Initial Test Results, Suggestions Appreciated

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hello all, been doing some reading here and elsewhere and decided to get a test done just to see where I stand. I have noticed some symptoms over quite awhile just haven’t done anything about them. Here are my labs and data. I’m looking to get feedback and see if people think it would be worthwhile to try TRT to raise levels and see if it help.

The place that did the tests definitely seems to be a TRT money making shop and less of a clinic. On the upside they are receptive to me being very involved in the plan, testing, results. Their plan is Test Cyp, HCG, and Arimidez pills if I choose to try it. I am definitely out of shape and eat unhealthy but hoping to change that as well which I’m sure would help mood and my other symptoms.

Labs, I have marked tests that came back out of range with an *

Endocrine Eval:
Estradiol (E2) 18.4 ---- 7.6 - 42.6
DHEA-Sulfate 290.2 ---- 88.9 - 427.0
Test Total 458 ---- 280 - 1100
SHBG 28 ---- 10 - 80
Test Free 9.51 ---- 1.9 - 27

TSH 1.680 ---- 0.27 - 4.2

PSA, Total 0.680 ---- 0.0 - 4.0

*Triglycerides 223 ---- <150
*Cholesterol Total 232 ---- <200
HDL Cholesterol 43 ---- >40
*LDL Cholesterol 144 ---- <100
*Chol/HDL Ratio 5.4 ---- <5.0

CBC:
White Blood Cell 6.6 ---- 3.9 - 11.1
Red Blood Cell 5.80 ---- 4.2 - 6.0
Hemoglobin 17.4 ---- 13.2 - 18.0
*Hematocrit 58.5 ---- 38.5 - 54.0
*MCV 101 ---- 80.0 - 100.0
MCH 29.9 ---- 26.0 - 34.0
*MCHC 29.7 ---- 31.0 - 37.0
RDW 14.8 ---- 11.0 - 15.5
Platelet Count 242 ---- 140 - 400
MPV 9.1 ---- 7.5 - 11.6

General Chemistry:
Glucose 88 ---- 65 - 100
BUN 16 ---- 6 - 20
Creatinine, Serum 1.2 ---- 0.5 - 1.2
Sodium 143 ---- 133 - 145
Potassium 4.2 ---- 3.3 - 5.1
Chloride 103 ---- 96 - 108
CO2 22 ---- 22 - 32
*Calcium 10.6 ---- 8.5 - 10.5
Total Protein 7.9 ---- 6.4 - 8.3
*Albumin 5.0 ---- 3.2 - 4.8
Globulin 2.9 ---- 2.1 - 3.6
*Bilirubin, Total 2.2 ---- 0.0 - 1.0
Alkaline Phosphatase 67 ---- 35 - 129
*ALT 45 ---- <42
AST 24 ---- <39
Albumin/Glob Ratio 1.7 ---- 0.8 - 2.0
BUN/Creat Ratio 13.3 ---- 7.3 - 21.7
GFR, Estimated 73

age - 36
height - 6’2
waist - 34" 39.5 at the naval
weight - 182
Hairy arms/legs/chest/stomach. No hair on back. Somewhat thin facial hair, been slowly going bald for a long time
-I have always carried my fat around my stomach and tits. I am no where as active as when I was younger, but even back then working out steady and eating clean I always had fat and what feels like course tissue on my tits.
-Heart burn, just had an upper GI found Hiatal Hernia, gastritus, h.pylori. On antibiotics for 2 weeks for it. Blood tests were done before I started the antibioitics.
-Prilosec for heartburn, excedrin often for headaches (stare at a computer screen all day for work). Have never used hair loss drugs
-lab results with ranges above
-describe diet - no structured diet currently. Eat poorly, a lot of packaged/prepared food.
-describe training - no training currently
-my testes have occasionaly ached but it seems to not happen often
-haven’t had regular morning wood in as long as I can remember.

Have the brain “fog” feeling, moody, and a general not give a shit attitude for quite awhile. Have felt like I have been slipping at work which is a stressful job. Do have sleeping problems, getting to sleep and staying asleep. DR has suggested antidepressants but really don’t want to go that route. I have tits, and fat mostly on the stomach. I am very thin elsewhere.

