I was a silent reader for a few weeks and decided to create an account. Read so much from guys with knowledge about hormones etc.
So here is my story.
(BTW: sorry for the grammar etc… Its not my mother tongue)
I‘m 22 years old and i got depressed and have big trouble sleeping for the past 4 years.
I saw a neurologist and tried a few meds.
Here is the list:
Wellbutrin
Lyrica
Zyprexa
Now im taking Zoldem for sleeping for the last 2 years. None of the medication made my sleep or mood better. I was just a zombie who ate 5000 calories a day (except wellbutrin, lost weight while i was on them)
So after 4 years of depression, sleep problems, no energy (the sleep loss dont help i know) and feeling uncomfortable when going outside, i decided to get bloowdork done cause i cant live like this anymore.
Im not lifting and my bodyfat is like 25%.
I always had bad stamina and motivation growing up but i tried to stay active until 15, from there on it went down. At 18 no morning wood (If it happens which is very very rare, its like 20%) i have no interest in sex and even with porn my penis wont get 100% hard because most of the time i dont feel like masturbating.
This got very long sorry guys.
Here is my Bloodwork. My doc told me that im
Perfectly fine for my age. Hope that somebody can help me out.
Thanks in advance.
Really sorry to hear about your troubles, man. But I’m wondering if a majority of the issues are side effects from the sleep meds.
I think a good place to start, kinda regardless of your bloodwork numbers, is to get some kind of consistent training routine in place and try to clean up your diet. Any little bit will help, you don’t need to dive right into an intense plan. Even a couple days a week of any exercise can help with depression, anxiety, and the kinds of issues you’re talking about.
Giving that a try before starting 60+ years worth of medication seems like the thing to do.
Sadly most doctors have no idea about normal testosterone levels, most are clueless. The problem is these reference ranges do not account for age, old men typically score on the bottom end while younger men score towards the top end of the ranges.
Your problem is you expected a managed healthcare doctors to have sufficient knowledge to diagnose and treat you. I see it everyday on T-Nation, guy posts doctors says I’m fine, most often this is not the case.
The medications listed lowers testosterone, you were probably put on these medication because you have low testosterone and/or thyroid problems and doctors falsely believe it is normal, very common.
You cannot get properly treated for low testosterone in the managed healthcare setting, you need to seek out a doctor that specializes in this area of medicine, no managed healthcare doctor specializes in TRT leaving private doctors who do specializes in TRT.
Hey, thanks for the tipps. I will definitely try to stick to a 30-45 minute workout routine 3-4 days a week as a start.
I crave sugar and high fat meals because of my sleeping problem. You have any tipps for that, or do i just have to push trough for a few weeks?
I hope this time bloodwork is visible
There are about a million things that affect sleep, and most of them are at best masked by the kinds of drugs you have been given. Try and get those labs posted for us. And knowing your height, weight and type of work wold be useful.
Your Free T and bioavailable testosterone is the elephant in the room, both are on the lower end and while “normal” may not be normal for you. Most men need Free T on the high end to feel good.
Your LH is also on the lower end, LH is the stimulating hormone to stimulate the testicles to produce testosterone. Lyrica is nerve pain medication which can lower Free T, Zyprexa is an antipsychotic which can also sedate the pituitary gland and lower Free T.
These medications will screw you up in the long term, real damage to hormone production.
Treatment with this medication can be associated with disturbances in reproductive hormones (testosterone) and gonadotropins (FSH). The cause of olanzapine-elicited reduction of inhibin B level and the lack of negative correlation between FSH and inhibin B in patients with risperidone-induced hyperprolactinemia require further investigation. Patients receiving risperidone showed higher level of sexual dysfunction and treatment non-adherence than those treated with olanzapine.
Definitely a good place to start. Like I said, it doesn’t need to be a perfect bodybuilding routine. I’d settle for just “playing around” with weights for a half-hour or so and then like 15 minutes of some cardio. Once you get into the habit of showing up each session and working hard, we can fine-tune a plan.
