22 Years Old with Gynecomastia and Low T

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hello guys,

First of all I want to thank you for such an informative forum. There are some of you here who know far more and could help everyone far more than a doctor can. I know that on my own skin.

Now, let’s describe my problem:

I am a 22 years old guy who should basically have no problems. I am very young, I am athletic ( 10% body fat ), I do not have fat deposits at all, I train pretty often ( I am a personal trainer and fitness instructor ), I have put on about 35 pounds of muscle mass over some years ( going from 6 feet 120 pounds to 6 feet 155 pounds 9-10 % body fat). So basically I should be a ball of energy and youthness.

Yeah right! Over the last period i had seen a severe drop in my energy levels, I am tired absolutely all the time, sleepy, seem to recover very hard from my workouts, decrease in libido and erections ( though i am also recovering from a pornography addiction and that too is a cause of my low libido and erections ).

And, to top it all of it, I have basically discovered last night that my weird chest/nipples is actually Gynecomastia. I have looked at it for some time but yesterday I decided for some reason to look more at it, to search for pictures on the internet, and to look at old pictures of me shirtless. Result: There is definitely Gynecomastia on me, comparatively with how I looked a few years ago…

Also, I took a testosterone test last summer and the results were 380 ng/dl. In range but from what I know very low for a 22 years old male. So, low testosterone, low energy/libido, gynecomastia, I think that all of them link themselves. Tommorow I will see my General Physician to see what’s up. But from what I know you guys over here are far more knowledgeable than the doctors when it comes to these matters. So I am asking for your help! Can any of you here help me with some information on what is going on and how can I restore myself as a normal male with normal testosterone and no gynecomastia?

Thank you anticipated for all of your responses. I will make a summary below of my stats:

Age: 22 years
Height: 6 feet
Waist: 29.9 inches
Weight: 155 pounds
Bodyfat: 9-10%
Facial hair: Not too much thick hair, it is pretty sparse but is becoming thicker and thicker, i am having more facial hair than i had 6 months ago, which was more than 1 year ago, etc.

Body hair: Not too much, quite sparse but like the facial one, it is becoming thicker.
Fat: I pretty much do not carry fat and never had being a very thin ectomorph.
Health conditions: A kind of varicocele ( i say kind of because some doctors are saying it is a varicocele, some doctors are saying i have no problem )

Drugs: No drugs taken
Diet: Pretty much all over the place. A ton of milk and chocolate cereal, chicken breasts, bread, a ton of McDonalds and sweets and some salads rarely. Now i am changing it into a normal healthy diet with a lot of healthy fats, and supplementing with 50 mg Zinc Gluconate from GNC and 500 mg Magnesium (Oxide and Gluconate) from GNC.

Training: Pretty standard: 4-5 days a week, typical day 1 chest, day 2 back, day 3 shoulders etc.

Testes: Yes, my testicles sometime ache and hurt during training. That was the problem that i started to investigate and found out my pseudo varicocele.

Morning wood and nocturnal erections: They pretty much changed according to how much have i healed my porn addiction or if i started to use porn again. But probably they would also be far better with more testosterone and less estrogen. I have them every morning though.

Testosterone levels: 380 ng/dl
Problems: Low energy, low libido and erections, gynecomastia

2

Also, sorry for not mentioning, I have not used anabolic steroids or anything similar ever. I know that this is an important detail, that’s why i posted it.

3

KAKAROT! (Vegeta Voice)

Get the labs so we can get an idea of what’s going on.

The most important ones:

LH
FSH
Prolactin
TT and Free T
E2
TSH
Free T3
Free T4

4

Thanks for responding!

As soon as i have the lab results i will post them here.
It will probably be thursday next week.

Have a nice day!

5

You can probably also do your own labs if need be.

See these stickies: - carefully

  • advice for new guys
  • things that damage your hormones

Check your overall thyroid function.
Check your oral body temperatures

  • when you first wake up
  • AND mid-afternoon
  • have you always used iodized salt?

We are looking at low T as a symptom and need to find the cause.

Extreme low fat diets are dangerous.

Add these labs:
DHEA-S
fasting cholesterol [could be too low]

6

Thank you very much for stopping by, KSman.

I will definitely buy the oral thermometer and check my temperature as you said, also I will add the DHEA-S and the cholesterol to the list of hormones that I will check.
You say that we are looking at low testosterone as a symptom but we should find the cause.

