Test Results: Thyroid Problem?

Pharma TRT
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[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
Reading your thread is almost like reading about myself (with a few differences though).

I might have missed it, but what does your diet look like? I know my energy levels have improved since getting on the AD. Only problem is that some nights I just can’t fall asleep, no matter how tired I am. That goes away in a hurry on carb up day, THEN it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open after 8pm.

Anyway, yeah my energy levels have been much more stable on the the AD.[/quote]

So you’re insulin resistant then? (carbs make you tired instead of energetic).

Right now, I eat about 4,500 cals/day on a bulk… close to a 33/33/33 split of fat/carbs/protein (about 150g fat/400g carb/400g protein). Yeah, 150g of fat per day and I have low cholesterol…lol

One other thing to add to my list of symptoms, because I am an idiot and did not know it was a symptom: lack of morning wood. For some reason, I didn’t realize normal healthy males got it every day - I thought that I was fine since I get it on a somewhat regular basis… apparently that is rather not good.

I’m guessing it’s due to my low DHT but I’ll figure out more on my next round of bloodwork. Unfortunately, since my doc wants bloodwork AFTER this liver cleanse, which I won’t have time to do for a couple weeks, it will be a while. Sigh.

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[quote]scj119 wrote:

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:
Reading your thread is almost like reading about myself (with a few differences though).

I might have missed it, but what does your diet look like? I know my energy levels have improved since getting on the AD. Only problem is that some nights I just can’t fall asleep, no matter how tired I am. That goes away in a hurry on carb up day, THEN it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open after 8pm.

Anyway, yeah my energy levels have been much more stable on the the AD.[/quote]

So you’re insulin resistant then? (carbs make you tired instead of energetic).

Right now, I eat about 4,500 cals/day on a bulk… close to a 33/33/33 split of fat/carbs/protein (about 150g fat/400g carb/400g protein). Yeah, 150g of fat per day and I have low cholesterol…lol

One other thing to add to my list of symptoms, because I am an idiot and did not know it was a symptom: lack of morning wood. For some reason, I didn’t realize normal healthy males got it every day - I thought that I was fine since I get it on a somewhat regular basis… apparently that is rather not good.

I’m guessing it’s due to my low DHT but I’ll figure out more on my next round of bloodwork. Unfortunately, since my doc wants bloodwork AFTER this liver cleanse, which I won’t have time to do for a couple weeks, it will be a while. Sigh.[/quote]

Yeah I am insulin resistant. I’m in the process of leaning out, so hopefully not much longer.

Interesting that you should bring up (up, get it?) morning wood. I’ve had that every morning since I was 12 years old, until about 2 years ago. I also suddenly had problems getting and staying hard, where as before I would fuck or jack off 3-5 times a day. lol the funny thing is I didn’t see a doctor about it before someone pushed me.

Anyway the point is I’ve seen significant improvement in that area since switching to a high fat diet with lots of red meat and eggs.

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So you are actually going through with this liver cleanse idea?

I’d be interested to see how it works on someone else, but there’s no way in hell I’d do it myself without 100% assurance that it would help me lol

thanks for guinea pigging this for us big guy!

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[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
So you are actually going through with this liver cleanse idea?

I’d be interested to see how it works on someone else, but there’s no way in hell I’d do it myself without 100% assurance that it would help me lol

thanks for guinea pigging this for us big guy![/quote]

I’m not totally sure yet - I’m gonna get her on the phone because I’m concerned I may actually go hypoglycemic haha. But I’ll try anything that can help.

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Your thyroid seems fine… I am not surprised that your cortisol is high…cortisol concentrates fat in the abdomen and makes it impossible to lose. There are ways to reduce cortisol such as phosphatidylserine. You aren’t producing enough to take drastic measures like shutting down the glands by supplementing with cortisone for a while. I just don’t think taking thyroid hormone will make you feel much better. However it will clear out cortisol from the liver. I would definitely opt for dessicated thyroid or just t3 if I were you if a doctor will even prescribe it to you (there are some web sites that sell thyroid hormones).

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^^^ I’m not sure I want to reduce cortisol if I’m fighting off infection (Epstein Barr). It may be perfectly normal once I’ve kicked it.

Unfortunately, due to the budget crisis and lapse in FAA authorization, I may be taking forced leave without pay soon… which means no more IVs to kick my EBV because insurance doesn’t cover it and I need the cash… sigh.

