When I went through a NAFLD scare (ALT/AST were elevated from lifting, f**king doctors!), I talked to the head guy at Northwestern University. This guy teaches how to do liver transplants. He said that the only thing that can be done to minimize or reverse NAFLD is lifestyle change (lose weight, avoid alcohol and eat healthy). He said metformin does work for some. I asked about supplements and he said the only thing that has shown to have a minimal positive effect on the liver is milk thistle. All other ones were garbage.
As medically complex as you appear to be, youāre seriously canvassing an internet board for answers to specifically one of several undoubtedly related issues, without mentioning the others? Didnāt you mention gastroparesis somewhere, presumably connected to your out-of-control diabetes?
Gastroparesis is a disease in which the stomach cannot empty itself of food in a normal fashion. Symptoms include heartburn, nausea, vomiting, and feeling full quickly when eating. Treatments include medications and possibly surgery.
The only one putting up roadblocks to your treatment is you.
Now itās three weeks since any word on how your own care is going despite plenty of people trying to help, but youāre staying busy throughout the forum with your standard doctor-bashing almost daily.
To be blunt, itās pretty fucked up that youāre taking your own health so casually while still perpetuating your expertise to others. Some hardcore ādo as I say not as I doā going on here.
Symptoms are getting worse, I have uncontrolled spasms in legs throughout the day, it increases in severity at night time. None of this is stopping me from eating better or exercising and even mild weight lifting. I notice when on the move or simply going for a walk or especially weight lifting my veins pop out, but when Iām at rest the sink below the skin.
There has been zero weight loss, joints are loose and very sore. I tested testosterone in between weight lifting on rest day and am seeing a TT of 58 ng/dL, down from the usual 97, 119 and 146 ng/dL. I have an endo appointment next Monday and will be addressing diabetes.
I did start taking a beta blocker and blood pressure is 119/72 which has boosted energy a little.
Good. What does your lifting routine look like? Still shooting for an hour on the treadmill?
What, exactly, did you eat yesterday?
I suggest going to them with a āwhite belt mindsetā. In other words, setting your own knowledge base and preconceptions aside, letting them be the expert that they are, and implementing their advice.
Iād double-down on my suggestion to connect with a good registered dietitian to sort out the nutrition, fat loss, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, etc. The endo may be able to refer someone.
Your doc felt the benefits outweighed the risks, considering the diabetes? They can be contraindicated.
Iām going to stick with something pretty simple here. I recommend asking your endo to test circulating insulin levels (not just ketones and blood sugar), so you can see if you are insulin deficient or just insulin resistant at this point. If you are insulin deficient it means that your pancreas beta cells are already dying. If you are just highly insulin resistant (high insulin but ketones and high blood sugar) then your goal is to raise insulin sensitivity.
Be mindful that if you are insulin deficient right now, you need insulin. You will not have energy without insulin. The odd thing is that insulin deficiency usually leads to weight loss because carbs and protein have a hard time getting into cells. It also leads to low energy because insulin tells cells to make enzymes to burn glucose, but in your case, you are not losing weight which is more consistent with severe insulin resistance.
Your testosterone is also virtually zero which can happen with insulin deficiency.
If I were you I would consider it essential to get an answer from the doctor to this question, āAm I insulin deficient or just insulin resistant? and how do you know?ā
My A1C in the span of a month went from 6.6->7.7%, C peptide is 4.7 ng/mL (0.8 - 5.2 ng/mL) which indicates endogenous insulin production is pretty good. Random glucose os 217 mg/dL (70 - 140 mg/dL). All of these test was run after eating as instructed by my endo.
Iāve never had any testing done to determine the severity of my diabetes, doctor just went off the glucose levels and said you have type 2 diabetes. Itās more than likely we are dealing with insulin resistance and once corrected things will improve.
Since the A1c increased, my SHBG decreased to 13, Iāve never seen it this low and was probably this low before I ever started TRT. I 've never seen SHBG less than 16 on TRT and have seen it as high as 22 on the 7 mg daily protocol.
