My "saga"

[grunter]

Bear with me. This is long.

I really starting falling apart physically at age 42. I was the top-ranked associate in a mid-sized law firm – with all of the accolades and overwhelming stress that that entails. I routinely posted the highest billable hours each month. I was called on to perform the impossible on a daily basis. Attend 4 contested hearings every morning and churn out award winning legal writing every afternoon. I practically lived at the law firm. I was there from 7:30 a.m. to near midnight most weekdays, stopping only to come home to see my guy for a few minutes before falling off to bed. Physically, I was a wreck. Weightwise, I was hovering at 320, my heaviest. If I ate a lunch with a little too much salt, my ears would ring and I would get “strafing” hives down the knuckles of both hands and on my chest. I was short of breath constantly. I would sweat just waiting my turn at the podium when in court. Mentally, I was deeply unhappy. I had no life. I barely saw my partner, and there didn’t seem to be an end to all of the work that was being heaped upon my head.

My doctor warned me that I had to pull back. For months leading up to the holiday season in 2011, he was after me to take 6 weeks of Family Medical Leave such as to rest, get into an exercise routine, and look after my health. If I kept going the way I had been going, he warned that I was weeks away from a heart attack or a stroke. I had excuse after excuse as to why I couldn’t take a break from the job at that time. Partnership talk was in the air. There was a big trial in the offing at the turn of the year. I just could not possibly get away when he wanted me to.

January 2012 came and I went to the eye doctor for what I thought was a 15 minute checkup and a change in my prescription. I had been experiencing blurry vision when I would leave the office at night. I had thought it was because I was focusing too hard on the work. My eyes were just tired from all of the intense reading and computer work. The 15 minute checkup turned into a 2 hour ordeal, with the optometrist squashing my eyeball against every machine in his office. Apparently he discovered what he believed to be a tear in my retina and insisted that I go to an eye surgeon immediately or face possible blindness. I freaked. I marched into my managing partner’s office the next morning and told him about my eye. He mouthed some pleasantries about hoping I could get my physical self back together, but otherwise warned me that my standing/status would evaporate if I actually took the leave suggested by my doctor.

Long story short, I had a scleral buckle operation in March of 2012 on my left eye. I was out of work for nearly 6 months trying to recover from complications as a result of that surgery – double-vision, headaches, floaters. 6 months with no pay, sitting in a dark room with a patch over one eye, while I was in limbo as to the fate of my career. In July of 2012, my office – the place to which I had devoted my whole life for nearly 8 years – sent me the professional equivalent of a “Dear John” letter. Because I had “abandoned” my position, the firm was going to replace me. I scrabbled together the last of my savings and hired an attorney to represent me. She sent a few threatening letters, got me my 401(d) funds released, but otherwise fizzled. I just didn’t have the cash to press a real suit against the bastards.

I drifted for a bit professionally. Worked for a competitor firm for about 10 days, got a ridiculously high offer to work for a different firm out of the blue (with a 50% raise) and jumped ship. I should have known that a firm that would offer such a crazy salary was a one-way ticket to Insanity-ville. I worked for two certifiably nutzoid women. They hired 7 new associates at once, and started picking them off one by one, firing one every two weeks like clockwork through the holiday season. My firing occurred days before Halloween 2012. I went into the holidays last winter with no job, no savings, and no hope.

That’s when I really found out what stress felt like. I would obsessively peruse the job boards daily, sending out 50-60 resumes a day. I took 65 interviews over the course of 4 months – not counting follow-up meet-and-greets and appointments with (completely fucking useless) recruiters. I was a basket case. If I wasn’t on an interview day, I wouldn’t put on clothes or shower. I would just obsessively refresh and refresh and refresh the news groups, looking for any job posting that I might even remotely qualify for. I started having the heart palpitations again. Daily hives. I ground my teeth at night. I fell into a deep, deep depression, characterized mostly by long hours in front of the computer, clicking from porn site to porn site, jacking myself joylessly.

