Supplements
Rez-V (3 in AM)
Vit D3 1000 (1 in AM and 1 in PM)
Flameout (2 in AM, 2 in PM)
Elite Mineral Pro (5-7 in PM)
I’m also prescribed to Adderall XR, 10mg which I take 1 in the AM. (There’s a part of me that believes this has a lot to do with symptoms below, I started taking Adderall about 4 years ago)
Brief history, I’ve been lifting since I was 15, although nothing serious until 19 or 20. Been training pretty frequently since then. I remember my early 20s as being very motivated, driven at work, working hard in the gym, and having an insane sex drive.
Within the last year I’ve noticed my sex drive has plummeted. Just last night I had a very attractive woman over, and had some ED going on. During that same time my motivation at work has also gone down quite a bit, focus was lacking as well.
My doctor is pretty cool, and he has a very good working knowledge of hormones - we had a conversation yesterday about how E follows T, and how LH/FSH signal to the hormone releasing organs in the body etc, so I’m pretty confident he’ll work with me on this. Today I had blood taken, just T, Free T and Vitamin D. My doctor said we would start there, because if T is low, his initial reaction would be that is the problem, if it’s not then we’ll test E2, LH/FSH, etc etc.
I really hope Low T isn’t the problem, and maybe it’s just stress or the adderall. But either way I’ll keep this updated and would love to hear your feedback.
testing just for T and finding low T, does not mean that low T is your problem. High E2, low Thyroid, low ferritin, low DHEA-s, low cortisol, etc. etc. etc. could possibly be interfering with T. Fixing those could drive your T back up naturally.
If you find low T and treat low T, you could still have an underlying problem could continue to cause you problems.
Most systems in the body are dependent on one another. If one is messed up, then there is a pretty good chance that other sytems are having problems as well.
read through the stickies including the blood test sticky and try and get more tests done.
You do not want to jump into HRT at age 25 if it can be avoided by other means.
No prohormone use (ever)
No long term ephedra use (maybe once or twice as a teenager?)
I’ve skimmed through the stickies - I know the basics but I’d be lying if I said I absorbed every nugget of info contained in the stickies. I’ll take a closer look today and make sure I order the right tests on Monday.
I don’t really want to get into TRT, but I really miss being awesome. Hopefully the problem can be corrected through other means.
Seems like everything is “in range”, but maybe only the E2 and Vit D are optimal. I carry fat like a girl, but I suppose it’s always been that way - coincidentally the lower half of my body is also superior to the top half in terms of strength, so maybe that’s why it seems like I store fat there.
I had the bloodwork done at around 12:30pm in the afternoon after waking up at 7:30am. Maybe the test levels would have looked different upon waking. I definitely don’t want to jump into TRT with levels this average, but I’d like to get my test up to 800+.
I’m not sure about iodized salt, but I don’t take any vitamins with iodine. I’ll check the waking body temp tomorrow.
When it comes to stress, I think I handle it okay. I’ve got a fair bit of it in my life working full time and being a single father with 2 young boys (ages 6 and 4). I typically just man up and get through whatever happens.
The FT RANGES look weird too. It says 4 4-16 5 ng/dL. I thought it was 4.4-16.5 but upon closer examination I do not see a decimal.
The SHBG seems a little on the high side but not huge and your E2 seems a little low, but not enough to be a great concern.
you need to test your thyroid (full panel including Free T3, free T4, Reverse T3), cortisol, albumin, ferritin, Vitamin D3 25OH, etc. per the blood test sticky.
[quote]PureChance wrote:
The SHBG seems a little on the high side but not huge and your E2 seems a little low, but not enough to be a great concern.
you need to test your thyroid (full panel including Free T3, free T4, Reverse T3), cortisol, albumin, ferritin, Vitamin D3 25OH, etc. per the blood test sticky.[/quote]
I’ll get that done. Please note the D3 25OH was done and is included in the results.
I think my thermometer is broken. It’s over a decade old, but I couldn’t get it past 95.6 in the morning.
A week ago I used it on my 6 year old who was clearly running a fever and it said 97.6. Later that day at school they said he was 100.5. I’ll get a new thermometer but my current guess is I’d hit 98.6. At least I hope.