Hello everyone. I am here in the house looking at my wife's forum that she started. I read the entire thing. My triglycerides are in the normal range. I tried the whole eating right and exercising regularly on a daily basis without any medication a couple years back after I found my HDL and LDL cholesterol was at high risk for heart disease with terrible numbers to show for it. When I was doing everything right, my cholesterol was still horrible. I tried Simvastatin and had terribly high CK levels so doc changed me to Crestor. As soon as I took that, my levels lowered. I never made any changes except medicine and it went to normal. My mom and family have a history of high cholesterol. What am I supposed to do? I tried it all. It is very discouraging. Then in the last year, I get slapped in the face with low T. This month it was 72. What the heck do you all want me to do? I work out now regularly and do care, however, I now feel my brain with 100 pound weights inside it. I ran 2 miles today to see if I can sweat out my 100 pound weight inside my brain.Don't only look at my wife's words without hearing my story. I will try to stop Crestor for 3 months and then do a cholesterol test and see where I am. I will give that a shot. My urologist is horrible. They will not give me anything stronger than Androgel. I guess they want me to have a 0 score and practically a walking zombie to get something better. I feel super depressed now. It is major. 50 mg of Sentraline(generic Zoloft) is not cutting it. I am rolling downhill fast right now. I am making the adjustments but lets be truthful....I have done the right things in the past but it leads me right back into where I am at right now.
Well, thx for coming on. My testosterone was never as low as yours but I got down into the upper 200's and that was miserable. And young guys tend to be affected more from what I've seen, so I cannot imagine what you are going through.
Let me jump to the most important thing. You wrote "They will not give me anything stronger than Androgel". I urge you to use the search at the top right of this forum and put in Androgel. You will come across story after story of men who actually had their already low testosterone lowered further by Androgel. It doesn't make sense, but it's very common. It is by far the most common "side effect" complaint that I get regarding HRT.
The next important point: there are many inexpensive options (injections, compounding) that will raise your testosterone if done right. [Patches work well for some guys and sometimes Axiron and Foresta, but imho you should go for delivery methods with highest percentage of success.] Pellets also work well, but are expensive and not all insurance providers cover it. So there is no reason that your doctors cannot get your testosterone level up other than ignorance or laziness.
And I'm not done with important points yet - here's another: testosterone below about 350 ng/dl is associated with increased risk for MANY nasty conditions: heart disease, arterial plaque, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, erectile dysfunction - this list could go on and on.
But you get the idea: having low testosterone actually increases your risk for many dangerous conditions? Why? Because it lowers nitric oxide, increase insulin and hammers your neurotransmitter and red blood cells just for starters. It also withers the inside of your penis - yes, quite literally!
And it's not just long term issues but short term as well. It is very likely that with testosterone that low you are anemic and that your estrogen is low enough to where you are experiencing net bone loss. Did your doctor test your estrogen? I doubt it! Did your doctor do an RBC (red blood cell count)? It doesn't sound like it.
So you guys have to do what you think is right, but you must push your doctor, get a new doctor or get a 2nd or 3rd opinion. Something needs to happen as your doctor is not even monitoring you. I don't know your medical history, so maybe your doctor has some obscure reason for not wanting to raise your testosterone, but this is generally only an issue for men with existing prostate cancer. So you need to get on this asap and figure out what is going on.
I'm going to have to stop here - I have much more to write - but here is another MAJOR point: low testosterone is brutally hard on the male brain. Right now your testosterone is not that much greater than your wife's. Your brain needs the opposite. Read the recent thread that starry posted: researchers just found out that exercise literally rebuild the brain by raising cerebral testosterone levels!
When your testosterone gets low enough, you are extremely vulnerable to anxiety, depression, mental fog. As I pointed out earlier, low testosterone - not high - have been shown in the research to be the ones most likely to fight. Why? Cuzz they feel like ^#*$!
Again, I'm not a doc, so I can't really advise you on medication, but get informed and don't let a doctor destroy your life, your brain/career/relationships simply because he/she is too ignorant or lazy to read the latest research. Also, I will be more than happy to send you my testosterone book for free - just PM me if that is of interest.
Please ask more questions and make comments, but I've got to run - family stuff...
Hang in there and get your life back!