I was over 30min late to work today for like the 40th day in a row. Sweet. I’m just so crushingly tired even after solid 7hr sleep (rarely sleep less than 7).

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[quote]scj119 wrote:
^^^ I’m not sure I want to reduce cortisol if I’m fighting off infection (Epstein Barr). It may be perfectly normal once I’ve kicked it.

Unfortunately, due to the budget crisis and lapse in FAA authorization, I may be taking forced leave without pay soon… which means no more IVs to kick my EBV because insurance doesn’t cover it and I need the cash… sigh.

I was over 30min late to work today for like the 40th day in a row. Sweet. I’m just so crushingly tired even after solid 7hr sleep (rarely sleep less than 7).[/quote]

Yes perhaps (cortisol)…if you have a healthy immune system I don’t see why you can’t fight EBV off yourself. I am sorry about your job

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WARNING: Longest post in T-Nation history coming up.

New labs in. Good news: Cortisol, thyroid and Test all look OK so I prob won’t be needing TRT - may take my case elsewhere.

Bad news: literally everything else.

I made a google doc of the labs, but PLEASE READ where I talk about my conversation with the docs and don’t just stare at lab values and ignore me. I’m going to post a full summary of my symptoms etc. to this point - cut to the next line down for new info.

Labwork - scott labs - Google Sheets

SUMMARY OF SYMPTOMS/TREATMENT:

Main symptom: Fatigue. Sleep is just plain unrefreshing. I can sleep for 10 hours and still don’t feel like dragging myself out of bed. I am constantly yawning during the day, during meetings, during WORKOUTS, etc.
Others: Brain fog / awful short term memory… bad indigestion… very infrequent morning wood (libido has always been good though).. knee pain

-Doc diagnosed me with mycoplasma pneumoniae (joint attacking bacteria), gave me an herbal supp that has helped my knees a lot but they aren’t totally perfect.
-Tested positive for Epstein Barr. Went through IV Treatment (Hydrogen Peroxide) 4 times and didn’t help at all
-Did a liver cleanse that was a huge fucking waste of time.

Training is going well. I am able to put on muscle.

SUMMARY OF LATEST DOC VISIT
-Doc DOES care about fixing me. She had 3 other doctors come in today - including Dr. Rind from www.drrind.com (nice guy). At one point though, it was like a scene out of a bad episode of House - literally 4 doctors standing there cross-armed, furrowing their brows and staring at me in silence trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I honestly had a hard time not laughing at the absurdity of it.

Dr. Rind thinks I have Lyme Disease despite testing negative. Reasoning: He sees it correlate extremely strongly with mycoplasma and Epstein-Barr, as well as having uneven reflex reactions on the little rubber hammer test (my right side reacted more strongly than my left). I’m gonna undergo a supplementation procedure that should cure me of Lyme if I have it (though it’ll make me sick).

Also - docs were very concerned that when they shined light in my eyes, my pupils had uneven reactions. In other words, one dilated more than the other (I don’t know the measurements). Possible pituitary problem - got a CAT scan for my head I have to set up.

Oh and I forgot the first reaction I got when I walked in. They all noticed I had big time inflammation on my right cheek (wtf?) that I never noticed. No lymph nodes were swollen (checked by 3 docs). I’m supposed to take some solution to the inside & outside of it and if it doesn’t dissipate in a week I call them ASAP. They seemed very intent on knowing how long I’d had it but I honestly have no idea.

REACTIONS TO LABWORK:

  1. My cholesterol is borderline dangerously low. I’m eating over 150g of fat per day and my total CHOL is 132, with HDL testing at a miniscule 39. I have no idea why this is… I guess malabsorption? All my stool cultures came up negative for inflammation etc. so I have no clue. How I have mid-range T and high cortisol with this low CHOL is really amazing.

  2. My iron labs are fucked. 3 out of 4 are out of range. I need to educate myself on how to interpret this ASAP.

  3. Cortisol lowered a bit, but still out of range high. Likely due to my conglomeration of diseases.

  4. Free T went from 11 to 17 (awesome), with same total T. But, E2 is high (tested at 34) but with a weird lab range (8.0-35). This is worrisome. SHBG is fine.

  5. Growth hormone low, but doc said it has a really short half-life and IGF-1 is the better measurement. Any truth to this? Need to educate myself on growth hormone.

