Oral hrt & testosterone

[chickensaresafehere]

Does anyone take oral hrt (I take Femoston 2/10) & use testosterone gel (testim)?

I've been doing a bit of googling & I've read that if you use testosterone gel & take oral hrt,the oral oestrogen raises SHBG,making free testosterone unavailable to use by the body,so transdermal patches are better.
I'm happy on Femoston,but obviously don't want the testosterone gel to be ineffective.

I'm only one week in to using the gel & have made an appointment with my GP to discuss this but I am interested in others experiences.

Yes that is correct re oral oestrogen and SHBG. However there is very little research done so it is not possible to say whether or not this will limit the efficacy of testosterone in improving your symptoms. It may mean you have to increase the dose - aiming for an excess of free T - but not sure if there is a dose dependent increase in SHBG which would render taking extra T not worthwhile.

The best thing you can do is to start taking it and see how you feel after 3 months or so - it can take 4-5 months to be fully effective, but make sure your doc then measures your T levels as well as SHBG after 6 months - so that s/he can calculate the Free Androgen Index (since measurement of free T is not carried out - it is usually total T which doesn't tell you how much is available to use by the body).

I'm interested that you have Testim - this has been unavailable for some time (discontinued) so perhaps your pharmacy has been stockpiling or something? This is what I use....

Thanks for that info Bellaciao.
Hospital pharmacy had to order it in but pharmacist was very helpful about dosage & application,as consultant (endocrine) didn't seem confident that they would give me it,which confused me a bit!
I will definitely give it a try but I have got an appointment with my GP to discuss it.
I'm using a largish pea sized blob every morning. No side effects yet,which is good but haven't noticed any improvements in libido etc yet either.