Some of you guys might remember my thread in this forum back in '07 when I asked for help regarding a rather embarrassing tendency to pass out practically every time I did heavy set work. Thanks to some straight up, bullshit-free advice from you guys, I got off my ass and found a new doc who didn’t pass the problem off as over-training.
He found my problem (hypoglycemia due to a thyroid issue), got it under control…and my regularly-scheduled naps on the gym floor ceased. No real problems since - at least, no problems that I couldn’t chalk up to my age (50) and mileage - up until last month when my doc mentioned that he wanted to check my testosterone levels again.
He said that he noticed in my original '07 blood work that my serum and free T levels looked a little low (Gee doc, thanks for not bothering me with such trivial, meaningless info at the time) and he wanted to see if they had dropped lower since then. Turns out they had:
T-total 196
T-free 31.2
T-bio-available 88.3
SHBG 11
Albumin 3.0
Cortisol, total 24.9 (taken at 9:00 am after 16 hour fast)
DHEA sulfate 141
FSH 4.2
LH 3.0
Prolactin 11.7
Actually, this answered a lot of questions for me, such as why progress in the gym had been so hard to come by for the last year, why I was back to every morning feeling like the morning after the very first workout, why it’s become a real fight for me to maintain a stable weight despite a really clean (even by T-Nation standards) diet, and why I’d been having more and more trouble lately with irritability and distractibility.
Ok, so far, so bad…but it gets worse. As we discussed these results, my doc said two things that made me feel my ass was already late for the door. The first (in response to my question about why he hadn’t also tested for estridol) being we don’t usually test for estrogen levels in men…it’s rarely a problem, and the second being …normal testosterone levels for a man your age (50) is around 300. Let’s shoot for that.
Oh well, time to start over with the doctor search. I guess I should at least be thankful that I now know I have a problem. No question that I still have to get E and a few other levels checked; I’ll probably try to set it up through the folks KSman suggested. But unfortunately here in the Knoxville, Tennessee area there seems to be a real shortage of physicians who stay current on TRT and related issues.
In addition to my own research, I’m also hoping that guys like KS, Bushy, Happydog, and Dr. Powerclean will continue their usual informative, well researched, and well written posts so that if and when I DO find a doc willing to listen to me, I’ll have the ammunition I need. If I can’t find a doc within reasonable driving distance who is willing to take his/her 1971 calendar down off the wall, I might explore other options.