For the cravings, sleep’s definitely been shown to influence food cravings, but a big part of it overall is getting yourself to follow effective nutrition principles and feed yourself plenty of good foods. Pick one of these and stick with it.
Nothing in your bloodwork is super out of range, so I’d really just focus on the diet and training for at least a month or so, then see how you feel and adjust the plan if needed.
Opening the can of worms with TRT or playing with the hormone levels is unnecessary. If the numbers were drastically different right now, it’d be another story. But I don’t think they’re shining a spotlight on anything that requires that kind of solution yet.
None of those tests show much of a problem. Obviously your T should be higher, but that is an effect of the problems, not the reason. Exercise will help/ Do you have sleep apnea? Restless Leg? Labs for things like Calcium, Iron, Magnesium?
Ok so the plan now is getting a bit of a “routine” that consists of cardio and lifting weights.
I never eat 2-3 hours before bed so thats easy for me.
The Wheat is my problem. I know that its unhealthy, plus i have gluten intolerance so this would be a double win if i manage to stop eating too much wheat, its really what makes me full. I can eat 2kg of veggies and be hungry after 30 minutes, its really strange.
My Questions: My sleep is really fucked up even with medication. Im still going to stick with 2-3 weigth workouts and 2 cardio workouts. If i feel too tired can i take 1-2 days off from working out or should i really push trough?
How long should i follow this plan? 1-3 months?
hey @hardartery , could you please take a look my posts that I made, I need some help too, I have no libido out of the blue at 21 years old. I am now 24. I had restless legs for 1 year but it went away. Left with genital numbness, and no libido, and 0 erections…
I had sugar cravings when testosterone is low, when I got my testosterone higher sweat cravens vanished and all of a sudden I craved healthy food including a new cravenings for chicken.
It would have been nice to see Reverse T3 which can block the main active thyroid hormone Free T3. TSH isn’t always reliable biomarker doctors make it out to be.
Bad sleep will mess with energy and stamina, then it will lower testosterone which will then worsen sleep further. These medications are also not helping with testosterone, typically long term usage leads to permanent low testosterone no amount of clean eating and exercise will fix.
Ouch! 500 calories. Never do that again. You were probably very malnourished.
There’s nothing obvious in the labs you posted. It’s not very thorough testing really.
I’d try and get more tests. There are many things you could test but here are a few suggestions:
ferritin
vitamin d
zinc serum
a1c
fasting insulin
fasting cortisol
b-12
total t4
I’d log your food intake and make sure you get the rda of all nutrients. Most commonly inadequate intakes are for: potassium, magnesium, calcium (if no dairy), dha (fish oil), choline (almost only in egg yolks), vitamin d, + a few more.
A simple supplement plan could look something like: 100% rda multivitamin (mostly for micronutrients and water soluble vitamins), calcium/magnesium at night (helps sleep), choline supplement if you don’t eat > 3 egg yolks/day, enough vitamin d to get you to 40 ng/ml, and 1 g fishoil/day if you don’t eat fish. That’d be a good start.
You’d probably want to do this anyways even if you later decide to try hormonal interventions…
Guys, is it possible to do push ups, squats and pull ups troughout the day?
Like every hour i do 20-30 push ups , squats and pull ups? Not going to failure just a little pump? I started walking 45-60 Minutes everyday, just wanted to add it to my daily routine so i get more tired?
What I did to fall asleep quicker and deeper: Quit coffee from 15pm, and take Magnesium before sleep, which makes my muscles and brain relax.
You could also try breathing exercises from Wim Hof - check him on YouTube
Its been a while.
I got my hands on some testosterone enanthate.
My question is: My estrogen is on the low end if you check out my bloodwork
Estradio: 27,4 and the rang is from 27,1-52,2.
Do you think my bad sleep, bad mood and joint pain can get better with 250mg test e per week?
I got some galenikas straight from the pharmacy so it will work 100%.
Tried zyprexa again. All it does is make me sleep a little deeper but my anxiety and the problems above stay the same.
I know that Test need 4-6 weeks to kick in. Has someone experienced the benefits in 4-6 weeks or does it take longer than that?