I do feel cold often, and am going to get a thermometer to start checking temps in the morning and afternoon. I drank Diet Mt. Dew for a very long time which has brominated vegetable oil in it. That combined with me not eating any salt from a shaker in as long as I can remember has me curious on iodine/thyroid. I will get the temp measurements and go from there.

My Bilirubin levels are high, and have been since it was first tested when I was about 16 or so. Doctors advised I have Gilbert’s syndrome which isn’t supposed to be harmful, just causes jaundice sometimes.

2

Wanted to add, the place I was tested at offered the TRT, but wanted to get some opinions since the numbers don’t look horrible to me. Curious if it would help some of the symptoms though or if I need to clean up my diet and get active before wasting time on it. A kick in the ass of ambition would be nice but not if numbers are already decent for the labs.

Took first temp tonight, 97.8

Temp this morning 97.5

Will test again this afternoon

3

This might kill you and also means that you cannot start TRT until resolved: >>>>>>>>>>>Hematocrit 58.5<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
See your regular doc and have a series of blood removals. You will feel better. Other systems in your body may improve.

Avoid dehydration!!! Take mini aspirin for now and fish oil caps; which will improve your sluggish blood flow.

https://www.google.com/search?q=helochromatosis

Stop eating iron fortified foods, read the labels.

Sorry for this news. You really need to make this your focus. I expect that many of your symptoms are a direct result of this. Low T could be a secondary effect.

I don’t know how this condition would interact with thyroid issues, but the combo could leave you feeling very drained. Got iodine intake?

4

Let me start by saying thank you for the quick response on this one. Quite the scare. I currently take poor care of my diet and do not hydrate properly. I drink a lot of soda and the occasional energy drink, very rarely drink water. I’m going to guess that dehydration is partly responsible. A quick read shows that living at elevation can contribute as well and I do live around 5k ft elevation.

This was a good enough scare I immediately went to the blood donation center and donated a unit. No idea if that will help but figured it couldn’t hurt. I am going to get in to see my regular doc as soon as possible next week to fully investigate and try to fix the hematocrit issue. I will be keeping an eye out on iron levels in food. I picked up some mini aspirins and fish oil caps and starting that immediately.

The messed up part is I ask the clinic about the high hematocrit level because it was even in bold as high on my lab results. They said it wasn’t a concern because the hemoglobin level wasn’t past the high range. Asked if it would be worthwhile to donate blood and they said not to worry about it. I am glad the test was done so this was identified.

Since I’m currently on a good dose of antibiotics for the h.pylori in my stomach I am waiting on the iodine loading, I don’t want to screw up my stomach bacteria any further. Once I am done with the antibiotics (about 12 more days) I will probably wait a week then start on the iodine. I probably have a large amount of bromine in my system so not looking forward to that, but looking forward to cleaning out and seeing if temperatures increase.

Maybe I am trying to connect dots that do not actually relate but the symptoms of high hematocrit (decreased libido, decreased energy, etc) sound like maybe it does hit the hormones and that may be why my levels are lower. The hormone levels in the lab results really didn’t look horrible to me though.

Thanks again for the info. Maybe a good scare to push me into taking better care of my diet and body as well as becoming more involved in my test results and research.

5

I’m starting to lean towards dehydration being the cause of the high hematocrit level. Doing some reading and it appears dehydration can definitely make that read high and it should return to normal once properly hydrated. I know i’m mildly dehydrated all the time. I had a urinalysis done roughly a year ago as part of a physical and the specific gravity was >=1.03. I have not changed my caffeine intake and lack of water drinking habits since that time.

Looking at the Creatinine, Serum and BUN levels being near the higher range also shows dehydration after some research. The MCHC being low makes no sense to me, doesn’t that point to blood loss or low iron? I wonder if dehydration and elevation are just giving me funky results?

Anyway, just some thoughts after some research. I’m hitting the hydration over the next couple days and will see if I can get another blood draw from my regular doctor to see if proper fluid levels make the results look a little better.

6

Might be more than a hydration issue. It is very easy to get dehydrated at elevations.

