High Testosterone

This Hormone Type means an imbalance of estrogen and testosterone, two important female sex hormones. This is common when you’re high-achieving, active, and driven. 

An estrogen/testosterone imbalance can happen when certain nutrition, lifestyle, and genetic factors drive estrogen to convert to testosterone,

If this resonates, you’re not alone!

Thankfully, there are many things you can do to improve symptoms (which don’t include expensive lab tests, supplements, or meds).

It can be simple and starts with a personalized approach that includes: balancing stress and blood sugar, optimizing sleep, reducing your exposure to common endocrine disruptors, and improving elimination pathways (think sweat and gut health).

Read on to find out more.

How it happens

High testosterone might have you feeling motivated and in charge but also moody, irritable, or aggressive. You could notice acne, hair loss on your head, hair gain in unwanted places, changes in your libido, or a deepening of your voice.

Cortisol, thyroid, and insulin hormones could also play a part. High testosterone is multifactorial, and women often arrive at it for multiple reasons, not just one.

Some of these reasons could be:

• Taking DHEA or testosterone
• Taking steroid medications
• Low sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG)
• Poor diet, high in processed or packaged foods and low in nutrient density
• Inadequate diet for your body type, activity level or current hormone status
• Nutrient deficiencies
• PCOS
• Stress or adrenal disorders
• Inadequate sleep for body type, activity level or current hormone status
• Adrenal or ovarian tumor or inherited disorder (congenital adrenal hyperplasia)
• Sluggish liver clearance of testosterone
• Insulin resistance
• And more…

Aromatase is an enzyme that converts estrogen into testosterone. Aromatase is increased in the presence of insulin. The pancreas secretes insulin in the presence of increased blood sugar levels. Diets that create blood sugar imbalances, such as carb-heavy ones, spike your insulin levels and can cause testosterone imbalance.

High testosterone symptoms

Testosterone imbalance will present itself differently in different women. You might have a few or many of the above symptoms, while someone else could have completely different ones. We’re all wonderfully unique like that.

Common symptoms include:

• Skin problems such as acne or greasy skin
• Infertility
• Thinning head hair or other hair loss
• Oily hair
• Rogue hair growth on face, arms, chest
• Skin tags
• Deepening voice
• Increased muscle mass
• Increased body odor
• An enlarged clitoris
• Ovarian cysts
• High blood pressure
• Blood sugar issues
• Prolonged period, often lasting longer than 5 days
• Or infrequent periods
• Trouble sleeping, falling asleep or staying asleep
• Depression or anxiety
• Infertility or miscarriage
• Insulin resistance and increased risk of type 2 diabetes
• (Enlarged prostate in men)

When testosterone goes high, it greatly impacts other hormones, including our sex hormone, our stress hormones as well as hormones that control your metabolism. 

Dearest Reader,

This information is for educational purposes only and not intended to diagnose or highlight imperfections. You've likely landed here following my quiz at YourHormoneQuiz.com.

No matter what you discover in these results, you're beautiful and perfect as you are. You're good enough and trying hard enough.

We're all unique and will experience hormonal shifts differently. This information is here to highlight that, despite what we've been told, we're not just little men — our bodies work differently — and if our hormones have us feeling less than our best, we absolutely can do something about it.

My aim is to support and empower you on your journey, where you need and want it. Take what you need, leave what you don't.

No judgement here, just good honest support.

XO, Laurie

Key roles of testosterone

When testosterone goes high, it greatly impacts other hormones, including our sex and stress hormones and the hormones that control our metabolism.

Here are ways that testosterone supports health: 

• Helps maintenance and growth of bones
• Supports a healthy libido
• Helps balance body fat and build lean muscle
• Helps maintain vaginal health
• It supports cardiovascular health

What you can do about it

Getting to the root cause is essential. For many, this could mean dealing balancing blood sugar and insulin as well as stress.

Restoring the balance of high testosterone most often requires reestablishing a strong foundation with a supportive diet and lifestyle for your body type, activity level, current hormone status, and goals.

Reducing your total stress load is key while nourishing your neuroendocrine system with stress-reducing and stress-managing practices, such as improving sleep, optimizing nutrition and type of movement, shifting mindset and unsupportive thought patterns, and sometimes targeted supplementation.

Check out this post for even more ways to get your hormones back in harmony.

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, manage, or treat disease or serious conditions. Always check with your doctor before making any changes. It's important to consult a well-informed health practitioner for personal advice about your situation before relying on general information — we're all wonderfully unique.