I have tested testosterone levels in my chronic pain female patients and found none of them had any detectable levels; they should have some. I have recently upgraded this to show its growing importance – cutting Fibromyalgia pain in half is exciting.
- It has been suggested testosterone helps at the spinal level: – “effect on descending pathways that inhibit pain”
Biological Mechanisms Underlying Sex Differences in Pain
IASP 2024
https://www.iasp-pain.org/resources/fact-sheets/biological-mechanisms-underlying-sex-differences-in-pain/ - Gender change therapy can effect pain levels and supports contention androgens help pain: incidence of pain was decreased in female-to-male transgender individuals treated with androgen, and increased in male-to-female transgender individuals whose serum testosterone levels were lowered :.
A.M. Aloisi, V. Bachiocco, A. Costantino, R. Stefani, I. Ceccarelli, A. Bertaccini, et al.,
Cross-sex hormone administration changes pain in transsexual women and men,
Pain 132 (Suppl. 1) (2007) S60–S67.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304395907000723
- Treatment of Fibromyalgia with testosterone gel resulted in 47% reduction in pain over 28 days
White, Hillary D., et al.
Treatment of pain in fibromyalgia patients with testosterone gel: pharmacokinetics and clinical response.
International Immunopharmacology 27.2 (2015): 249-256.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576915002453
The gel used for this study was a 1% w/w testosterone gel, USP
grade. The daily gel dose applied to the lower abdominal skin was
0.75 g of the 1% w/w testosterone gel – that would be max 0.75 mls though likely less as gel more weight than water.
Results:
- One patent study found it useful in chronic pain and got excellent improvement as well:
Transdermal gel compositions containing testosterone and their use for the treatment of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, muscle pain or decreased libido
Robert Gyurik, Hillary White
European patent publication number EP2000143 A3
http://www.google.co.ug/patents/EP2000143A3?cl=en
- Female or orchiectomized male mice when engineered to have a painful future have more pain than male mice..
Lesnak, Joseph B., et al.
Testosterone protects against the development of widespread muscle pain in mice.
Pain 161.12 (2020): 2898-2908.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7669728/ - Testosterone supplementation significantly reduced pain promoting changes in mice with spinal cord injury. These pain promoting changes included microglia and astrocyte activation and increased p-P38 and p-ERK levels. – all were decreased
Alimoradian, Abbas, Fatemeh Abbaszadeh, and Masoumeh Jorjani.
Testosterone signaling pathways for reducing neuropathic pain in a rat model of spinothalamic tract lesion.
Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences (2024). - Female fibromyalgia subjects experience more pain when their testosterone levels are lower (as well as lower progesterone)
Schertzinger, Meredith, et al.
Daily fluctuations of progesterone and testosterone are associated with fibromyalgia pain severity.
The Journal of Pain 19.4 (2018): 410-417.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1526590017308040 - Periods of Low androgen levels are associated with increased dysmenorrhea pains:
Evans, Susan F., et al.
The relationship between androgens and days per month of period pain, pelvic pain, headache, and TLR4 responsiveness of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in young women with dysmenorrhoea.
Journal of Pain Research (2021): 585-599.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.2147/JPR.S279253
“Low androgen levels were consistently associated with increased pain”
Comment – This is probably the most important “herbal” agent that women could possibly take. Doses are small compared to men so don’t have to worry about cardiovascular effects. I used testim 0.2-0.5 mls daily (I measure out a first dose for patient to see and they use the same size daily thereafter). Is an easy option nearly always missed.Androgen might be helped by resistance training as seen by mice study:Lesnak, Joseph B., et al.
Resistance training protects against muscle pain through activation of androgen receptors in male and female mice.”
Pain 163.10 (2022): 1879-1891
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9481652/ - A similar hormonal option would be HCG which I discussed previously:Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin (HCG) Touted as Only Curative Agent For Pain That Has Centralized
http://painmuse.org/?p=2958 - One lady mentions how her pains were much better but she felt she wanted to go to the bar and pick a fight… (aggressive side effect) wherein I reduced the dose – so requires monitoring…