I have had different experience with TSH and prolactin. I tested them together 4 times and had prolactin change over 300mIU/l without any correlation to TSH which was about 2 every time.
It was mainly the correlation between serum estradiol and TSH that was the strongest; though prolactin did correlate strongly, too.
This was only on TRT for me though. I've been off for a while now, and my estradiol is sitting around 55 (40 - 155) pmol/L, yet TSH is up at 3. As I mentioned in my previous comment, I think exogenous testosterone gives a person a much more exaggerated hormone profile, but also a more stable one, too. Serum levels in someone with a working hpta will bounce around all day which may explain some variations, but on trt, serum testosterone, and by proxy estrogen, are pinned within a tiny range all day, everyday (assuming you're using a longer ester with frequent injections), which can make certain trends stand out more as there's no variation.
Btw, do you know from your personal experience or other labs posted in TRT forums what are the effects of exemestane/AIs on serum progesterone levels?
Not that I noticed. Progesterone really isn't tested all that much in the TRT community, as it's still viewed as a 'female' hormone. I only came onto Peat towards the end of my time on testosterone, so I didn't get it checked much myself as I had the same mindset, unfortunately.
I personally don't think exemestane and anastrozole in the doses used in men significantly effect progesterone -- not enough to explain ai-related side effects, at least. I've searched for the studies that suggest ai's reduce progesterone, and the only ones I found relate to the expression of the progesterone receptor in biopsies of ER-positive invasive breast cancer in post-menopausal women, who are usually taking doses of 1 mg + anastrozole a day. Personally, I don't think this can be used to support the claim of significantly reduced serum levels in males taking order-of-magnitude lower doses being the cause of ai-related side effects.
I'm open to being wrong though, and would actually be happy if I was. One hypothesis is that those who are on testosterone are already low in upstream hormones from hpta shutdown, so they are more sensitive to even minor change to serum progesterone. That does not explain the joint pain experienced by many on this forum with a working hpta when taking exemestane, androsterone or anastrozole -- often whilst simultaneously taking preg, prog and dhea alongside.
In my opinion, I do think you can take estrogen too low, and it will have negative effects. This forum often has an all or nothing mentality -- if Peat says a hormone is bad, it has to be bad in every single situation, and getting it as low as possible with the use of powerful pharmacological agents is going to bring nothing but optimal health; and vise versa. This is then predicated with a lot of mental gymnastics to try and explain why the side effects of a drug that tanks said hormones couldn't possibly be related to the hormone you are significantly reducing.
In reality, estrogen is in the body for a reason, and taking it too low will have negative repercussions. The same applies to most anti-metabolic hormones -- prolactin, cortisol, alodosterone, serotonin, etc. You don't want them elevated, but you don't want them deficient, either.
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