You are 100% right. The physiological, for example, really shows when you are Low T. My anxiety and depression, which I had dealt with and basically put to bed, both came back strong and I had no explanation for it. It was Low T.
Oddly enough when I change doses, I get these weird morbid thoughts the first few weeks. Like right before I lay down at night it’s “I hope I don’t need the hospital and die tonight!”
And it’s like WTF!!!
Then they just go away without me doing anything.
Which posts?
So many testimonies of trt helping mental health, anxiety, depression, confidence
How has trt helped you? Do you still suffer from mental illness? Has trt been a crutch or a complete cure?
TRT revealed to me the full impact hormones have on an individual. Have felt extreme depression for the first time while on TRT and have felt like a walking god - both for extended periods of time.
I was somewhere in the middle beforehand, except with a prominent fatigue problem. TRT showed me it’s not normal to feel tired all the time and having a lot of energy is like starting a new life. Recently changed my protocol in the hopes I would feel more consistently solid on TRT. Currently feeling like shit, but it should go away within another few weeks as my body syncs up.
I fit this definition at times, I tend to get caught up within the very small details of certain concepts/situations that others would often overlook or not care about
People need to stop putting all their faith in TRT, it isn’t a miracle cure. Yes, it can dramatically overhaul certain aspects of life… the effects on neurology can be fairly profound… but come on, we are talking mere physiologic replacement here. The concept of bringing a variable within normality shouldn’t equate to feeling superhuman and/or having all life’s troubles diminish.
The way people seem to think about TRT many a times here is equatable (at least in my perception) to expecting extreme inebriation after a singular beer… barring perhaps a select few that don’t metabolise ethanol normally (as in… many standard deviations off the norm)… it’s unrealistic to expect an instantaneous, profound change.
TRT has had little impact on my anxiety or demeanour. It’s helped within the libido, energy and overall mood department quite a lot… but for me to expect a PHYSIOLOGIC dose of testosterone to suddenly cure me of my anxiety, racing thoughts and strange eccentricities… come on
Many testimonies claim that hormone balance has “cured” their overthinking. Hormones do have an effect on the brain. Testosterone, specifically DHT, increases GABA activity in the brain, testosterone has a bidirectional relationship with dopamine. Low estrogen lowers dopamine activity in the brain. So there is definitely some sort of mental effect when it comes to TRT that goes beyond placebo. The question is: how much of your mental health is reliant on hormones?
It’s actually primarily various metabolites of DHT that have potent neurosteroidal activity
Not saying it’s placebo, for a htpogonadal male replacement can have a dramatic impact on overall quality of life… but don’t expect TRT to cure obsessive compulsive tendencies… you’ll be sorely dissapointed
Maybe not t alone but e2 levels have an effect on OCD. Especially low.
Its the marketing, actually and some of the comments here and on reddit. They make it seem life shattering for mental illness. I actually fell(it was no ones intension) for this and assumed it would solve all my problems. Far from it. In certain individuals it can be benefitial if you truly are just low test your whole life. But if you’re within range and wanna optimize, it won’t completely change you as an individual as some may have you believe. Regardless, I am on it and plan to be on it for the rest of my life.
@jiujitsu321 you gota understand that when people say “anxiety” it may be a very small version of anxiety, not even mental illness, just a little anxious around certain people. It’s not gonna solve OCD. Ocd is a very severe version of anxiety and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, nor pure-o. I struggle with dpdr, panic disorder and couple other issues. Trt in no way has helped me with them, however it has helped me with my self esteem and achieve the image of the man I want to actually be. Maybe in 5 years I will be less anxious, due to the man I become on trt, however in no way does trt effect me the way a ssri, benzo, or even magnesium effects my thought processing. I’d advise you to treat anxiety disorder and hypogonadism as seperate entities. The effects they have are minimal at best, depending on your pre and post numbers. If anything endogenous hormones may increase your ocd due to the estrogen conversion, with your t levels your e2 will go up. It may worsen your ocd, you won’t know until you know though. I was actually better anxiety wise pre trt, it brought up to light a couple issues I had kind of pushed away the last few years, now I’m more focused on addressing them and changing my ssri, etc. As a fellow anxiety sufferer, good luck, but please don’t set your expectations too high. I know how badly you want a solution. Just remember, general anxiety that people on forums have does not equal ocd. Ocd is anxiety on steroids.
