recent bloods,,,below range test......

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#1

i recently had a throat infection that wouldnt go away so after about six weeks i went to the docs,anyway while i was there i was telling the doc about always being tired, no sex drive for the last 8 year etc so she says we’ll take some blood and test your hormone levels and check your thyroid and one for celiac disease,its been quite a few years since ive had any bloodwork done as all the other times ive always been just above the bottom range for testosterone so they’ve sent me away without any help,this time my serum testosterone came back at,

                         5.4 nmol/L range between {8.4 - 28.6}

my symptoms have been getting a little worse these last few years,
off to the urologist next for some trt i reckon,that seems really low,any thoughts anyone…

#2

I am not a doctor but I had low testosterone and I have researched a lot because I was freaking out so here is the information that I have gathered:

Your low testosterone could be caused (all or in part) by any of the following:

Low vitamin D - My vitamin D was fine but apparently it is a good thing to check, you can ask your Dr. for a simple blood test for this. If it is low a few people on here have noted that correcting the deficiency helped them feel better (and I believe at least one person mentioned it improved their testosterone levels as well). Its cheap to take and test so it couldn’t hurt.

Thyroid - From what I have researched, your thyroid and sex hormones are influential on one another. To check your thyroid most doctors test for something called TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). While this is good, if you are going to check your thyroid this is not enough. A lot of people on here had tests come back with normal TSH but upon further blood tests they found that they were hypothyroid. So ask your Dr. to run a full thyroid panel including T3, T4, rT3, rT4. I have read that hypothyroidism can cause low testosterone and a lot of people on here report hypothryoidism.

Estrogen (and estradiol if possible) - you could be converting too much testosterone into estrogen which causes your testosterone to be low. As your brain reads both estrogen and testosterone as the same thing, this could explain the low levels of LH as your brain doesn’t realize that your test is low. This was the case for me and I have brought my levels down with a supplement called DIM, but many people get prescriptiions for drugs like arimidex or tamaxofen as well.

Allpregnanolone/pregnenolone - I don’t know how to test for this yet or if it is even possible, but i know its levels can affect your testosterone. I feel that this may be key as drinking increases allpregnanolone, and I always feel AMAZING for days after drinking. Just a thought on asking your Dr. about it to see if its something that can be checked.

Cortisol - If you have high cortisol caused by the drug (and increased further by stress) this can definately affect your testosterone levels. There are ways to reduce cortisol with drugs, but it would also be good to learn techniques to reduce stress in your life . This should be checked with a 24 hr urine test, and not a simple blood test. A simple blood test takes a 1 time snapshot and as cortisol fluctuates throughout the day a full picture is important.

I think that is all I can think of to check. If you have gut or digeston problems checking for gluten or dairy allergies might be something to try. Also you can check for candida, but I don’t know how much faith I would put in it being any of these last three suggestions, and most are taboo on this site.

Best of luck.

Brad

#3

thanks for the reply,i recently got put on the testogel,well I tried one sachet of the stuff and felt like pure shite straight away,high anxiety,red face,and insomnia for around a week,i dare’nt try anymore of the stuff just yet,my body seems to react violently to stuff these days…

#4

Have you had your estrogen tested? I wonder if taking testosterone makes it worse for you because more of it converts to estrogen. If estrogen is your problem then it is alot easier to fix and you can take supplements or meds and not have to rely on testosterone supplementation which shuts down your natural production.

Either way I know how tough it is and the best advice I can give is just keep researching, getting blood tests, and try not to stress or obsess. Over time it may improve on its own. If it has been getting worse and it has been a few years then I would research all of the above to try to find the cause of your low T. If you can find the cause you can treat the cause rather than just the symptom (which is low T). Also, research around and find causes of low T. There are so many things that affect testosterone and sex hormone production that I don’t even know where to begin to start sometimes. While this may seem bad, it leaves you with a lot of avenues to explore.

Wish you alll the best man and I hope it gets better soon.

Brad