I've replied to Rrae's question this morning at PN:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread137345.html

I do think anyone considering testosterone, male or female should have testing first.

Hormones are delicately balanced in the body, and taking too much of any one, will lead to consequences down the line.

Testosterone is also carried in the blood by carrier proteins.
If protein intake or digestion is impaired in the body for any reason, the hormone doesn't function at the targets well.

So testing for albumin may point to fixing that! People who use acid blocking drugs do not break down protein properly in the GI tract even when they eat it. Switching to some Whey protein shakes, can help this, since the amino acids are predigested.

Another way to help reduce pain is to improve mitochondrial functions. This will lead to more stamina and less pain.
d-ribose can help with that. It is being used in fibro now.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ghlight=ribose
Ribose is a 5 carbon sugar, not found in food, which is part of ADP and ATP formation in the mitochondria. By restoring that function may help the cells to function better.

Chronic pain is also high in patients with very low Vit D3 status.
Improving D levels has been shown in studies to reduce reliance on potent opiate therapies. We have many threads here including on Vitamin forum discussing the new Vit D research.

This link illustrates chronic opiate therapy and male low testosterone:
http://www.druglib.com/trial/19/NCT00351819.html

And here is how the testing is done:
http://thepainsource.com/2010/09/tes...aking-opioids/

The dosing for females will be much different from males I suspect, if therapy is done.