I don’t have anxiety… but I do get panic attacks every now and then. They’re always in relation to experiencing events that trigger memories of past experiences that were very unpleasant/life altering for me (not even that bad, just anything that reminds me of how badly I was picked on in the past for such a long period of time/anything that brings me back bodily to some of the worse experiences/makes me thing perhaps it’s going to happen again)
When these “triggers” or “remainders” or whatever you want to call them occur, I start to shake uncontrollably and violently, my heart rate will go up very high (say 150-160bpm), I’ll get very sweaty, nauseous, I’ll freeze up and curl up into a ball, start hyperventilating etc. these are extremely unpleasant when they occur, thankfully it’s very rare that they do occur, however it happened twice yesterday… serious fight or flight shit lol
Honestly I’d argue if the use of benzodiazepines ever WAS justified for someone in relation to anxiety… it’d probably be for something like this. Thankfully even a joint at this point will dramatically calm me down, but I didn’t do that yesterday as I didn’t have any, at which point I have a few techniques that help me ride it out.
Hows your e2?
24-30
And you think somehow that raising you’re testosterone from say 500 to 1000 will magically cure you of anxiety? Nope
I’ve seen this chart before
There’s certainly a positive neurological benefit that can be reaped from TRT, hormonal supplementation (within reason)… but it isn’t going to cure OCD, you need cognitive behavioural therapy and perhaps medication to help with that. TRT may help slightly or even say moderately if you’re very lucky, but anything beyond that is probably placebo
No I agree with you 100% just thought the chart was helpful
I’ve had CBT before to deal with issues
When I had chronic pain I was given CBT to try deal with that… from this aspect it was bullshit, I didn’t want to have to alter my life so dramatically as to hardly be able to live adequately as was frequently suggested. However in terms of learning mechanisms to cope with anxiety, social ineptness etc it’s helped quite a bit
However in terms of my harboured anger and resentment towards many I’m now seeking serious therapy, as the nightmares, flashbacks inducing serious panic attacks etc are starting to become too frequent, and the stored anger is impacting my life significantly. And my deep rooted issues are starting to force me off the deep end, I’m aware of this however and have the insight to seek help before things proceed any further than they already have
Anyway this isn’t important nor appropriate for me to put on here… it’s difficult for me to talk about, and thus I almost never do, unfortunately it appears now the way for me to overcome the deleterious effect past events have had on me as an individual today is to… talk about it…
What is deoxycorticosteroid?
Mineralcorticoid produced via the adrenal glands. Precursor to aldosterone and cortisone if I recall correctly
I consider this forum to be an extended “family” of sorts. It serves as both a place for learning the opinions of others, as well as a way to document to some extent our own experiences and trials. Think of it as your journal brother.
This being the case, I think it’s perfectly appropriate to share those things here, and you may even be surprised by someone who has dealt with the exact same issues, and found ways to overcome them. If nothing else, there is just something therapeutic about putting the things that bother you outside of yourself by writing them down, instead of expressing them in extreme emotion vocally or physically to the ones we love. That road leads to broken relationships and turns friends into enemies. This forum is much more therapeutic for you because you won’t have the added burden of ruining a relationship, as well as harbor more support from those who are immediately surrounding you BECAUSE you haven’t ruined those relationships.
Anyway…just my two cents.
