I’m not aware of any risk, it took awhile for me to sift through all the junk clinical studies making gross stupid errors. TRT shutdown my natural production and stopping TRT brought me right back to baseline with 4.5 weeks. I’m not eager to return to these levels, but have to treat other medical conditions before restarting TRT.
I would be more worried about clomid side effects versus stopping TRT cold turkey. Sure I was exhausted after stopping TRT for a week or two, and still did normal everyday stuff.
Dude, come on. Show a little respect to the people that do this professionally.
To say that TRT has no risks is just plane wrong. I linked you the lastest review article about that topic, but I guess you haven’t read it or don’t have access to it.
You keep saying that every doc or study not in line with your thinking is ignorant, but I you are just as ignorant in accepting the scientific unbiased view.
This forum has a couple of people which blast their personal opinion out and sell it as facts, not saying anything about that some things are just unknown or ambiguous.
Okay, I have had the varicocele surgery and, to majke it short, it didn’t help at all. My doc has confirmed that the varicocele is still there and that I should just forget about it, since there is nothing more he can do. I have had one surgery 6 years ago and another a week ago and so he says there is no other way to remove it. Is he correct??
So now, since I can not count on my balls to produce an adequate amount of T, I will have to find a way to get exogenous T, which is hard. I have not found a knowledgeable doctor willing to help me, since my values are “within range”.
The left one is grade 3. One day before the surgery I found out that I actually also have a varicocele on the right side, but its smaller. I dont know what grade.
I think I had subinguinal microsurgery, but only on the left one. Ive had inguinal surgery 6 years ago, which failed to remove my varicocele.
I dont understand, how can there still be bloodflow into those veins, when my doctor said he tied them off and cut them?
The subinguinal microsurgery is the golden standard because it has the lowest recurrence rate.
My doc told me that recurrence can be due to general weakend veins in the scrotum. When the ‘one’ is cut, blood flow will redirect generating more pressure on the other veins. Sound logic, but I have no idea if this is the case or not.
I’m 20, so this is supposed to be the peak of my natural production. It will only get lower from here, unless I found a way to get rid of the varicocele, which I dont know if I can or not, and which might not improve my T Levels after all.
Just a side note, I have a varicocele and I have a strong theory (and labs to back - including those of others) that it also messes with thyroid. Essentially making someone with varicocele, acute/subclinical hypothyroid. I would get full thyroid labs done if I were you, since I started TRT (on a decent protocol) and seen very little benefits. My next course of action is starting thyroid treatment.
Thanks thats good advice.
I had my TSH checked, it was 2.9. That’s “normal” range on paper, but I think in reality a value of 2.9 is far from ideal. At least according to “Thyroid Basics” by KSMan.
Mine went up to that, that isn’t healthy. It’s subclinical typically, because fT4 is usually lower. Anything over 1-.1.5 should be investigated a lot further. I believe the root of all my issues are thyroid at this point, since TRT, HCG and Proviron have done little to improve my situation…
Here are the older labs, getting new ones this coming week:
Thyroid
Free T3 - 3.45 ng/dL ( 2.1 - 4.4 )
Free T4 - 0.73 ng/dL ( 0.61 - 1.12 )
TSH - 0.68 mU/L ( 0.3 - 4.2 )
Total T4 - 0.73ng/dL ( 0.61 - 1.12 )
Total T3 - 1.1 ug/L ( 0.7 - 2 )
On paper, mine look “good” but my rT3 is high (27 on a scale of 5 - 30 or something). I also have all the usual thyroid symptoms - cold intolerance, low libido, etc…
As an interesting point of reference, pre-varicocele these were my levels (just found these by chance):
TSH: 0.63 mu/l
Free T4: 15.8 pmol/l ( 9 - 24 )
Which converted is:
1.2275 ng/dL ( 0.61 - 1.12 )
I was always ridiculously thin but had no libido issues or anything at this point. As you can see, my level is at the top end of the range before varicocele.
As a side note, you can convert using this website:
Your labs are slightly better than mine for sure, your Free T4 is higher which might explain why you have a libido and I don’t…Obviously it could be a lot of factors, but t4 is required for libido.
There is a huge misconception that free t4 isn’t active, when it most definitely is.
What symptoms do you have (being honest) that make you think thyroid?
Your RT3 being high is definitely the same as mine though, which is a problem for sure.
I do not have diagnosed varicocele or checked rt3 so its not an apples to apples comparison but my levels were pre levothyroxine
ft4 0.85(0.82-1.77)
ft3 3.5(2.0-4.4)
TSH 5.010(0.450-4.500)
initial dosing of levo
ft4 1.04
ft3 3.5
tsh 4.160
I have never really had libido issues, even when my free t4 was bottom of the barrel. It was also bottom before TRT and no libido issues. If it is needed for libido why would it not affect me? I’m not asking this to be a dick just curious what you would gleam from these thyroid labs. Kind of hard to do without rt3 I know but haven’t got around to checking it yet.