In March, I got an offer for my current job. But one week before I started, I was placed in the hospital, having learned I was diabetic. My sugar level was near 800, several times the norm for adult man my age. I had bladder issues, feeling like I needed to pee constantly; and could not drink enough liquid to satiate my thirst. Here I was thinking I had lost all this weight from the worry and the depression (at the end of the jobless period, I weighed only 265), when in fact my body was just unable to process the sugars I was taking in and had begun to eat its “reserves.” The diabetes was the culmination of all of my ailments. My doctor pieced together the fact that my eye issues were the earliest signs of the disease. Had I not caught the detachment in my left eye when I did, the complications of the diabetes would have been devastating, potentially irreversible.

The first day of my new legal job was the first day I was supposed to start shooting myself up with insulin. I threw a huge fit at the doctors while I sat, half-naked and feeling inhuman, in my hospital bed, bellowing that they couldn’t possibly know how much this job meant, and that I couldn’t jeopardize the work by bringing my new “junior junkie” kit into the office. They put me on the Novolog flex “pen,” allowed me to take my shots before and after work. Generally, it kept my blood sugar levels under control, but it had a few side effects that made work difficult for me. Chief among these complaints was a complete sugar crash at about 3 p.m. My body would just shut down. I would get sweaty and dizzy; and I could barely string together 3-4 words to make myself sound coherent. Gee, guess what time of day my new bosses would come to me with new assignments or to want to discuss my turned-in work? I struggled with this for months. My doctor telling me I needed to eat every single fucking time my sugar dropped made me livid. I started re-gaining my weight, which my doctor said was a “good sign.” My body was normalizing, getting healthy again. But once again, I was not happy. It’s hard to put into words the way my diabetes makes me feel – but it’s almost like the motor in a lawn mower revving to a sudden, debilitating halt. I’ve felt the sensation of “cold” for the first time in years. Prior to the diabetes diagnosis, I barely wore a coat in winter. I could sit bare-assed in front of an open window in January and not flinch. Now, I get chilly when my desk fan’s on “high.” With the sugar crashes, I would be fine for the better part of the day and then, at 3 p.m., be completely unable to function. I would come home, take my shot, eat dinner and fall promptly to sleep in my chair. And the depression came back, harder than ever. I lost interest in everything. I stopped feeling “good” in any way, shape or form. I stopped caring about how I looked or dressed. I stopped pretending I would get myself back into the gym. Sex was completely laughable. When I would get hard (which wasn't often), it felt like a detached rubber toy, and not “me.”

My doctor figured out eventually that I was being over-medicated for the diabetes. The insulin I was taking was using the sugar in my body faster than I could replace it. I was artificially hypoglycemic. Hence, the epic crashes. In the last 3-4 months, I have come off the insulin altogether and been weaned down to a single metformin pill a day. The lowest possible dose – because now my doctor sees me as only marginally diabetic.

The big issue of late is the fact that my energy levels, my mopiness, and my complete disinterest in sex had not revived since adjusting my diabetes medication. Again, on a whim, the doctor tested my testosterone levels. My “t” level was in the low 200s – well below normal for a man my age. I had suspected as much way back when I was riding the stress train at the old firm. Sex, especially, was something that I had to work at to enjoy. Without constant intense physical stimulation, I would lose interest mid-way through the act, my weak-to-begin-with erection would deflate, and I would just give up. Most times, I just wouldn’t even try.

Apparently when one aspect of your endocrine system collapses, other portions also give way. With my pancreas malfunctioning, my testicles decided to go on furlough too. I’m essentially in “andropause,” or as the tabloids call it: “male menopause,” which when I opened up about the condition to my “bear” buddies, seemed to be alarmingly common. The doctor put me on Androgel in early November. To date, my use of the Androgel has been a complete disaster. For the first couple of days, morning erections seemed to have returned. But only the first two days, and looking back, I really truly believe that happy accident to have been psychosomatic. I wanted the gel to work like gangbusters the moment I rubbed it in. All these months later, not only do I not believe that it's helping my sexual functioning, I truly believe it's actively hurting my ability to get and sustain a hard-on.

