Neelydan. Read and ask questions. Blind faith only exists when you opt to follow God, Jesus Christ, and thee Holy Ghost. (And its GOOD!)
Medicine is not a perfected science, thats why doctor’s practice. Trust me. I have a boat load of real life experience working with an assortment of MD’s. The good ones will admit they ARE NOT ALL KNNOWING. Competent, good, outstanding, whatever, but surely not GOD!
Read, ask questions, etc. Let them tell you other wise.
huh? lol
This is what I like to hear:
[quote]NeelyDan wrote:
Gym performance is quite nice. Energy levels, quite nice. Ability to adapt to stress, quite nice. Libido - I can basically have sex whenever I choose - I read stories about these guys doing it 3 times a day on weekends and twice a night during the week, and I’ve come to the conclusion they are either full of shit or …nah, they’re full of shit. In any event, I wouldnt WANT to have that much sex. We do it probably 5 times a week and that’s golden with me. A far cry from not being able to get it up 4 years ago.
[/quote]
I agree that the guys who say they do it 2-3 times a day are FOS. The key is WHENEVER you want it. Not having to wait to feel good. That was my problem; I had to wait for certain periods in the day.
Interesting…
HcG should suffice. I’ve read that it can take upwards to a year to produce sperm. With IVF and other stuff I’ve read, they’ve basically made babies out of ONE sperm from primary infertible hypogonads. IDK about price but…you only need one kidney, right?? JK.
Update time:
About 2 months after my last update, our reproductive doc suggested stopping TRT to possibly improve my sperm count. Bad move. After about 6 weeks, I felt like a truck ran me over. Make matters worse, my sperm count remained just as low, so there was no benefit. Returned to my most recent protocol around early November, and since then have been trying to deal with some remaining issues. A summary:
Basic info:
â?¢34 years old
â?¢5’7"
â?¢185-190lb
Current regimen:
â?¢28mg testosterone enanthate EOD
â?¢250IU hCG EOD
Current non-prescription supplements:
â?¢2000mg time release vitamin C
â?¢1200mg red yeast rice
â?¢600mg alpha lipoic acid
â?¢100mg CoQ10
â?¢400mg magnesium
â?¢30mg zinc
â?¢1000mcg b12
Current diet:
My diet has much room for improvement. When I was in my best shape, I did about 18 months of low carb eating, consuming around 400g of protein a day. I was powerlifting at the time and had much different goals than now. A typical day at the moment looks something like this - sweet potato and eggs for breakfast, an apple and some organic seed butter mid morning, some broiled chicken and a chickpea salad for lunch, a handful of trail mix in the afternoon, some fish, rice and veggies for dinner, and maybe an unhealthy snack most evenings.
History:
Severe emotional trauma at age 22, the effects of which lasted about 2 years. Looking back, this is when I first started noticing brain fog, and also when I started what would be 8 years of anti depressant therapy. I received varying benefit from SSRI’s, and do believe they are helpful in certain situations.
From the age of 22 to 30 I was hit with about every kind of emotional stress a human being can be hit with. Divorce. Loss of family. Financial. Job loss. I was actually once married for 12 hours at the pinnacle of my struggles. I do not recall a period of more than a month from 22 to 30 that was peaceful. I was a heavy substance abuser (alcohol only) and ballooned up to 235 pounds at one point.
At 30 I met the girl I would marry and be with for the rest of my life. Stresses subsided, life stabilized, weight came off, lifestyle improved - at one point I was sub 10% body fat at 180 pounds, and was in great shape. Still was fighting the effects of nearly 10 years of stress. Decided to enter into hormone therapy after being told by an incompetant physician that “your testosterone is terrible”.
<When I retrieve them from that office, I will post the labs that I accumulated through the various therapies that I went on during this period>
Current symptoms:
â?¢Fatigue, at times quite crippling
â?¢Depression
â?¢Motivation
â?¢Brain Fog
â?¢Anxiety
â?¢Sleep disturbance
Libido has actually been fine, erection performance is pretty reliable, I do experience morning erections I would say the bulk of the time.
Current labs, being drawn tomorrow:
Serum Total Testosterone
Serum bioavailable testosterone
Serum SHBG
Estradiol
Free T3
Free T4
Reverse T3 (note to Canadian members - this is indeed available in Canada, you just need to pay for it)
TSH
Salivary 4x cortisol
DHEAS
DHT
Fasting glucose
Fasting insulin
CBC
Hematocrit
Lipid panel
Vitamin D25_OH
Liver markers
Ferritin
HS-CRP
Will post results when I get them.
any chance at all that you can add 8am Cortisol to the mix? It is normally a huge player in hormone/thyroid related issues.
edit: ahhhh… nevermind… read to quickly. I see you’re getting the x4 daily saliva test.