7

This should be an interesting visit with my regular doctor. He refused to even do a testosterone test just to see where my numbers were. Will see how much he goes off when I let him know it was the TRT clinic labs that showed the high hematocrit. Hoping no major underlying cause for the problem and something we can correct.

Once I get labs back from the regular doc I will post them here with his suggestions just to keep track of things.

Edit/Update - If it makes any difference my hemoglobin measured 16.6 on the little tester at the blood donation place before I donated.

8

Called the doctor’s office Monday and they didn’t seem too concerned, said it was probably dehydration. They said come in after 6 weeks for a blood test due to the blood donation skewing the results. I wanted to see what my blood counts were as well as Iron levels so I went in for a test on my own yesterday.

Guessing the CBC results will be almost worthless due to the donation so recent but wanted to make sure they weren’t stupid high even after donating. Also the iron test isn’t supposed to be as affected by the donation for Iron and TIBC levels so I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a level of Iron showing possible Hemochromatosis. Here are the results:

CBC:
White Blood Cell 7.0 ---- 4.0 - 11
Red Blood Cell 4.89 ---- 4.3 - 6.0
Hemoglobin 14.9 ---- 13.5 - 17.0
Hematocrit 41.4 ---- 40.0 - 53.0
MCV 85 ---- 78 - 100.0
MCH 30.5 ---- 27.0 - 34.0
MCHC 36 ---- 31.0 - 37.0
RDW-CV 12.8 ---- 11.5 - 14.5
RDW-SD 38.1 ------ 36 - 55
Platelet Count 221 ---- 130 - 450
MPV 10.4 ---- 8 - 12.3

Iron 77 ----- 40 - 170
Trans % Sat 19 ----- 14 - 50
TIBC 406 ----- 250-450

That makes me think I don’t have a Hemochromatosis issue, and hoping once blood is done rebuilding from the donation the hemoglobin and hematocrit levels will be where they should be. I think my issues where dehydration. For the past 4 days I have stopped the soda and energy drinks and replaced them with water. I am peeing more often and better coloring. We will see what the regular Doc’s blood test shows in 6 weeks but I’m hopeful that levels will be where they should be. I think I just learned a lesson in how stupid I was with my caffeine vs water intake.

What do you think with the new numbers keeping it in context of a blood donation 4 days prior? Thanks!

9

Looks good, but as you stated, the situation is half baked. Glad to hear that you are off of the energy drinks, might save enough $$ to pay for the lab work. Your blood is not flowing more freely. You might notice some mental improvement, but that might get lost in the change with the elimination of a lot of caffeine.

Now lets move on:
Your TSH is a bit high and temps are low. Are you long-term using iodized salt or have iodine in vitamins. Please read the thyroid basics sticky, If you need iodine replenishment, large dose iodine might take care of bacterial in your stomach.

E2 does not see high enough to cause major T issues. Get LH/FSH tested and we can see if there is a problem with your testes or in your hypothalamus/pituitary. If those are low, test prolactin to see if that might be a player in the game.

Eat better. Get health fats, olive oil, fish oil, nuts, flax seed oil/meal. Good multi vits with trace elements and iodine.

10

As always, thanks for the response. Still on the antibiotics for about another 8 or 9 days so was holding off on the Iodine replacement. You think it would be worth just taking it now as it “might” help with the H. Pylori? If my stomach is already screwed up by the antibiotics maybe I just deal with it a little more and do the Iodine at the same time.

I will see if/when I can get that LH/FSH tests done. Do the test numbers really look that low to you though? While not at the top of the range they are decent. And as you said, E2 doesn’t seem bad either.

Eating better and generally taking care of myself is definitely needed and I’m sure will help with some of my issues on it’s own.

11

If LH/FSH is low, your testes are OK, if LH/FSH are high, there is something wrong with your testes. Its up to you. And question of prolactin is open.

Get the antibiotics out of your system, takes a while, then get some good quality probiotics to get get things working right, then deal with iodine. See if there is a good product in a heath food shop that has many bacterial types and is stored refrigerated.

Hiatal Hernia can be caused or made worse by central obesity. You need good T and T:E2 rations plus good thyroid hormones to enable weight loss.