This past Thanksgiving weekend I began "crashing" again, severely. I could keep up my energy for most of the day, but by 3 p.m., I was physically back to being a wreck. I just wanted to curl into a ball and shut out the world. For the week after Thanksgiving, the energy slide continued, while simultaneously the stress at work started the usual holiday skyrocketing.

Long story short: I suspected that I wasn't taking enough of the androgel that I had been prescribed. When I had my testosterone levels retested in early December, I had dropped 100 points LOWER than the test score that got me diagnosed as a "low T" sufferer in the first place.

My doctor upped my morning gel application to 3 pumps a day. But strangely, the more medication that I take, the worse that I feel; and my sexual functioning is practically gone. I'm no longer in near-impotence territory. It's now full-blown erectile dysfunction. I feel like I've been chemically castrated. Before I started the gel, so long as I was properly "motivated," I had no issue getting it up. I just had an issue keeping it up for as long as it took to get the job done. Now, forget about it. I could be neck-deep in my partner's lap and nothing would make me stand at attention. It's really alarming to think that a drug that is supposed to have positive ED effects, has exactly the opposite effect. This gel has completely killed my sex drive. Completely.

Worse yet is the pain in my testicales that seems to have coincided with the increase in my gel prescription. I've taken a 10-day antibiotic regimen for supposed epididymitis, but I can't shake the "kicked in the balls" sensation that has plagued me since before Christmas. I'm still extremely tender. I walk practically bow-legged, like I just disembarked from weeks of hard riding in the saddle. I still have problems bending over to tie my shoes without wincing.

And the sexual functioning issue is worse than ever. It's like I'm dead from the waist down. I can't even masturbate at this point. My penis has gone into permanent "turtle" mode, where I've shrunk up so much that I look like I've regrown a foreskin. Most times, I'm just barely a "knub" resting on top of my severely drawn up set of testicles. Like I think I've said before, with the Androgel, I feel like I've somehow been chemically castrated. It's doing almost exactly the opposite of what it's touted to do, and I'm extremely pissed to be at this point. I can't find any information about other guys where the gel had this kind of effect. The closest I can come are rare anecdotes by guys who claim the drug didn't do anything to them at all, but nothing about how the drug seems to have exacerbated or caused sexual dysfuntion. Rather than "sexualize" my life, and give me the extra youthful kick that my mid-40s body lacked, the gel has sucked all of the vitality out of me. I feel worse than ever.

My doctor's only "fix" seemed to be to let me ride this out for a few more weeks/months, and to toss ED pills at me like they were candy. That, too, makes me indescribably angry. I feel like I'm way, way too young to be relying on viagra or cialis for erectile function. Before the "low T" treatment, I had the occasional bouts that every middle-aged guy has with erectile functioning ("whiskey dick" is a real thing, fellas), but the sexual aspects of my life hadn't come to a complete dead stop, like they have now.

I have an appointment to see my doctor on Monday. I'm having my "T" tested again. If the results come back still below normal, I'm insisting that I switch from the gel to a weekly shot. I'm also asking for a referral to either a urologist or an endricrinologist. I can't let this go any longer. I don't feel like my primary physician is taking this seriously, or that he understand how much this condition is ripping me apart mentally.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but I'm at my wit's end with this erectile dysfunction thing. I was never told that ED could come as a "package deal" with diabetes. And I certainly was never told that use of hormone replacement therapies for middle-aged guys could leave me a chemical eunuch. I really need to talk about these issues with other guys. I just don't know what to do.

[tomas1]

Wow, grunter, what disturbing (albeit very well written) story.
I replied to your exercise post on another board here, but didn't know the whole story.

Somehow, you have to find a more sympathetic primary care doctor. That's not always easy I know.