One problematic nature of me outwardly discussing my numerous problems, especially on an online forum is that it goes against one of my primary philosophies
I tend to be rather stoic in nature. My father says I complain about everything all the time… but that’s because at times he is somewhat of an ass, and the only way he knows how to express concern is by berating numerous attributes that are allocated to my character, whether they be perceived as true or not (I don’t tend to complain unless it legitimate, like during a massive flare up of chronic pain… I’ll say “I’m in pain” and in response I’ll get a “yea yea, heard it before… you’re always in pain, this day it’s this and another day it’s that”. Then I’ll come home from the doctor and show an approval for a cortisone shot in my shoulder and he will say “I never said you weren’t in pain”…)
Regardless this has little to do with my rhetoric for not talking about my problems on here. I believe everyone has their own life story to tell and live out, unfortunately this means most tend to think out for themselves and themselves only (perhaps this is unique to just the teenage demographic though) and thus although many seem as if they wish to support another, they typically only do so as to acquire validation from peers (I’ve seen this before, kids posting these BS slogans about “ask someone if they’re okay if you see them alone… if something seems odd, ask them about it” and whatnot) yet when the time comes to act upon the ideologies reiterated by these slogans, they either sit by as a bystander, don’t want to help or do so reluctantly to gain approval and validation as being a good person from their peers.
In general, I don’t want to burden others with my story. Aside from that there’s the facet that certain elements of my life I’m merely not comfortable putting up on the internet for everyone to see. I don’t believe I will stray too far off my designated path, as difficult as it is to keep jumping far out into the deep end, I’ve personally seen the consequences from a myriad of individuals who let life take them for a spin… these people fell too far off the edge and never recovered, and I won’t… I can’t let something like that happen to me…
Ive heard the phrase the past defines who you become as a person… But for those who can’t let go of the past (I suppose myself), perhaps the past is all you ever amount to be… until you can get over previous experiences. That’s what I need therapy for, I have a good idea where all the anger and emptiness is coming from, I just need to come to terms with it (note there is a big difference between feeling empty and depressed, I’m not depressed at all, I just feel lost and without purpose or direction.)
I need to deal with past bottled up resentment, anger and residual… trauma I suppose from prior experiences. The fact that a mere trigger that flashes me back to the more unpleasant portions of my life is enough to trigger a grand full scale panic attack clearly reiterates the notion that I have some work to do… I should’ve started seeking help the second the nightmares started occurring (about three years ago now), brushing them off didn’t help and they’ve only become more and more frequent
You’d think given my descriptions I was horrifically abused or something, but I wasn’t… I don’t know why I responded the way I did to prior events, perhaps it’s due to my atypical neurology… perhaps it was because I was all alone and without any friend of acquaintance I could talk to at the time. Nothing particularly terrible happened to me, I won’t go into details but I mean it was pretty standard. I was encouraged quite a few times to kill myself as a younger teenager… this typically happened in the form of text… which I won’t go into detail with as it’s quite disturbing. I had the shit kicked out of me on an occasion or two when I was very young. I was bullied consistently throughout my younger years, tensions rose and things eventually mounted from words to physical violence. Unfortunately the people who picked on me were quite charismatic, and through this they managed to systematically turn an entire year level against me, and the preconceived motions others harboured about me at the hands of those people managed to linger for a long time (granted I wasn’t a saint, at the time I was a very fucked up kid… being treated so badly for so long really screwed up my perception of right and wrong… and so I did some things that I regret… so I was asking for some of the negative consequence that occurred towards me in response I guess).
There were two bouts of this, one in Australia and one in america, interestingly the American one (of which never rose to physical altercation), was the one with the far more pronounced overall impact on my psyche today. And now whenever I’m reminded or think a situation such as what happened there might unfold again, I freak the fuck out…
There’s a lot more to the story than just being encouraged to off myself and whatnot, but I’m not telling that story, I don’t want to reminisce and I’m not comfortable telling the story of that part of my life… I thought I’d eventually get over it however consequence from these events appears to have lingered… and it’s getting worse, not better as time goes by
Then there’s the facet of exclusion which I’ve always had to deal with, being… how do I say this… abnormal, led to me being excluded from many events, I had to strive to find a friend group… and this year I did, but prior to that, and still currently I find myself excluded from events if I don’t actively try to get invited. If the event is being held by someone my friends are in with they’ll make sure I’m included, which is great… but the notion of exclusion time and time again is somewhat painful… and that’s about all I’m comfortable ever sharing on here lol