Well lately, I have read all kinds of articles on the internet which state that pretty much every man nowadays has a low level of testosterone for his age due to the xenoestrogens which are everywhere around us and the lack of nutrients that our food has. I told my endocrinologist this thing and she said that there must be a bigger reason for these hormonal imbalances, a problem in the pituitary gland or a testicular problem. She said that diet alone cannot produce these problems. I did not want to argue with her yet but I read the 1996 study in which the scientists created a small zinc deficiency in 20 or so young males ( 27 years old ) and their testosterone plummeted to a quarter (from 1200 to 300). Also they gave old males zinc gluconate and their testosterone doubled. Also i know that zinc is anti-aromatase.

Here is the link to the study: http://science.naturalnews.com/1996/11258159_Zinc_status_and_serum_testosterone_levels_of_healthy_adults.html

Can it just be a zinc and other nutrients deficiency?

Also, this guy made an experiment. He changed his diet for 3 months, pretty much increasing his overall intake of fat and his testosterone levels doubled from 350 to 700 and later to 800. I got to agree that my diet was pretty shitty before i found out about all these problems. Check the experiment out here:

How to Increase Testosterone Naturally | The Art of Manliness

What do you think? Can it be a normal case of nutrient deficiency and exposure to xenoestrogens? Or is it something else?

Thank you all for your answers.

7

Also, i updated my initial information exactly as you suggested in your Advice for New Guys sticky. How can i check my overall thyroid function beside measuring my body temperature as you say? I should wait the lab tests right?

Pretty much i have been a skinny weakling with a racing metabolism and tons of energy all my life. But maybe my thyroid levels dropped in the previous months?! I do not know, I hope that i will find out with my lab tests.

I pretty much do not use salt, i just use normal chicken condiments, i checked their labels and they have 71% iodised salt.

Thank you and have a nice day!

8

Iodized salt listed ingredients? That new [to me]

Sticky: thyroid basics describes checking thyroid function via body temperatures.

9

Hello,

I have some of my lab test results here so I will post them:

Type of analysis Result Normal range

Cholesterol 137 mg/dL 140-220
TSH 1.0937 uIU/mL 0.35-4.94
Free T4 1.01 ng/dl 0.7-1.48
Anti TPO 0.35 UI/ml < 5.61
FSH 2.37 mUI/mL 0.95-11.95
LH 2.98 mIU/ml 0.57-12.07
Estradiol 44 pg/ml 11-44
Prolactin 10.57 ng/ml 3.46-19.4 - very strange another lab is 4.0-12.0

Cortisol 9.9 ug/dL 3.7-19.4

These are my lab results until now. In a few days I will also have Total Testosterone, Free Testosterone and SHBG. Can someone help me please with these numbers? KSman, we need your help here! :slight_smile:

From what I can clearly see is that the Estradiol (Estrogen) is just a milimeter shy of being outside of the normal range for a male. Because I documented myself here, on T nation I know that it should be way way lower for a 22 year old male. What the hell could cause such dramatic aromatization in my body? Clearly my Testosterone will come out very low too. No wonder I have Gyno and all other symptoms. But really from where???

Also, in the test that I took last summer, where I had a 380 ng/dl total testosterone, I also had a few more values tested which I will put here:

Cholesterol: 119 mg/dL Now it’s 137. Clearly eating more fats improved this.
LH: 1.0 mIU/ml Now it’s 2.98.
FSH: 6.1 mIU/ml Now it’s 2.37.
Prolactin: 10.1 ng/ml Now it’s 10.57. Former lab had the reference range 4.0-12

Do some of you know what the different LH and FSH numbers mean? Something clearly changed from last summer looking at this LH and FSH numbers but what?

Thanks to all of you for checking my thread and taking the time to answer.

10

Heightened LH stimulates the testes to produce more testosterone. Testosterone and LH are generally inversely related: when you read someone having “secondary hypogonadism,” (eg, me) what that typically indicates is that the LH value is low at the same time that testosterone is low, meaning that the LH is not being produced by the pituitary as it should be.

Others can feel free to supplement/correct.

11

Sorry but I did not understand quite properly.
Lh is low and Testosterone is low, but you said that they are inversely related. Can you explain it a little bit better please?

12

[quote]ssj4goku1992 wrote:
Sorry but I did not understand quite properly.
Lh is low and Testosterone is low, but you said that they are inversely related. Can you explain it a little bit better please?[/quote]

This is all relative to your natural T levels.

