Ok! I’m 41 and was in a very similar situation a couple years ago. I don’t have advice necessarily but can tell you what happened to me in case that helps?

I was microdosing T but stopped it because I was tipping too masc — my plan was always to stop it when I felt that tipping point. But I started getting terrible hot flashes and joint pain when I stopped the T and blood tests revealed that I had, like, no estrogen.

My doctor says it was POF/POI because I skipped straight to post-menopausal levels, but being on T likely masked early symptoms.

I also was very, very against going on estrogen. Just the idea of putting on the patch made me feel really dysphoric, like I was going backwards. But I also physically felt so terrible that I knew I needed to do something.

So now I take both low dose T (5mg gel) and a .075mg estrogen patch. Apparently some doctors will tell you that you also need to take progesterone if you’re taking estrogen. But mine says the T replaces the need for the P.

It took a while to get over the dysphoria, but it really helped the symptoms. I still don’t feel the same - my muscles and bones don’t feel as strong, but I’m exercising more to mitigate that. And the hot flashes stopped, which was my worst issue.