yes, doctors are the biggest problem with male hormone care, the often to not care and typically seem to be clueless
Inability to absorb transdermal T is a symptom of low thyroid function. Please see the last paragraph to self-eval this.
Training with low-T and/or low thyroid function can be stressful for the adrenals.
You have secondary hypogonadism and your low prolactin indicates that this is not caused by a prolactin secreting pituitary adinoma.
T-gels are 10% absorbed at best, often much less. Youthful levels would be 10mg/day, or 10% absorbed of 100mg applied T, 4 times your dose. So we do not know with this low dose what exactly is going on.
Self-injected T is 100% absorbed, least cost and least E2 potential. Transdermals have highest E2 potential. You can inject with #29 1/2" 0.5ml insulin syringes. Inject SC/SQ, not IM. That avoids muscle damage and provides more even T levels.
- self-inject 50mg T cyp/eth twice a week
- 0.5mg anastrozole at time of injections, adjusted to get near E2=22pg/ml
- 250iu hCG SC/SQ EOD to preserver testes and fertility, often improves mood
Labs with ranges if you have these? list format please
TT
FT
E2
LH/FSH
prolactin
CBC
hematocrit
fasting cholesterol
DHEA-S
AST/ALT
Cortisol [time of day needed]
The stickies are required for knowledge gain. You cannot be passive with your hormone care.
Please read the stickies found here: About the T Replacement Category - #2 by KSman
- advice for new guys
- things that damage your hormones
- protocol for injections
- finding a TRT doc
Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.