You used to have energy left over at the end of the day. Now you’re running on fumes by early afternoon, snapping at your kids or your partner over nothing, and staring at a to-do list you can’t seem to focus on.

Women are routinely told these symptoms are stress, hormones, or an inevitable part of getting older. And sometimes that dismissal means a real, treatable cause gets missed entirely—specifically, low testosterone.

Most people associate testosterone with men, but the truth is women have testosterone too, and it’s just as essential for their health.

What are the symptoms of low testosterone in women? Here are the most common symptoms our patients experience and how testosterone therapy can help.

The Most Common Signs of Low Testosterone in Women

Rather than one obvious symptom, low testosterone in women tends to show up as several changes that happen gradually:

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep

• A midday energy crash that caffeine doesn’t fix

• Brain fog or trouble concentrating

• Increased anxiety or low mood

• Weight gain around the midsection that resists diet and exercise

• A noticeable drop in sex drive

• Menstrual cramps that have become more severe than they used to be

Any one of these symptoms is easy to explain away on its own. But seeing several of them together isn’t just a coincidence—and it’s worth getting checked out.

How the Testosterone Piece Gets Missed

While it can be easy to identify hormones as the culprit behind sudden changes in mood, energy, and sex drive, “hormones” almost always means estrogen. Testosterone rarely enters the conversation, even though it plays a real role in energy, mood, and libido.

At the same time, each symptom on its own is easy to blame on something else entirely. The fatigue gets blamed on poor sleep, the brain fog gets blamed on stress, and the low libido gets attributed to being tired and stressed. Treated individually, none of it points clearly to hormones at all—and when it does get connected, testosterone usually isn’t the one anyone thinks to check.

That’s part of why the signs and symptoms of low testosterone in females can persist even after addressing sleep, stress, or estrogen levels directly. You don’t have to wait until you’ve tried everything else to get tested for testosterone. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of low testosterone as one connected pattern, rather than several unrelated problems, or a hormone issue that’s just estrogen, is often the first real step toward an answer.

When Menopause Isn’t the Whole Story

For women going through perimenopause or menopause, low testosterone symptoms often get ignored and attributed to hormonal changes. But testosterone plays its own distinct role here, separate from estrogen.

As hormone levels shift, testosterone often needs to be addressed alongside estradiol, progesterone, and often thyroid function as well, rather than treated as an afterthought or ignored altogether. Left unaddressed, low testosterone symptoms in women during this stage can persist well beyond what’s typically expected from menopause alone, and dramatically reduce your quality of life.

What These Symptoms Are Really Telling You

If this list of signs and symptoms resonates with you, it’s time for bloodwork. A hormone panel that evaluates testosterone alongside estradiol and progesterone will show whether you have low testosterone, rather than leaving you to guess based on symptoms that overlap with a dozen other explanations. From there, a provider can help you figure out whether testosterone therapy could benefit you.

Is Testosterone Therapy Actually Safe for Women?

Many women have been told for years that testosterone raises their risk of stroke or breast cancer. That guidance has changed: in late 2025, the FDA removed longstanding black box warnings on hormone therapy for women, including testosterone, after decades of overstating those risks. When prescribed appropriately and monitored through regular labs, testosterone is considered safe for most women, though individual factors like cancer history can rule some people out, which is exactly why bloodwork and physician oversight matter.

Take Control of Your Health

If you’re seeing signs of low testosterone, you don’t have to figure out the next steps on your own. At BB Aesthetic, Dr. Burnworth reviews a full hormone panel—not just testosterone, but estradiol, progesterone, thyroid, and other key markers that affect energy, mood, and metabolism—and tailors treatment to your actual results and where you are in life, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all plan. In-house lab testing means you’re not waiting on outside referrals to get started. Schedule a consultation with our team today to see if testosterone therapy could benefit you.