Previous labs:
February 2010 - Baseline numbers prior to any TRT:
Testosterone: 322 ng/dL range 242-827
Bioavailable Testosterone: 6.8 nmol/L range 2.5-18.7 nmol/L
DHEA-S: 7.6 umol/L range 3.3-14.0 nmol/L
LH: 3 IU/L range 2-6
Prolactin: 7 ug/L range 2-18 ug/L
Estradiol: 25 pg/mL range 11-41
Hematocrit: 0.42 range 0.40 0.50
HS-CRP 2.2
TSH: 1.81
May 2010 - after 2 months of hCG monotherapy (400IU hCG 3x week):
Total testosterone: 619 ng/dL
June 2010 - After addition of 4 weeks of Androgel 5g per day:
Total testosterone: 553 ng/dL
DHEA-S: 7.3 umol/L range 3.3-14.0 umol/L
Estradiol: 52 pg/mL
Cholesterol: 261 mg/dL
LDL: 170 mg/dL
HDL: 48 mg/dL
AST: 40 range 7-37
ALT: 50 range 12-49
July 2010 - after switch to 200mg testosterone enanthate bi-weekly - labs drawn day after shot:
Total testosterone: 1040 ng/dL range 242-827
Estradiol: 69 pg/mL
Note: doctor prescribed 1mg arimidex/week at this point
September 2010 - cessation of all TRT:
Unfortunately at this point I made the mistake of stopping TRT at the suggestion of my RE in an effort to improve sperm counts. After about 6 weeks I felt like a truck ran me over, until about:
November 2010 - return to previous protocol:
At this point I reintroduced the protocol I had stopped (which I had tweaked over time, with my doctor’s knowledge, to 50mg test-e 2x week, 0.25mg adex 2x week, and 300iu hCG 3x week). I do not have any labs since returning to this protocol, and this brings us to the post above, which will tell the picture of where I am at currently.
Other various labs, taken October 2010:
Ferritin: 39 ug/L range <12 iron deficient/12-30 depleted iron/31-79 reduced iron stores/80-300 normal iron stores/>300 likely iron overload
ALT/AST: back within range
25 Hydroxy Vitamin D: 36
I have made some serious errors along the way in the past year. I am better equipped to make 2011 a much better year, and today is the starting point to that.
it’s always good to take charge of your health.
what is your complete treatment/medication/vitamin/supplement routine?
so back in February 2010 you had a known Thyroid issue, what treatment plan did the doctor put you on, or what else did you do to work on your Thyroid (and possibl cortisol) issue?
are you taking D3 for your low D levels?
are you taking iron/ferritin for your low ferritin levels?
[quote]PureChance wrote:
it’s always good to take charge of your health.
what is your complete treatment/medication/vitamin/supplement routine? [/quote]
A couple of posts above.
[quote]
so back in February 2010 you had a known Thyroid issue, what treatment plan did the doctor put you on, or what else did you do to work on your Thyroid (and possibl cortisol) issue? [/quote]
Well, see, that’s the thing - first of all I’m not convinced a 1.8 tsh is necessarily indicitive of a thyroid issue, but I agree, one of the reasons I left this guy is he just threw me on testosterone without looking into anything else. The new guy, who I saw for the first time today, is looking at everything.
[quote]
are you taking D3 for your low D levels?[/quote]
Not currently but plan to.
[quote]
are you taking iron/ferritin for your low ferritin levels?[/quote]
This surprised the hell out of me, waiting to see what new doc has to say.
sorry about missing the supplement list.
I personally had to stop CoQ10, Reservatol, Green Tea, etc. due to weird side effects/reactions. Just felt better off of them.
You might want to consider cutting down to the bare essentials. getting balanced and then add one back in at a time and monitor your reaction.
Good:
2000mg time release vitamin C
30mg zinc
1000mcg b12
May Consider Stopping:
1200mg red yeast rice
600mg alpha lipoic acid
100mg CoQ10
400mg magnesium (I use to be a big advocate of magnesium, but have discovered recently that it can cause too much of a calming effect for me personally - which can make it hard to discern other changes).