  6. What does it mean that my Calcitriol (1,25 di-OH Vit D) is so high? I stopped exogenous Vitamin D supplementation 6 days before the test because that was supposed to tell me something about this lab… I think docs got caught up in all my other issues and didn’t talk about this much

CONCLUSIONS/QUESTIONS:

  1. FIRST order of business is to start my Lyme Disease treatment. I need to start killing these infections that are fucking me in the ass.

  2. I really REALLY need to figure out what the fuck is going on with my cholesterol.

  3. Same as above, but about my iron labs. Am I in danger of heavy metal toxicity or something?

  4. Should I start taking resveratol or something to inhibit E2 aromatization? Or should I get all my other shit figured out first?

  5. I am scared I have a liver problem. E2 not clearing, Cholesterol not being made, I really need to bring this up.

Scheduled to meet with docs again in a month.

edit - noting that my case may have grown beyond the scope of this forum. I may not continue this case thread.

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One more thing - I have fine tremors. When I hold my hands out, my fingers shake a bit. Sticking my tongue out, my tongue has more pronounced tremors.

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Sounds like you have the opposite issue to me when it comes to cholesterol. But looking at your values they seem pretty good other than maybe wanting HDL a bit higher. In your initial post your cholesterol looked better hey.

I can’t seem to get my head around couple of those ranges LDL and Trig both have a range from 0 - ***. Since doctors go by lab ranges before doing anything (well most do anyway) would they classify LDL reading of 10 and trigs 5 normal? Just seems odd since I have never seen Cholesterol ranges from 0.

Anyway, why are you keen on raising Cholesterol values? ( had to ask since I would take yours over mine and your values look good). Is it because of maybe increasing cholesterol you will raise your Testosterone levels higher?

Keep trigs low (eating less food high on the GI index) keep up the omega-3 fatty acids to help with HDL values. You probably know all this anyway.

The last couples of days or so been looking into cholesterol. From what I have gathered the most important thing about cholesterol is probably looking at Trig values (low is good). From the various new studies I have read it seems to be that carbohydrates are behind higher cholesterol values and not Fat. It goes against everything that you are told in the doctors office.

Below is some good reading.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james23.htm

Walnuts are excellent for lipid profiles or so I have read. There is a mention of them in one of the articles above. Also in one of the articles they mention people who were on low carb diets and higher fat diets reduced their cholesterol more than people just on the low carb diet. So could it be that your excess fats that you are eating are lowering your cholesterol even more (maybe I should load up on the fats)? Something to think about I guess. How many carbs are you eating?

Your cortisol is high in the morning, which could be effecting your sleep if it is elevated during the night. The 4x day saliva test will be great to see what is going in.

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[quote]scj119 wrote:
One more thing - I have fine tremors. When I hold my hands out, my fingers shake a bit. Sticking my tongue out, my tongue has more pronounced tremors.[/quote]

your doc didn’t suggest a CT scan of your head or spine? I don’t remember where those nerves originate from… tongue is a cranial nerve iirc (IX? fuck I’m a horrible nurse), upper extremities should be lower down like in the cervical spine I think… but anyway no scans?

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also as per your fatigue… do you snore when you sleep? could be sleep apnea.

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iroc - CHOL is essential to living. There are plenty of serious conditions that arise due to overly low CHOL, and 132 is definitely too low. I am actually shocked my T is as high as it is with a CHOL level that low, though low T is not the worst symptom of low CHOL.

As far as diet, I eat 350-400g carbs on training days (4x/week) and prob about 200 on off days. I’m eating close to 4800 calories a day so malnutrition is not going to be a culprit here.

I’d like a 4x saliva test but it’s like $200 or something… and I’m pretty certain it is high all the time so the test seems useless. I should probably get it but I want to wait till after I try this lyme disease cure.

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[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
also as per your fatigue… do you snore when you sleep? could be sleep apnea.[/quote]

I am considering having that test done. I have snored, but I don’t snore every night.

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]scj119 wrote:
One more thing - I have fine tremors. When I hold my hands out, my fingers shake a bit. Sticking my tongue out, my tongue has more pronounced tremors.[/quote]

your doc didn’t suggest a CT scan of your head or spine? I don’t remember where those nerves originate from… tongue is a cranial nerve iirc (IX? fuck I’m a horrible nurse), upper extremities should be lower down like in the cervical spine I think… but anyway no scans?[/quote]

I’m getting a cat scan on my head, thought I mentioned it.

