[quote]JuliusA wrote:
t-guy69 wrote:
Should I post my results?
Please do so. I would be very interested to hear them.
-J
[/quote]
New Values: one month later, 3 pills
2x per day (max dose)
Total Testosterone: 387
Free Testosterone: 98
Bio Available Testosterone: 226
Thanks for the update. So it looks like total T got a nice boost but the other measures stayed pretty much the same. I wonder what that means. Have you felt any difference so far?
-J
[quote]JuliusA wrote:
Thanks for the update. So it looks like total T got a nice boost but the other measures stayed pretty much the same. I wonder what that means. Have you felt any difference so far?
-J[/quote]
That wasn’t what I was expecting. I expected the total to remain the same and the free and/or Bio-Available (weakly bound Testosterone) to go up.
Do I feel any difference? Good question, and hard to answer. I have been training different, utilizing some of the great training articles at T-Nation. I can’t say honestly yes or no.
[quote]Atreides wrote:
Gasp!
I brought it up. Anyone have experience or insight on testosterone replacement therapy.
What’s out there? Gel, patches, pills?
How young is too you to start this?[/quote]
I use Androgel. I got started at age 49. I’d just started really training, and I actually managed to overtrain. I was suc a newbie I didn’t realize what was going on. After feeling pretty punk for a while, I gave myself a saliva test and my free T level was of course on the floor. That was backed up by subsequent clinical tests, though the serum level remained just barely at “low normal”. I pressured my primary care physician into letting me see an endocrinologist.
Being rather conservative, this specialist did quite a thorough work up on me, extending even to an MRI of the pituitary region. Nothing abnormal, but in the end my free T levels were after all still on the floor - I was still overtraining - so he relented and wrote the prescription. The strange thing is, I made no secret about how much time I was spending training, but he still didn’t get the big picture anyway. Maybe he figured I was exaggerating.
He started me off on five grams per day. It was a fun couple of months. Then the first serum levels came back at over 1100 ng/dL. The endocrinologist blenched, muttered something about “supraphysiologic” and “malpractice” and promptly cut the dosage in half. Not quite so nice, but I still felt a lot better than I had before, and I could train for nine or ten hours per week without having my levels hit zero.
After a few years I was living in a different city and I was truly taking the volume up and beginning to feel rather blah again. After confirming the low levels and a negative PSA test my new doctor happily doubled the dosage for me. He’s a sports physician and does research on health effects of exercise. He’s fully aware of my program and he’s been very supportive of my efforts to get more than the usual amount of exercise.
For a brief while at this point I tried Testim gel, but I found on me it was noticeably less effective than Androgel. Also, the packaging is a lot less nice: little bitty toothpaste tubes you can’t really get the full dose out of.
The net effect of the therapy for me is that I can train very hard at age 55 but I still feel fine (we are talking somewhere around eighteen hours of strenuous physical activity each week: wrestling, kickboxing, lifting weights, kettlebells, aerobic cross-training). I add lean mass pretty easily, if I’m willing to eat for it. Libido is just fine, thanks. I have no idea exactly where my levels free or serum are at the moment, I’m actually a little afraid to be tested and found “supraphysiologic” again. That’s how good I feel.
I take M regularly. RED KAT has a very noticeable effect.
I have read somewhere here, I think a TC article, that T levels fluctuate significantly during the day. For you guys that have had yours tested, did the doc mention this?
Has anybody used the saliva tests by BodyBalance.com, ie. Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory?
[quote]Mr. Chen wrote:
I have read somewhere here, I think a TC article, that T levels fluctuate significantly during the day. For you guys that have had yours tested, did the doc mention this?
[/quote]
Are you kidding? There were always very specific instructions as to just when to show up to give the blood sample. First thing in the morning, invariably.
[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
Are you kidding? There were always very specific instructions as to just when to show up to give the blood sample. First thing in the morning, invariably.[/quote]
Are you talking specifically about a Testosterone panel? Not all blood tests require a morning draw.
[quote]Mr. Chen wrote:
Are you talking specifically about a Testosterone panel? Not all blood tests require a morning draw.[/quote]
Yep. Every time the endocrinologist wanted a level the blood had to be drawn first thing in the morning. The other time it’s first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is for fasting metabolites, e.g. a lipid panel.
There are a number of tests where the amount changes as the day goes by.
The term is diurnal variation. It also happens with calcium. There are probably more.
http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/9/8/98ed4-money[1].gif
I was wondering how much patients are are paying for this therapy? Seems like it would be encredibly expensive.