Your body is an integrated system, not a collection of isolated biochemicals. If you want to understand your testosterone levels, then you have to look at everything that can affect them.
There’s a lot more to the picture than what you’ve talked about so far and you’re doing yourself a disservice if you think these numbers mean anything by themselves. Yeah, your T is low. However, if you weigh 300lbs, then I would call that normal for that amount of body fat and if you lost the fat, there’s a good chance that your testosterone would rebound to truly normal levels.
On the other side of the coin, if you’ve been eating a very low fat diet, that can also suppress T levels.
If you want to understand your testosterone, you have to accept that damn near everything in your life can affect it one way or another and you have to look at the big picture. Testosterone numbers by themselves mean nothing.
[quote]jason_bh wrote:
Update: My wife said the doctor (she works there) did admit that I was on the low end. I think he was just going by what the lab said was normal on the chart. The lab says that 240 - 900 is normal. :)[/quote]
Lab normals are a bell curve. They measure say 2000 people and see what the levels fall at and subtract the top and bottom 10% or so. That’s how you get a testosterone range of 240 - 900 as normal when we all know that below 600 many side effects of low testosterone happen.
[quote]Chewman wrote:
jason_bh wrote:
Update: My wife said the doctor (she works there) did admit that I was on the low end. I think he was just going by what the lab said was normal on the chart. The lab says that 240 - 900 is normal.
Lab normals are a bell curve. They measure say 2000 people and see what the levels fall at and subtract the top and bottom 10% or so. That’s how you get a testosterone range of 240 - 900 as normal when we all know that below 600 many side effects of low testosterone happen.
Chewman
[/quote]
Also: The lab ranges do include many who are not well and often suffering from problems caused by or compounded by hormone imbalances. That can be low T or low T and elevated E. The normal is a “normal statistical range” and does not imply that this is a normal state of health or wellness. But most doctors do not understand this at all. Insurance companies are the same way. If a doctor treats a hormone condition that is not ab-normal, they can cause problems. In a managed health care environment, they have the doctors by the balls and can be even more of a problem.
Some in that normal range will have low T, high E, prostate problems from the E, high cholesterol levels from the low T and many many other problems, physical, mental and sexual. These “normal” men can have pot bellies, female fat patterns, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes or full insulin dependant diabetes…
Some doctors will tell a 19YO that his TT=300 is normal and send him away.
The biggest medical challenge is not how to use T, AI or hCG, but in finding a doctor who knows what to do.
Just an update on what’s transpired since my last post here. I just took my third injection of T today. Blood work has been ordered 3 times now. The second time I got it done was two weeks after my first initial injection of 100mg of T Cyp. It came back lower than before I started (TT - 264, FT - 4.3). The doctor decided to give me a ‘full dose’ the second time (200mg). Today I went back to get my third dose and asked them to test my Estradiol level.
I guess I am educating my doctor as I go here as well. Because all they do is prescribe T for patients like me. I just don’t want to get too far into this and still not have things fixed.
I have a question about hcg though. Is this something that I need a prescription for? I failed to mention this to my doc today.
Notes:
I have felt better since taking the T. I actually have a libido now and I am not as tired and worn down as I use to be. I still need to get my treatments ‘tweaked’ obviously.
My latest blood work came back with my T level at 375 (2 weeks after 100mg T Cyp). My Estradiol level was 15.
This is getting frustrating as I feel like I should be higher with my T level.
Also, if you’re reading this, can you please tell me exactly what Hcg is? I want to mention this to my doctor. Whenever I Google hcg I get results saying that it is ‘Human chorionic gonadotropin’. I just want to know if the medication is also called hcg.
Human chorionic gonadotropin is hCG. It is a peptide [protein] based hormone, as are LH, IGF-1, HGH, insuline etc.
If your doctor is unfamiliar with its use in TRT/HRT, mentioning will probably not work.
For 100mg test cyp, you need .5ml 200mg/ml or 1.0ml 100mg/ml. Some guys need easily twice the expected dose. Where that T is going is not known. Most do well on 100mg. TT can take more that two weeks to get to level. If you tested 1 week after your last injection, that would create a low reading. Best to to labs 1/2 between injection. Better to inject twice a week or more often in any case.
That E2 level is low? Was it serum estogen, free estrogen ??? and what range ?0-53 pg/ml?
[quote]KSman wrote:
Human chorionic gonadotropin is hCG. It is a peptide [protein] based hormone, as are LH, IGF-1, HGH, insuline etc.
If your doctor is unfamiliar with its use in TRT/HRT, mentioning will probably not work.
For 100mg test cyp, you need .5ml 200mg/ml or 1.0ml 100mg/ml. Some guys need easily twice the expected dose. Where that T is going is not known. Most do well on 100mg. TT can take more that two weeks to get to level. If you tested 1 week after your last injection, that would create a low reading. Best to to labs 1/2 between injection. Better to inject twice a week or more often in any case.
That E2 level is low? Was it serum estogen, free estrogen ??? and what range ?0-53 pg/ml?[/quote]
Thanks KSMan.
I am not sure about the serum estrogen or free estrogen. I just asked them to check my Estrodiol. My wife called me on the phone a day later and said your E2 level was 15. The range was 0-53.
Also, my wife mentioned yesterday that the nurse that drew my blood last said that I had “yellow blood”. I said are you talking about jaundice, I need to know that with the treatments that I am having. She said that the GP doc didn’t act like he cared too much about it. I told her that I am going to be looking for a specialist in our area that will treat me. :mad:
I’ve sort of abandoned this thread. Since I have last posted I have gotten 2 more injections of T and got some more bloodwork done. I think that we have finally found my problem.
My doctor finally tested my LH and Prolactin.
My results came back as:
Prolactin - 6.4
LH - 0.1
Obviously my LH is low, but what does this mean? What would be my next logically step here? Am I to assume my LH could be low because I am on Test Cyp now?
