I’m 32 years old. 6’1” currently 200 lbs. Live a pretty active lifestyle. Good diet. 8 hours a night. Barely drink. For the last 3 years my strength and energy levels have slowly been tapering off. Sex drive has went from sex twice a day to 3-4 times a week. Semen volume is about half what it was 6 months ago. The past few months it feels like I’m unable to recover for 2 days even after a round of golf. Joint soreness. Hair seems to be thinning.
So I went to get bloods and the results don’t look great. Everything is low but LH looks high? Wondering if anyone has any ideas besides TRT?
The low-T and high LH is indicating testicular failure. I would have your testicles checked out to see why they are having trouble doing their job, which is making testosterone.
I wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a thyroid panel as well.
Thank you all for the help. Unfortunately the dr has a 3 week wait before I can get more bloods or hear if they think I need trt.
Would something like clomid or nolva help my testicles bounce back and get ramping up again?
I took a ph when I was 21 for roughly 4 weeks before realizing what I was actually taking and stopped. Never felt shut down and bloodwork a year later had me at the high end of the spectrum. Could that have damaged them to the point where they are now failing?
So I had the follow up with the Dr. He is recommending one more round of bloods to make sure I’m really this low. But already gave me his Rec for the protocol so we don’t have to get back together.
He is recommending 100mg 1x weekly IM.
I asked about doing it sub q EOD instead and he said he doesn’t prescribe that anymore since people typically don’t get as good of absorption. He also said HCG is pointless for me even though I want to have kids because he said I’m likely infertile already with my current labs.
It sounds like your doctor is not concerned about optimizing your testosterone, he just wants to see it somewhere mid range. Pretty typical.
This is pretty dumb. I doubt you’re 100% infertile just because you have low T. HCG works, luckily you don’t need it until you want to try having a baby. If you want to run it year round, you can buy real pharmaceutical HCG it cheap overseas. Some guys feel worse in HCG and don’t run it year round, other guys feel better on it and do. I always suggest going a while without it and add it in later if you want to try it.
Also, don’t ever use TRT or Low T as a means for birth control. It’s not guaranteed.
I think in his case he is primary hypo (or at least partially primary). The signal isn’t the issue, it’s the balls. So, adding more signal (HCG) wouldn’t really help.
But I agree about the fertility part; even with primary he could still be fertile and wouldn’t need HCG to conceive either way.
Probably not enough for a once weekly shot. I predict you’ll feel better on multiple shots per week given your SHBG is already low as large injections tend to hammer down SHBG.
I scheduled an appt with a different doctor to get a second opinion. They ran full bloods but did a rapid 15 minute testosterone test so we could discuss while I was there. Total T was 400 today.
He said we will wait to see the rest of the labs but he thinks I’m totally fine and that 400 is completely normal for a 32 year old.
I guess we will wait to see what the rest of the labs say.
Your doctor just isn’t well educated on the subject of testosterone, a lot of doctors think in range is normal whether your 20 or 80 years old and that as long as you are in range, your symptom free.
Also you testosterone level if 400 on some rare occasions and the rest of the time is consistently lower, then that’s not normal. Endocrinology is very complex.
So I took a month to make sure I had everything dialed in. Focused on good balanced diet, sleep, stress reduction.
Went back last week to get labs and numbers still look bad. Doctor is prescribing 100mg a week of test cyp but with Gonadorlin instead of HCG.
Thoughts on this instead of HCG? Can I get HCG without a script elsewhere?
My Dr in NY said that’s the new thing. Gonadotropin . He offered if I want but am good on test only
If you are not primary hypogonadism I wonder if treatment with just gonadorelin would work??
Gonadorelin is a medicine that is the same as gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) that is naturally released from the hypothalamus gland. GnRH causes the pituitary gland to release other hormones (luteinizing hormone [LH] and follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH]). LH and FSH control development in children and fertility in adults.
