His and Her Health

Hi everyone,

I'm about at the end of my rope here, and I'm not finding many helpful answers. Perhaps someone here can point me in the right direction.

Recently, after 8 years of struggling with low libido, my wife was diagnosed with low testosterone and started applying a compounded cream daily. In the span of about 3 weeks, she turned into someone I don't know. She started drinking and smoking to excess and hanging out with people from her distant past, including old boyfriends. She's a former smoker and was a very light drinker, but several times, I've had to go retrieve her from bars late at night because she was too inebriated to drive. Four weeks into this "therapy" she decided to leave me and vanished to "go figure out who she is." I've only seen or spoken to her a few times since, and she has no explanation other than she doesn't think we have any passion left.

She says she feels like she did 10 years ago (we're only 35), and feels like she has wasted the past 10 years of her life. She has boundless energy, sleeping for about 4 hours and able to take 2 hour runs in the evening. She feels so good that she has said that even if the T gives her cancer, she'll never stop taking it. I'm no expert, but that sounds like one hell of a narcotic, not just a hormone.

To keep this post from getting too long, I'll summarize by saying that our sex life was long dead and there were sore feelings there. The passion in our relationship [understandably] took a nosedive. She kept blaming it on stress, and I stood by her because I love the other 90% of her and life was so good that I could live without the sex. There were the usual struggles, but neither of us was preventing the other from living the life they wanted. We were on the same track. Or so I thought.

Others have noticed her personality shift, most notably my aunt in another state who called and asked, "Who stole your wife?" after reading recent posts on my wife's FaceBook page. It's more like a psychotic break or a manic episode than a therapy. She is a completely different person, no other way to describe it.

This just can't be a common side-effect of testosterone therapy, but is such a dramatic personality change under the list of "normal side effects?" I honestly don't know who she is, and I don't think she does, either. Can a hormone change who a person is, or is it just unleashing her the way alcohol or some other drug might and she's finally being herself?

Can anyone offer any advice or a place to go for more information on extreme behavior changes related to testosterone therapy? I don't know what I expect to get out of any of it, since it's all in her hands, but this totally blindsided me. I'm looking at losing my wife, my home and everything else in my life because of this therapy, and I'm not about to go quietly.

Thanks in advance.

Testosterone can kick your libido into high gear, this may be what she is experiencing. If you two were having sore feelings about your sex life in the past she may have not known how to direct her increased libido.
Sounds like she has shied away from you.Have you tried having a conversation with her about how she feels now .Have you tried romancing her like when she was 25.A couples counselor might be worth a session or two to sort out your feelings and her change of personality.
You also might want to have a talk with her Gyn and ask for his/her imput.

I can't believe this is all due to testosterone. There's something else going on. The dose in the cream is just too small and the amount is limited by the prescription. I've been using it for years without anything even remotely like this. Some of the most common side effects of too much testosterone are deepened voice, acne, facial hair and enlarged clitoris. Have you noticed these things?

It's a prescription drug. Unless she obtains it illegally, she can't have an unlimited supply. You should call her doctor. I'm she he or she would want to know. She may be having a very unusual reaction to it and should be taken off it.

This is NOT normal!

No, it's way beyond that. She doesn't want her LIFE anymore. She says nothing matters any more, not even the things she used to enjoy like gardening. It isn't bad feelings about sex, its like psychosis. She has shied away from me sexually, and she said as much, but she has also flat-out abandoned me and our life.

We've been to counseling for about a year and a half because of the sex, and she just flat-out says she's a different person now. I haven't even had a chance to romance her--she got this stuff in her and ran out the door before I could even see a change. She went from gentle, kind and sensitive to selfish, rude and even cruel. It was like flipping a switch.

To abandon your house, your family, your pets, your friends and just go crazy burning all your bridges? Like I said, this isn't my wife any more, and the only thing that changed was testosterone in her blood. This isn't the woman I've known for 10 years. She isn't the woman anybody she knows recognizes. That's scary as hell.

I just don't know what to think.

Testosterone is one of the most powerful things on the planet. It turns boys into men, is responsible for many things in society(good and bad). When boys hit age 12, even the most well mannered and polite can change after the months leading up to 13. Things that lie dormant come out. The brain synopsis explodes. I do not doubt what you are going though. Bottom line is we need to remedy this. Dosing even smaller or taking her completely off should be considered with a grain if salt.