So, for example, if at Draw One your T is 310 when your LH is 1.0, if your LH is 2.98 at the time of Draw Two, one would expect that your T would be lower than 310 at the time of Draw Two, generally. Because the LH was secreted as a reaction by your pituitary to recognizing a need for more testosterone, which LH stimulates the production of (and is consumed in the process of stimulating that production).

13

Hi guys,

I come back with the full results. Finally my testosterone levels were also available. So, after what I posted previously I have 3 new measurements:
Analysis----------------Result-----------------Reference range

Testosterone------------724 ng/dl -------------142-921 ng/dl
Free Testosterone--------1.38 ng/dl-------------0.43-4.17 ng/dl ( Actually the result was in nmol/L but i translated it in ng/dl so it would be easier to read and interpret)
SHBG---------------------34.15 nmol/L----------14.5-48.4 nmol/L

SHBG, the same as with Prolactin is pretty much the same as in my August 2014 test.
But Testosterone levels almost doubled!!! Amazing, I finally have a good news!
Probably my new diet with lots of eggs and peanut butter (fats, basically) even though it was not daily, doubled my testosterone. I did not think so because my cholesterol was just slightly better, but as it seems, everything got far better.

Though, now it is even stranger, as I have definitely expected to have low testosterone, because I had high estrogen, so it aromatized from the testosterone. How can I have high T and high E at the same time???
Also I can clearly see that most of my testosterone is very bound and I have very low Free Test.

Can anyone chime in and help me please?

14

Good news on your T levels. Seems like it’s not so much SHBG inflated T either, which is good. For some reason you’re over aromatizing or not clearing E from your system well enough. Or little of both. Finding this will be hard. Need to look at liver values to see if any problems there.

You could benefit a great deal from a low dose Adex. Use it to lower your E2 to optimal range, which in turn will lower SHGB and in turn give you more free T.

15

I did my full blood tests and there was nothing wrong with the liver or something else.
Yeah, I will use a SERM to combat Gyno and an AI to lower my estrogen.
But the problem is the cause. I should find the cause and cure it, an AI only has the effect as long as you are taking it. Any sugestions on SERMs, AIs and causes?

16

Best to lower E2 with AI and not try to hide it with SERM!

Time of day for cortisol lab draw?

Free T4 1.01 ng/dl 0.7-1.48
should be near mid-range 11, you are low.

You have still not reported body temperatures and I think that you are iodine deficient. Did you read the thyroid basics sticky?

17

Hi KSMan,

Thanks for coming by. Well the cortisol lab draw was just an hour and a half after waking up, 11:30 AM something like that.
You say that I should be near mid range in Free T4, close to 11, but the range is 0.7- 1.48. Myself being at 1.01, isn’t that exactly in the mid range? Or did i make a mistake somewhere?.

Yes of course, I read the thyroid sticky, I am sorry that I did not report the temperatures yet, I was too focused on Testosterone, Estrogen, Prolactin and things like that. Sadly I caught a bad cold and I do not think that my body temperature will reflect the normal situation now, because sometimes I have fever and sometimes I do not. I will check for that once my fever and cold is gone. But myself being in the mid range for T4, wouldn’t that mean that everything is perfect from a thyroid point of view? Still, I started to have more iodised salt as part of my diet, just to be sure of not having any deficiencies.

Also it is interesting that my general tiredness seems to have dissipated pretty much… Maybe the T jump helped it?

What is your opinion on the medical treatment that I should take now?
The endocrinologist that I visited yesterday was a complete idiot, as you guys pointed here… But, she got me a 50% reduction in Nolvadex’s price.

I want to heal my gyno first, do you think the following protocol would be ok for that?:

1 week: 40 mg Nolvadex each day. ( Should I take 2 20 mg pills at the same time, or 1 in the morning and 1 at night? )

2 week: 20 mg Nolvadex each day. Continue until Gyno subsides.

Also, should I use an AI like 0.25 mg Arimidex EOD with this to lower my Estrogen?

Thank you very much for your feedback!

18

Anyone? Guys? :slight_smile:

19

Still tired and low libido…

So confused, I do not know exactly what to do…
Start Nolvadex + Arimidex? Some people are saying that it would be too harsh and I should try DIM instead of Arimidex… Even if I start one or the other what would the cause be of my E2 issues? Diet? Environmental factors?

These things are so difficult because there is no legitimate medical authority who knows how to take care of these things…

20

No one knows the cause. You can try looking for a doc that will help you but I don’t know how much they can dig out.

Do NOT do Nolvadex. You don’t need it. Only do Arimidex.

I would start with .25mg Adex twice a week. See how you feel and test your E2 after 4 weeks.