The Oestrogen Shift

Chin hair, crown thinning, oily skin, jawline acne, wired-testosterone feel

Before menopause, your sex hormones are made in the ovaries and delivered everywhere.

The process starts with cholesterol – yes, the same cholesterol that medicine has spent decades demonising. Cholesterol is the raw material from which every steroid hormone in your body is built.​ It moves along a production line:

Cholesterol → DHEA → Testosterone → Oestrogen

Most of this conversion happens in your ovaries, and your adrenal glands contribute a smaller amount of DHEA to the same supply chain.​ Oestrogen is released into your bloodstream in the carefully timed monthly cycle. It travels everywhere at once: the same strong signal reaching your brain, bones, skin, vagina, heart and immune system simultaneously.​ Think of it as a central factory that makes a finished hormone and sends it out by courier to the whole body, every month, on schedule. Your tissues receive the delivery. They open the package. They use what’s inside. They do not need to make anything themselves.

After menopause, the ovarian factory closes and oestrogen production shifts to the tissues.

Your adrenal glands – which have been contributing DHEA to the production line all along – now become the sole supplier. Every day, they produce DHEA and release it into the bloodstream.​ DHEA then travels directly to individual tissues: bone, brain, skin, vagina, muscle and fat.

Each tissue has its own local enzyme machinery — a small set of molecular tools that can convert DHEA into whatever hormone that tissue specifically needs. Those enzymes need specific nutrients to work. The enzymes your body uses – specifically 3β-HSD, 17β-HSD, Aromatase, and 5α-Reductase – determine exactly what hormones are produced locally. When one of these specific enzyme pathways struggles or becomes overactive, you experience a “cluster” of related symptoms

Chin hair, crown thinning, oily skin, jawline acne, wired-testosterone feel

This cluster is often unsettling because it does not sound like the familiar menopause script. It can feel as though the body has changed character. But it still belongs inside the same wider hormonal reorganisation, but this time it is centred around testosterone – the question here is not simply how much testosterone there is, but how testosterone is being handled locally.

Where it’s happening:
In hair follicles, scalp, sebaceous glands and other dihydrotestosterone – DHT-sensitive tissues. Different follicles on different parts of the body behave differently, which is why hair can increase in one place and thin in another – tissues are responding differently to the same androgenic environment.

What the tissue is making:
More DHT from testosterone, or at least a more androgenically skewed local environment. This does not necessarily mean testosterone is dramatically high in the blood. It means the local handling is favouring DHT-sensitive tissues more strongly.

Pathway:
The central pathway here is:

  • 5α-reductase, which converts testosterone to DHT
  • 3β-HSD and 17β-HSD, which help determine how much androgen substrate is available upstream
  • Aromatase, which forms part of the counterbalance

Insulin here is crucial – a high insulin background is often associated with a more androgenic pattern and with greater unwanted hair severity.

Wider support:
This cluster needs a steadier metabolic background, less inflammatory push, and less encouragement towards DHT-sensitive expression in skin and hair follicles. That is why I treat this as a whole-body terrain pattern, not just a hair issue.

Support options:

  • Myo-inositol – useful where insulin resistance, weight gain around the middle, or a more androgenic shift are sitting in the background.
  • Zinc – supportive of reducing DHT
  • Omega-3 fish oil – included here for the wider inflammatory background
  • B3 (niacinamide / nicotinamide) – background support for hormone metabolism.
  • MSM – if sulphation and the wider store-and-release side of hormone handling are under strain, it may be a useful background support.

When this underperforms or tips the wrong way:

The balance shifts towards DHT-sensitive tissues. Scalp hair loses ground. Facial hair becomes more obvious. Sebum rises. Skin becomes more reactive. Women often feel as though their bodies are expressing testosterone in the wrong places rather than using it well.