May Consider Starting:
20-30mg Elemental Iron / Ferritin (Also helps with thyroid function)
5,000-10,000iu D3
A good all around multi vitamin
Niacin (if you need to boost your HDL and lower LDL)
Should think about:
Iodine 12.5mg (for thyroid support)
Selenium 100mcg (for thyroid support)
[quote]PureChance wrote:
sorry about missing the supplement list.[/quote]
Maybe you need to supplement with pregnenolone 
[quote]
Good:
2000mg time release vitamin C
30mg zinc
1000mcg b12
May Consider Stopping:
1200mg red yeast rice
600mg alpha lipoic acid
100mg CoQ10
400mg magnesium[/quote]
Well, the red yeast rice and ALA are at the request of my wife and my RE, so I’ll be taking them until we do our IVF cycle in March. I think these are all generally considered good longevity supplements anyhow, and I don’t seem to have any tolerance issues with them.
[quote]
May Consider Starting:
20-30mg Elemental Iron / Ferritin (Also helps with thyroid function)
5,000-10,000iu D3
A good all around multi vitamin
Niacin (if you need to boost your HDL and lower LDL)
Should think about:
Iodine 12.5mg (for thyroid support)
Selenium 100mcg (for thyroid support)[/quote]
Agreed on the D3. Not so sure about supplementing with iron just yet, going to wait to see what my latest ferritin reading comes back as and go from there.
Updated labs time:
I have all my labwork except two pieces - SHBG, and the 4x saliva cortisol. All I have right now is my 830am serum cortisol. I will add the missing pieces next week when I get them. I was not able to obtain a reverse T3 test in Canada.
Attached in the next few images are all the lab results. My general notes:
I have over the top DHT - you would think this would translate into a high libido, and my libido is okay, but certainly not crazy.
I am Vitamin D deficient.
I appear to have severely high estrogen, I guess moving to shots every other day won’t be sufficient. With a TT of only 634, I appear to be dumping a lot of T into E.
My cortisol at 830am seems to be bout 50% of the range. Obviously a 4x test will show more, but I am mid range for the morning.
My cholesterol is high on all counts.
I have a very nice HS-CRP value.
I seem to be low on iron.
Next posts will include the lab work.
energy/depression/focus
you’d think libido would be sky high with a DHT level over the top, but it’s not. it’s fine and all, and i have no ED issues, but it’s not sky high. Why would my DHT be driven so high?
My labs were drawn on a Tuesday, I am on an EOD schedule, with the last shot coming the Saturday previous. So that TT number is reflective of the bottom of my curve.
Thanks - if you click on the image, does it not zoom in for you?
[quote]NeelyDan wrote:
Thanks - if you click on the image, does it not zoom in for you?[/quote]
It does, but my workspace is set up so that this forum is opened in a small window, so the image doesn’t expand far enough.
Wait, I mean, I’m totally not browsing this from work, I… erm… 
(In truth, I have a lot of downtime as a programmer, so I do hop on here periodically throughout the day)
You need to increase ferritin. Low ferritin reduces the ability of the cells to utilize your fT3.
What is your diet like in terms of iron rich foods?
Probably covering old ground. What Rx and OTC meds? Supplements? That were in place for a good duration in advance of the labs.
Please describe your TRT protocol to have that context with this lab data.
Do not see cholesterol on these labs.
Replace red rice yeast with 10mg lovastatin. It is the same active component of red rice yeast, more effective and should be a lot cheaper. If the script is covered by insurance, then should be very low cost to you compared to the cost of the supplement.
[quote]KSman wrote:
You need to increase ferritin. Low ferritin reduces the ability of the cells to utilize your fT3.
What is your diet like in terms of iron rich foods?[/quote]
Could be better. Could probably be much better. Not very high in beef, certainly never liver, etc. Dropped breakfast cereals a while ago, so none from there.
[quote]
Probably covering old ground. What Rx and OTC meds? Supplements? That were in place for a good duration in advance of the labs. [/quote]
“Good duration” supplements - assuming 6 months or more - none. Very recently, what I posted previously - vitamin C/red yeast rice/zinc/multi/ALA - maybe regularly for one month prior to labs. Rx meds in context of these labs - hCG and test-e.
[quote]
Please describe your TRT protocol to have that context with this lab data.[/quote]
30mg test-e EOD along with 300IU hCG EOD (same day).
[quote]
Do not see cholesterol on these labs.[/quote]
They’re there. High. LDL - 200 or so, HDL 50 or so, Tri’s 200 or so.
[quote]
Replace red rice yeast with 10mg lovastatin. It is the same active component of red rice yeast, more effective and should be a lot cheaper. If the script is covered by insurance, then should be very low cost to you compared to the cost of the supplement. [/quote]
I see my doc march 3 and will ask about lovastatin.
Now I see that page. No ranges for cholesterol. You converted ranges? You need at least 20mg lovastatin I guess.
No anastrozole?
You might have lower E2 with less hCG. Try 125 or 150iu and use T injections to obtain T.