On December 3th Iām going to wear a device for two weeks to determine the levels of insulin resistance. LH hasnāt changed, still 3.4, TT 91, previously 97, 119 and 146. FT levels are 2.6 ng/dL, ouch! I wake up with erections every morning, but the are getting softer as time goes on.
I also thought that odd. Dumping that much sugar into his system could be messing things up all by itself, although we donāt know how much heās chugging. He seems oddly reticent to detail his diet. Still, I think water and a good multivitamin would better than orange juice.
No doubt. But at least heās spent the last couple of weeks making dozens and dozens and dozens of posts complaining about how doctors are only interested in āsickcareā, not healthcare, and how theyāre too ignorant to actually help patients. So we know his sense of irony and cognitive dissonance are healthy.
TFW youād rather bump a thread that was dormant for over a year to joke about doctors being irresponsible instead of discussing your own health issues.
@systemlord, Any update on the training, nutrition, fat loss, healthā¦ anything? I know you said you restarted TRT about a week and a half ago, just wondering what actual non-medication lifestyle changes youāve put into place.
I thought I would update, after my last endo appointment we had seen the results of how different foods affect the glucose spikes and have completely cut out certain foods, I thought I was eating healthy cereal, but this would cause a huge spike in glucose and so I cut cereal out because even though it has some good stuff in it, it also has processed crap.
I now cook to eggs, english muffin with salsa and was using bagels which have 3x times as much carbs when compared with the english muffin and we can see the tremendous different in glucose spikes. I shop at Sprouts and cook all my food. Iām eat a lot of asparagus, spinach and lots of other vegetables, cook chicken in advance so itās ready to eat and even cook an occasional steak.
A week before Christmas I restarted TRT and after a couple of days, everytime I eat, my digestive system goes haywire (it was caused by lack of vitamin C) and I start getting serious belching and tons of gas, burning sensations in stomach, legs and feet, later the skin turns red in those areas and is damaged.
I also lose the ability urinate as well as the urge to urinate after eating and canāt go to the bathroom unless I stop eating for several hours. If I eat breakfast, I wonāt be able to urinate until 4-5 pm, but if I eat a snack between breakfast and lunch, I canāt urinate until 9-10pm which is the second urination of the day and am swelling long before Iām able to pass urine.
If I donāt eat breakfast or lunch, I can urinate all day until I eat something and then those symptoms reappear and my GI and urinary organs go haywire again. Iām noticing these symptoms are lennsing as time goes on as I inject more testosterone.
It would seem TRT at least initially makes all these symptoms much worse and sees my glucose levels skyrocket hours after my first injection. I have worked through the problem by eating smaller meals and even skipping meals which really works well when having these problems.
Maybe TRT suppresses my natural testosterone more quickly leaving me with even lower testosterone over the next few days triggering a worsening of diabetes. Now that I have more energy Iām going to do mild workouts three days a week to further my improvements in glucose and completely reverse my diabetes.
As of late Iām able to urinate more frequently and am not having quite the same reaction anymore after eating, itās mild by comparison. I have been on TRT since last Sunday (7mg enanthate) and I feel great, muscles are getting firm and energy is much better, mental clarity is improved and Iām more sociable.
I did started experiencing vitamin C deficiency at work yesterday and will need a higher amount on TRT. I drank a glass orange juice and symptoms quickly vanished after 30 minutes.
The vitamin C deficiency is 100 times worse than low testosterone. In ten days I see my endo again and we are going to doubledown and treat the diabetes with medicine or insulin therapy. .
My doctor wanted to see how food affects glucose spikes before we got the results, then I stopped eating cereal and bagels base on the results. My doctor instructed me to switch over to the english muffins, so I did.
If I donāt feel satisfied Iāll eat more, I guess I could cut out the english muffins as well, but Iāll need to substitute something else. This is a work in progress.