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Also forgot to mention - had a number of stool cultures done (gross) and ALL came back negative (most were testing for inflammation), despite significant GI issues (chronic indigestion and gas mainly). WTF

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whoops sorry, I must have missed where you mentioned scans.

[quote]scj119 wrote:
Also forgot to mention - had a number of stool cultures done (gross) and ALL came back negative (most were testing for inflammation), despite significant GI issues (chronic indigestion and gas mainly). WTF[/quote]

lol this may sound dumb but how much do you chew your food before you swallow it?

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[quote]scj119 wrote:
iroc - CHOL is essential to living. There are plenty of serious conditions that arise due to overly low CHOL, and 132 is definitely too low. I am actually shocked my T is as high as it is with a CHOL level that low, though low T is not the worst symptom of low CHOL.

As far as diet, I eat 350-400g carbs on training days (4x/week) and prob about 200 on off days. I’m eating close to 4800 calories a day so malnutrition is not going to be a culprit here.

I’d like a 4x saliva test but it’s like $200 or something… and I’m pretty certain it is high all the time so the test seems useless. I should probably get it but I want to wait till after I try this lyme disease cure.[/quote]

You got plenty of carbs. The reason I asked is from all the reading I have been doing everything suggests Cholesterol is mainly from sugars (carbs). So with lowering carbs you should lower cholesterol. In your case raise them to raise cholesterol. But you seem to be eating plenty of carbs.

Since your Total cholesterol is on the lowish end and your HDL is abysmal raising your HDL will add to your total cholesterol. Like mentioned before Walnuts are supposed to be TOP for increasing HDL cholesterol. 50 grams a day is all that is required (high in omega-3 fatty acids)

I’ll let ya know how I go after 6 weeks if I was able to increase my HDL.

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[quote]iroczinoz wrote:

[quote]scj119 wrote:
iroc - CHOL is essential to living. There are plenty of serious conditions that arise due to overly low CHOL, and 132 is definitely too low. I am actually shocked my T is as high as it is with a CHOL level that low, though low T is not the worst symptom of low CHOL.

As far as diet, I eat 350-400g carbs on training days (4x/week) and prob about 200 on off days. I’m eating close to 4800 calories a day so malnutrition is not going to be a culprit here.

I’d like a 4x saliva test but it’s like $200 or something… and I’m pretty certain it is high all the time so the test seems useless. I should probably get it but I want to wait till after I try this lyme disease cure.[/quote]

You got plenty of carbs. The reason I asked is from all the reading I have been doing everything suggests Cholesterol is mainly from sugars (carbs). So with lowering carbs you should lower cholesterol. In your case raise them to raise cholesterol. But you seem to be eating plenty of carbs.

Since your Total cholesterol is on the lowish end and your HDL is abysmal raising your HDL will add to your total cholesterol. Like mentioned before Walnuts are supposed to be TOP for increasing HDL cholesterol. 50 grams a day is all that is required (high in omega-3 fatty acids)

I’ll let ya know how I go after 6 weeks if I was able to increase my HDL.
[/quote]

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll pick some up tonight.

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:
lol this may sound dumb but how much do you chew your food before you swallow it?
[/quote]

yeah I chew for a long ass time these days… it’s a shame that wasn’t the reason for my symptoms. Taking Betaine HCL helps but I shouldn’t need that at age 27.

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Okay man a ton of stuff here to go over, give me some time to read through it.

1st cholesterol is lipid (fat) and rises and lowers with the bodies needs to making hormones, cellular structure etc. Eating carbs will not raise your HDL (high density lipids) some things that have shown to raise HDL are niacin and basically cardio. Some people have the genetics for low HDL which is more dangerous for risk of heart attack or strong as opposed to high LDL (low density lipid). I suffer from this and have to make sure I get in cardio and fish oil and grass fed beef etc. I used to take Niacin but with Paleo and other things I keep my HDL at 40. (so why you give me shit for all the cardio stuff I do its because of this)

What was your Trigs and LDL?

Sounded like they did a total Iron panel what are the exact results?

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[quote]KSman wrote:
Get some good quality probiotics, from a health food store, better products are refrigerated and not cheap.[/quote]

Also listen to this guy, other guys on here I do not know cause I do not come into this forum much.