Low Testosterone, Need Advice

I’ve been referred to an endocrinologist and have an appointment on the 25th. My Testosterone level is 95 when people are complaining about levels in the 200-300 range. It’s really ridiculous. I’m 22 years old so it’s especially bad. I plan on competing in powerlifting and getting my personal training certification, so I need to get it sorted out. It really feels like everything I’ve worked for is just falling apart. I have several questions that maybe someone can throw in their 2 cents about.

  1. What should I do as far as training right now. I’ve made pretty much no progress in the past 6 months, should I just fight to keep what I have? Would pushing too hard to try to up the weights risk me losing mass?

  2. Are the testosterone prescriptions pretty good at bringing you up to a normal level, and will I be able to build muscle as effectively as others?

  3. My doctor mentioned androgel, and I read many conflicting things on it, so just wanted to get some more opinions.

  4. Would taking something like Biotest’s Alpha Male be pointless while also taking something like androgel, or will it help?

  5. Any other advice that anyone can give me on what I should be doing right now would help haha.

I can’t answer all of your questions but can help out with a couple of them.

Here’s what I can say about #'s 2 and 3.

  1. According to my doc they should be able to increase levels back to 500+ where it’s more in line with what it should be and your work out goals. There are different options depending on what is causing your Low Testosterone.

  2. Don’t let your doctor rush you into doing Androgel or other TRT too quickly. My first doctor (Urologist) prescribed me Androgel but it didn’t feel right and reading here he didn’t have enough blood work evidence to do so. I called my GP who sent me to an Endocrinologist who did many more blood tests. They found that I likely won’t need TRT since I had an LH issue, so he prescribed other medication for that. Bottom line is don’t let your doc rush you to Androgel or other steroids, make sure you get a full blood tests to see if something else could be the problem causing your low testosterone.

More advice would be to post on here with blood test results and more info here, everyone is very helpful and very knowledgable.

First off, your test level doesnt mean much without units and reference ranges… you could be comparing inches to centimeters with a bland number like 95.

I am hesitant to just assume your endo is really good, given the horror stories on this forum.

What else did you have tested? Just total testosterone? I assume there were other labs done… posting the full lab values and reference ranges would help. There are tons of reasons for low T and helping you with one specific question when all we know is one lab value is like shooting a fly with a shotgun in the dark.

I really hope your doc hasn’t zeroed in on a specific treatment knowing nothing but Total T.

Thanks, I’ll post the whole lab sheet up later today when I get home from work. The total T of 95 is in a normal range of like 160 or 180 up to 800 something. I find it odd how broad the range is, but I know mine is dirt low.

Here are my blood test results. There were BMP and CBCD tests that are alot to type up, but they were all well within the normal range. There was also a urine test that I had done because I was frequently urinating, which seems to be diabetes insipidus, and I’ve been sent to the endo for both problems. My urine osmolality was 106 with 300-900 being normal, and urine sodium is <10 with 30-90 being normal. These are my results excluding all of those.

LH 1.2 (1.5-9.3 normal)
UA 5.9 (3.5-8.5)
PLTN 9.3 (2.1-17.7)
TSH 1.53 (.35-4.0)
Test total 94 (160-726)
Test free 22.9 (21-135)
Test Bioavailable 54 (48-317)
Sex horm.bind.glob. 19 (9-54)

(FYI, the guys complaining about 200-300 Total T typically have lab ranges of 200-800 or 250-1000… my range was 249-836 for example)

I don’t know much about urine tests, and my knowledge of T and sex hormones pales in comparison to some of the guys here. But the huge WTF that jumps out at me is you have an in-range Free T and way low total T. Granted, Free T is far from optimal, but it’s still weird. The other biggie is that you are low on T but your pituitary is not requesting more to be made (low LH).

Did you have FSH tested with LH? Looks like possible secondary hypogonadism. 8am cortisol would be helpful. Your pituitary should be screaming for more T but it isn’t.

Ever done steroids? That would be one possible reason for low LH.

[quote]scj119 wrote:
(FYI, the guys complaining about 200-300 Total T typically have lab ranges of 200-800 or 250-1000… my range was 249-836 for example)

I don’t know much about urine tests, and my knowledge of T and sex hormones pales in comparison to some of the guys here. But the huge WTF that jumps out at me is you have an in-range Free T and way low total T. Granted, Free T is far from optimal, but it’s still weird. The other biggie is that you are low on T but your pituitary is not requesting more to be made (low LH).

Did you have FSH tested with LH? Looks like possible secondary hypogonadism. 8am cortisol would be helpful. Your pituitary should be screaming for more T but it isn’t.

Ever done steroids? That would be one possible reason for low LH.[/quote]

I’ve never done steroids, and I don’t believe that FSH was tested, I’ll double check though.