Testosterone eye cream

[DCRdryeye]

My understanding is that the side effects are not good and that's why it's not gone mainstream. For women, there's extra body / facial hair, possibly deepening of voice, and other things. The worst, though, is the increased chance of cancer. Endochronologists weigh the increased risk with the need for testosterone (in other words, is your testosterone lower than it should be or is it normal but you're hoping testosterone will increase your tear production). I had a pretty long talk with an Endo about this and when it was said and done (my levels are completely normal), I decided it was definitely not worth the risk.

The new information available is that Testosterone does NOT cause cancer. Endocrinologists have it wrong where Testosterone and cancer is concerned. This forum has been blown out of proportion with misinformation, a small 3% dab of testosterone cream on the eyelids is not going to produce extra body / facial hair and deepening of the voice (even if your Testosterone is normal). We are talking about giving the eyes more of what it needs to secrete tears, and since androgen receptors exist in the lacrimal glands and meibobian glands...they are there for a reason.

Men who got prostate cancer - the medics blame it on testosterone. But testosterone is not the culprit, it's not a proliferative molecule, ESTROGEN is the culprit molecule. An ageing male has an an increased amount of estrogen, and lower levels of Testosterone.

I doubt a small 3% Testosterone cream is going to go systemic and wreck havoc on your hormonal system. My advice is to use the Testosterone cream on your eyelids , without a worry. Or monitor your Testosterone levels (via blood and saliva) regularly to see if they have changed. Take Vitamin D3 which oversees and keeps the entire hormal system in balance. And to further ease your nerves:

http://www.naturalnews.com/022900_te...gen_women.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0419121353.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ActiveA...3247773&page=1

http://www.getds.com/20110208159/Blo...w-testosterone

[DCRdryeye]

DON'T BE UNECESSARILY SCARED OFF BY TESTOSTERONE BEING DANGEROUS. I'll explain a bit more in the my next thread....

[Pinky]

I'm reposting this from another thread in case it was missed. The question is from Surya:

"Jenny

How did you get the prescription for testosterone cream and where did you get it compounded and what strength?"

[jenny2008]

aw..thanks for sharing your age... i guess it just doesnt help some people... i thought maybe because i wasnt in that stage of life yet....

anyway. thankfully your eyelids are ok now..that sounds awful what you went through... I too thought they would help the glands.. i wont know until i go to the doc i guess but my one eye is soo dry--but i have sjogrens and that is why that eye is just bone dry..
good luck.. hopefully we find something to help... like you said 'back to the drawing board'.. jenny

It's not because you're too young; I'm 63 and they didn't help me either. I think I have a bit more aqueous tears from Restasis, but my meibomian glands are completely dried up, no oily layer at all to keep the aqueous tears from evaporating. I thought that is what the testosterone drops would help, but they didn't help at all, only made things worse while I was taking them. Fortunately a few days after I stopped, the irritation and redness in my eyelids went away. I'm so sorry that they are not helping you either. I guess it is back to the drawing board. Judy

[heyjude0701]

It's not because you're too young; I'm 63 and they didn't help me either. I think I have a bit more aqueous tears from Restasis, but my meibomian glands are completely dried up, no oily layer at all to keep the aqueous tears from evaporating. I thought that is what the testosterone drops would help, but they didn't help at all, only made things worse while I was taking them. Fortunately a few days after I stopped, the irritation and redness in my eyelids went away. I'm so sorry that they are not helping you either. I guess it is back to the drawing board. Judy

hey judy..
i am so sorry that they irritated your lids so bad... yikes.. ((.... i can tolerate them fine but its going on 6 weeks and am unsure as to whether i re-order or not..since they are so $$$.. at least for me they are... my doc didnt know how long since it was my idea to take them. the pharmacist said 2-3 weeks but wasnt sure of the exact mechanism of how they help people... as to whether they help the glands stay open or make more tears... i am 38..how old ru? maybe we are too young for them to help? i dont know.. i do know i tried straight testosterone cream on my lids about 3 years ago for 6 months and it did nothing as well..

[jenny2008]

hey judy..
i am so sorry that they irritated your lids so bad... yikes.. ((.... i can tolerate them fine but its going on 6 weeks and am unsure as to whether i re-order or not..since they are so $$$.. at least for me they are... my doc didnt know how long since it was my idea to take them. the pharmacist said 2-3 weeks but wasnt sure of the exact mechanism of how they help people... as to whether they help the glands stay open or make more tears... i am 38..how old ru? maybe we are too young for them to help? i dont know.. i do know i tried straight testosterone cream on my lids about 3 years ago for 6 months and it did nothing as well..

It's good you can tolerate the drops, Jenny, but very disappointing that you don't notice any improvement. I had no improvement with the DHEA drops either, and they also burned and irritated my eyelids very badly. I stopped taking them after three and a half weeks, I just couldn't stand the burning anymore. I don't know how long it is supposed to take before they have an effect. My ophthalmologist thought I should have noticed an effect by three weeks, but he wasn't sure. I wonder if there is enough experience with the drops for anyone to know how long it takes for them to take effect.
Judy

[heyjude0701]

It's good you can tolerate the drops, Jenny, but very disappointing that you don't notice any improvement. I had no improvement with the DHEA drops either, and they also burned and irritated my eyelids very badly. I stopped taking them after three and a half weeks, I just couldn't stand the burning anymore. I don't know how long it is supposed to take before they have an effect. My ophthalmologist thought I should have noticed an effect by three weeks, but he wasn't sure. I wonder if there is enough experience with the drops for anyone to know how long it takes for them to take effect.
Judy

i have been using the Progesterone/testostoerone .5% eye drops for about 5 or 6 weeks now... i dont see a difference yet..not sure what they are supposed to do..the pharmacist said my eyes should have felt better within a few weeks (but i have sjogrens too)....anyone have any luck?? are the drops supposed to keep the glands open? the pharmacist at Leiters couldnt answer this question. thanks!!!! and good luck to all of you trying this stuff!

