Long story short, I have been on Hrt for a good handfull of years now with only a few small breaks of a few months each in that time and reached a sort of plateau in effects, which seemed pretty much par for the course. I got a small increase in breast size when I started daily massage, then even that seemed to plateau...that was maybe a year or so.
For the past few years during the winter I have noticed increasing joint pains from obvious arthritis onset...this hasn't been officially diagnosed, but some things are pretty self explanatory. I guess Im just getting older.
This year it's beginning to effect my life and my work which is a lot of manual labor. I typically shy away from taking a medication daily, besides hrt, but I started taking Ibuprofen daily, around the highest standard dosage for a 24 hour period. No more pain, though occasionally I worry about long term side effects like hearing loss......
But I never bargained for this: it's an antiandrogen! After a month and a half of an Ibuprofen regimen my breasts are growing again and I am noticing other signs of lower testosterone levels. I chalked it up to good luck until I ran into a study linking aspirin, acetaminophen and to a larger degree Ibuprofen to Compensated Hypogonadism in male subjects. This effect is reversable, but significant in it's severity. From what I understand this is a relitively recent discovery for the field of medicine and I'm simply baffled considering the widespread use of NSAIDs by men, especially young male athletes.
At any rate I thought I might mention it and ask if others were aware of this