Long story short, I’ve been “off” for a while now. Extremely stressed at home and work. Irritable, fatigued, all the things. So I’m going to schedule an appointment with my general and see what’s going on.
My question is: can stress cause low testosterone or is low testosterone causing stress? In my case I’ve been pretty miserable for the better part of 2 years. Extreme homesickness, a job I hate and family stress. I’m starting to think it’s causing physiological changes, which is making it even worse. We’re making changes though. Got a different job, moving home, changing diet. Obviously I won’t know anything until I get some blood work done, but whenever I see trt threads I wonder which came first, the low t or the stress?
Unfortunately both. Stress raises cortisol which lowers T. Alternately, low T can affect mood. Just get the labs and lets go from there. Hang in bro, you’ll get it figured out.
The answer to your question, is both, stress causes low-T, low-T causes stress. Low-T can make one less able to deal with NORMAL every day stress, and that stress keeps testosterone low, like you trying to climb out of a mud pit, you can’t get out of it.
An example of someone with low-T, someone cut you off in traffic and you’re fuming over it and you have a difficult time getting past it.
You’re weak, like a women on her period, complaining, grumpy, whining about trivial stuff.
All moved back to good ole NY state. Literally back in my hometown. Bought an old house, back to seeing family and friends, transferred back to the job site I worked for 12 years. Stress is down, not completely but I definitely feel like 50% off my plate and it’s shown.
Got blood work done. Everything was fine, cholesterol was a little high but no cause for alarm. The testosterone panel wasn’t very in depth. Total 353, free 8.2. low? Sure. But I have no idea what my baseline was all these years. So now I have some numbers on the board and working out my issues. We’ll see if I can make some progress.
Excellent, a cohort study showed higher cholesterol reduces stroke, heart attack and people with higher cholesterol was a predictor of increased cognitive function. People with lower cholesterol have higher risk of stroke, heart attack and lower cognitive function.
The highest cholesterol group had the lowest cancer mortality.
Lower cholesterol is cause for alarm.
If you want an in-depth explanation, type in the YouTube search → Dr. Nadir Ali - ‘Why LDL cholesterol goes up with low carb diet and is it bad for health?’