[jenny2008]

i have been using the Progesterone/testostoerone .5% eye drops for about 5 or 6 weeks now... i dont see a difference yet..not sure what they are supposed to do..the pharmacist said my eyes should have felt better within a few weeks (but i have sjogrens too)....anyone have any luck?? are the drops supposed to keep the glands open? the pharmacist at Leiters couldnt answer this question. thanks!!!! and good luck to all of you trying this stuff!

[Danny_]

My understanding is that the side effects are not good and that's why it's not gone mainstream. For women, there's extra body / facial hair, possibly deepening of voice, and other things. The worst, though, is the increased chance of cancer. Endochronologists weigh the increased risk with the need for testosterone (in other words, is your testosterone lower than it should be or is it normal but you're hoping testosterone will increase your tear production). I had a pretty long talk with an Endo about this and when it was said and done (my levels are completely normal), I decided it was definitely not worth the risk.

Woah!!!!!!! Where's the source of this? I was thinking of trying this but increased chance of cancer??? That's pretty scary. I don't know now. I had basal cell already and I sure as hell don't want anything in my eye. I don't understand how it could increase it though!

[bunnyrabbit123]

Judy,
I'm sorry to read this. I was really hoping this would be the thing. I'm pm'ing you some info about t-drops &Dr. Sullivan

[jads]

I concur with Dog, DHEA and T drops that have become available are attacking the issue from completely the wrong angle. There's a much better chance of efficacy with increasing systemic blood\saliva levels of key hormones.

You give the body the right inputs and let it do the rest.

[Dog2012]

Hi Claire,
My advice is to call to Leiter Rx and ask them who is the Doc from your city to proscribe it...

Dear Jude-
God bless you for you're ability to come up with a snappy retort! ( I wish I could do that) I've had 6 IPL treatments for dry eye- finished up in July and will be going back for maintenence appt. Oct 20. Though I continue restasis and systane daily. I could not read or drive for months and of the available stuff, IPL for my eyes has helped the most,. but it takes patience and maintenance treatments.The doctor I'm going to charges 350.00. This is out of pocket. I'm frustrated that some doctors seem to be prescribing testosterone drops or cream and the anecdotal evidence seems really promising while I can't get anyone I've seen to even consider this. Jude, I'll be really interested in what you can tell us. .
Claire

[Dog2012]

I saw on the Doctors show about Testosterone eye cream. And have read research studies on how Testosterone is supposed to help and protect both the Lacrimal glands and meibomian glands.

Those who use this treatment, where do you get it at? And how much is it? I believe it is made at compounding pharmacies.

I'm interested in trying it since I've known for a while that I've had low testosterone. So, that could be why I've since developed dry eye due to low tear volume.

In my experience raising blood level of testosterone is more effective then any drops....

[heyjude0701]

Maybe systemic testosterone would be more helpful. I was finally able to get testosterone eyedrops (DHEA 1%), prescribed by Dr Rosenblatt at Weill Cornell in NY and made at the Leiter compounding pharmacy in San Jose. I have been using them for nearly a month now, and they are not helping at all. Also, they are extremely irritating, burn terribly when I put them in and are making my eyelids red and itchy. I am giving up on them, it's not worth waiting months for a possible effect when the side effects are so difficult to live with. Dr Rosenblatt thinks that I might be a good candidate for Prose scleral lenses, so that is what I am going to try next.

[jads]

Doctors who know little about testosterone are going to be reticent to use it, especially with women. However, my belief is that although women have much lower amounts of natural testosterone than men, this doesn't make it any less important to their bodies.

It's about the balance between estrogens and testosterone that is important - as is discussed by the Opthamologist in the clip about low testosterone. Doctors don't want to get into trying to rectify low T with their female patients in case they overdo it \get it wrong. This you can understand to an extent. However, it's a bit like saying, too many carrots will make your skin turn orange. To suggest that rubbing a bit of T cream into your eyelids is going to cause you to grow a beard is pretty far-fetched. It's really the stuff of old wives tales.

If you flip things around, one of the issues is that estrogens are overwhelming the testosterone in the first place. This is why most people suffer low testosterone. The enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen (aromatase) runs riot, converting T to E unless you do something to stop the conversion. Aromatase inhibitors are a method of doing this, but not recommended. As an aside, men's hormone therapy forums are crammed with stories about using aromatase inhibitor medication to stop the feminising effects of too much estrogen: for example man-boobs etc.

If free (unbound) testosterone is low, there's a high chance your estrogen (estradiol) number will be outside the normal range i.e. too high. But you see, Doctors are all about making sure a women's estrogen level is ok, so there's more chance you are going to get estrogen HRT, before a low testosterone level is addressed at all. That's not to say estrogen balance is not important. It is.

See the issue here?

If you can't get anyone to help you fix a low testosterone level, then ideally you need to do all you can to balance out the high estrogen load.

Supplements like Maca root and DIM can be used for this purpose. They can naturally help balance your estrogen profile.