Help with Lab Results?

[karnage_u-k]

Hello all, I’m struggling to find a good way to structure this so forgive me if its a bit all over the place, I’ll start with the format the guidelines outline.

Age: 45
Height: 5’9"
Waist: 30"
Weight: 71kg

My hair is very fine, not much body hair, and I have small areas of hair loss on scalp and beard.

I don’t store much body fat, at a guess I’m around 15% body fat and have visible abs.

I have a history of Steroid use back in 2001, and ran 3 cycles over the course of 2 years. I also took recreational drugs from the age of 20 until I was 38. It was just after my steroid use I noticed my morning erections had gone, but at the time didn’t pay any great attention to it, as I was more interested in partying and not chasing women. Now the partying has stopped I’ve become more concerned with my health.

I suffer from IBS, so my diet is quite restrictive, limited to rice, potatoes, bananas, spinach, and beef, and I’ve been supplementing with probiotics to try and help with this. Other supplements I am taking are, vitamin C, vitamin B complex, vitamin k1, vitamin d3, kelp, selenium, choline, zinc, magnesium, nac, l’carnitine, creatine, eaa, beef gelatin, and melatonin to help with my sleep, which I have to add is not that great, as I’m often waking in the night. My total calories are around 2500-3000 a day.

Current health symptoms, eczema around eyes which I use a steroid cream to control, dry skin, I feel the cold very easy and my hands and feet are often cold to touch. Another concern I have is I am quite sleepy during the day and can nod off if I’m not occupied with anything that keeps me stimulated. I also have poor memory and brain function sometimes. So regarding sexual function and morning wood, so no morning wood, just occasional wood during the night but very rare and not of any great strength, and I use viagra to help with any sexual acts, I don’t have a great libido, and I don’t feel any great excitement.

Training has been mainly lifting and not much cardio, and has been anything from 3-5 times a week in the past and training for 1-2 hours. Current training as of start of this year has cut the weight sessions to 30-45 mins and allowing 2 days rest between sessions, where those days will incorporate some light cardio work.

These are my labs from January 2017.

Labs from June 2017.

Cortisol Lab from July 2017.

Then after coming across this forum and reading about thyroid problems many people having and looking at some of my own symptoms, plus with taking oral temperature readings, I decide to up my iodine intake.

Iodine intake at time of latest labs February 2018 was 2 drops of Lugols 12%

After these results I decided to take my oral body temperature over 7 days, first thing in the morning and late afternoon. The top temperature I got in the morning was 36.5 Celsius and afternoon was 36.8 Celsius.

Any help with my labs and advice on what I should do to get myself on the right track would be most appreciated.

[KSman]

What are:

• hemoglobin
• ferritin
• RBC
• hematocrit

With your digestive issues, there is a possibility of low iron levels driven by low level GI bleeds.

What medications?

What is your history of using iodized salt?

Sleep: Melatonin can help, but is wears off and dropping serum melatonin levels are the mechanism of waking up. Try to find a 5-6mg time release product. Trazodone prescription can be quite useful and low cost. Get 150mg tables and break off 50mg and take when you are getting ready for bed. You may need to increase to 75mg after a few months. Take magnesium and vit-C at bed time as well.

You skin may be incompetent from low T levels and TRT may resolve your skin issues.

Low thyroid function: Your body temps are not so bad.

T4 and fT4 are sub mid-range.
fT3 is very below mid-range.
Low ferritin can reduce fT4–>fT4 conversion
fT3 is the only active thyroid hormone
your rT3 result is very good

Larger doses of iodine will increase TSH, simply makes the TSH lab results un-useful.

Low dopamine can lower joy and satisfaction, perhaps a result of your party days. Trazodone might possibly be helpful a better sleep for sure.

Low E2 is not good. TRT will help that. E2 is low as low FT leads to less FT–>E2.

You seem to be good at reading here and did a great lab set.

---

Please read the stickies found here: About the T Replacement Category - #2 by KSman

Why You Need to Manage Labs This Way

Most guys here have a TRT-doctor process that is very flawed. Please see below and see what you can borrow to enhance your TRT procedures. Business as usual [BAU]: You inject once a week, TT, fT and E2 levels change every day, on one single lab is representative or very useful, you probably are feeling like crap on day 7. You get labs at doctor visit on day 7 While there you talk about anything except lab data, do not have. Later on you get a call from a brain dead office assistant/nurse who…

• advice for new guys - need more info about you
• things that damage your hormones
• protocol for injections
• finding a TRT doc

Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.

KSman is simply a regular member on this site. Nothing more other than highly active.

I can be a bit abrupt in my replies and recommendations. I have a lot of ground to cover as this forum has become much more active in the last two years. I can’t follow threads that go deep over time. You need to respond to all of my points and requests as soon as possible before you fall off of my radar. The worse problems are guys who ignore issues re Thyroid, body temperatures, history of iodized salt. Please do not piss people off saying that lab results are normal, we need lab numbers and ranges.

The value that you get out of this process and forum depends on your effort and performance. The bulk of your learning is reading/studying the suggested stickies.

[karnage_u-k]

Thanks KSman,

Here is the rest of the Lab report from June 2017.

I am not on currently on any medications, however I completely forgot to add I have a varicocele, which I have had embolised, but was unsuccessful in reducing the vein.

No usage of iodized salt, only in the last 2 years I have been taking a sea kelp supplement, which I read has insufficient iodine content to make any significance.

[KSman]

Ferritin is very good.

I now have very little faith in value of serum iron levels.

Never seen CRP=0 before. Good result.
(Engineer: - when I see result=zero am a concerned about a possible lab failure.)

CK=765:
Muscle injury?
“Levels of CK can rise after a heart attack, skeletal muscle injury, strenuous exercise, or drinking too much alcohol, and from taking certain medicines or supplements. If this test shows that your CK levels are high, you may have muscle or heart damage. CK is made up of three enzyme forms.”

With injured and sore muscles we expect to see elevate AST/ALT

Liver Blood Tests: High, Low & Normal Results, Symptoms & Causes

So this CK liver lab result creates some questions.

[karnage_u-k]

Thanks KSman,

Below is the report the Dr at MediChecks gave on my results from June 2017.

You have normal red, white and clotting cells. The slight reduction in neutrophils is not a cause for concern.

Your kidney and liver function are completely normal showing no indication of disease or inflammation. The CK (muscle marker) is normal for an active person.

You have healthy iron stores and normal body proteins.

You show no signs of diabetes.

Although your total cholesterol is a little elevated this is due to a combination of slightly raised LDL (bad) cholesterol and an elevated HDL (good, protective) cholesterol. The key point is that the ratio of HDL (good) cholesterol to total cholesterol is a healthy one.

You have healthy thyroid function and most of your hormones are within the normal range. However your free testosterone is still a little low, though slightly improved on last time. I suggest you monitor this in a couple of months.

So regarding your questions, at the time of the test I had no muscle injury, I was training 3x a week for an hour each session. I do not drink alcohol at all, and the supplements I have listed in my first post, and I was/am not taking any medication. I have no known heart problems as was checked out last year.

The CRP result from my January test came back as < 0.1 so it looks like the result from the June test could be correct.

[karnage_u-k]

So what’s the advice regarding my results? Is my thyroid ok? The results state I have low free testosterone and I have some symptoms, so what can be done about that?