occurs as a woman ages, can lead to a lower amount of testosterone produced by the ovaries. Testosterone levels are measured and reported as nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL). A.D.A.M. is among the first to achieve this important distinction for online health information and services. Www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-drug-safety-communication-fda-cautions-about-using-testosterone-products-low-testosterone-due. If you decide to start TRT, be sure to see your provider for regular checkups. Talk with your provider about whether TRT is right for you. There is an increased risk of high blood pressure with TRT. Regular blood testing is helpful, she adds, and allows clinicians to make dosage adjustments if side effects like mild masculinization do occur. She hasn’t seen patients develop male pattern baldness, grow a beard, or start speaking in a deeper voice, for example. "Once they’re in your body, you can't alter or adjust the dose or how long you're exposed to it," Kurtzer says. That can be especially true for those receiving pellets, which typically contain higher doses than other forms of testosterone. "My boss pulled me aside and was like, ‘April, you can't talk like that to me.’" She ended up stopping treatment. Yet it’s hard to draw conclusions about women based on these findings, experts say, since dosage isn’t the same (though it’s usually lower) and women’s bodies work differently. Are you now impacting that woman's overall heart disease risk? "The cognitive effects were very dramatic," she says; it quickly resolved her brain fog and memory problems. Creative geometric female pattern in cubism style. However, the optimal amount of testosterone is far from clear. As a result, there is some controversy about which men should be treated with supplemental testosterone. Women may have a testosterone deficiency due to diseases of the pituitary, hypothalamus or adrenal glands, in addition to removal of the ovaries. There are times when low testosterone is not such a bad thing. Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Stay on top of latest health news from Harvard Medical School. Benefits include practical tips to keep you healthy and vibrant, up-to-date health news explained simply and clearly, and special promo codes to use for our online courses, special reports, and more. Sign up for HEALTHBeat and receive trusted health information delivered right to your inbox. Get the latest in health news delivered to your inbox! Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the agency has never approved testosterone for women. "I just had sort of an ‘aha’ moment," says Hall, a 41-year-old in Berkeley, Calif. "It clicked that that might be what was going on, because there was such a good match between the things I was experiencing and the symptoms of low testosterone." All of this reduces the active (free) form of testosterone in the body. Also, as men get older, their livers make more sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which binds to testosterone circulating in the bloodstream. In recent years, researchers (and pharmaceutical companies) have focused on the effects of testosterone deficiency, especially among men.