I do recommend the weekly Testosterone shots, and since you have self injected, I'd do it that way.
If money is an issue, try to get a prescription for a vial that gives 25 injections.
Some doctors (probably most) won't prescribe that I've found.
It brings the price down from around $20 a pop to less than $3.

Don't think you're too young to get penile injections either. Many guys your age use that method.
I do think when you get you Testosterone levels under control, your libido will return.

Good luck finding solutions to your problems and I really wish you well.

[hoosierphilly]

I was using 8 pumps a day of Andro-gel and low normal levels...then Oxford insurance said I had to use testim started with 1 tube for a month....way too little readings of like 69, now 2 tubes. Since Obamacare threw me under the bus...we began Medicare and United Healthcare permits Andro-gel, but I am in the donut hole for awhile already this year. Can't believe testostone made you impotent. You may early warnings of circulating issues get a better MD and check out your heart health....go to a cardiologist for that. Get a more attentive GP and urologist although they can be hard to find. Urologists love to prescribe prostrate med, I stopped and used and use good saw palmetto blends. Don't forget blood pressure pills disrupt and have ED. Read my posts on electrical stimulation effects. I have better and more sensitive erections since beginning those treatments. Also the brain releases those sex hormones and they must pass through the spinal areas to the penis. Back stress can interfere with those nerves....My wife just found the French research article on that the other day. If any one wants it I will have her relocate it. According to Web MD some people do better on Armour thyroid....and loose weight they gained from diabetes....read their reports under medication reviews of that. Anyway I just asked my MD to prescribe it for me and started it Sat. We are all different and a lab experiment as my wife says.

[grunter]

hoosierphilly: That's the thing. Each new medication my primary care physician puts me on seems to kill the erection a little bit more. The blood pressure medicine, the diabetes medication, the "low t" replacement therapy, and now, to address the funk that's fallen over me because of the ED issues, a new anti-depressant, that also has sexual side effects.

On the plus side, my A1C hemoglobin test came back from last week with another precipitous drop - such a drop, in fact, that my doctor asked me to halve my dose of the metformin. Essentially, I have progressed to the point where I am only marginally diabetic, if at all. Chances are if I start exercising regularly, I may be taken off the metformin altogether, which should help significantly with the ED. At that same appointment, my doctor agreed that the Androgel wasn't working. My "T" level was still hovering at about 200 after 3 months on 3 pumps of the gel a day. Once insurance approves, I will be switching to Fortesta.

Also, my doctor gave me a Cialis sample to try out. Holy shit, that stuff works like gangbusters. I'm not terribly happy that my combined medications right now make it necessary that I treat my ED with a pill, but hot damn, it's hard to argue with a rock hard erection that came and went for 3 days straight. I felt like a teenager again; and I loved it.

[becketma]

“serotonin acting as an inhibitor while dopamine and norepinephrine act as a stimulator of sexual desire”

testosterone can be converted to estrogen

http://blogs.christianpost.com/health/i ... ogen-5890/

I just skip pitches for unproven supplements.

Consider asking your Dr if estrogen uptake inhibitors and or blockers might help you.

becketma

[grunter]

In good news this afternoon, my doctor called to let me know that the A1C test I took last week showed my blood sugar level had returned to normal, and had stayed normal for a number of months. The drop from February wasn't a fluke.

He suggested that I stop my metformin medication for the time being. Although I am to test my sugar levels for the next few weeks to make sure they stay even.

Careful diet and exercise do pay off, I suppose. *sheepish grin*

Here's hoping that the dropping of metformin from my daily routine will improve my hard-ons.

[ohohiakane]

grunter...

improved hardons is your gold star for following doctor's orders and using will power to get the sugar down!!!!

Congratulations.... and now use the hardon well and often !!!

Bill

[chandlerman4649]

Guys,

I don't know what to add to all your writings. BUT I will let you know that AndroGel and Axiron both worked VERY WELL FOR ME. My uro gave me a sample bottle of Axrion and immediately after starting use, I got levels of energy back that I haven't had for the past 15 years!

My insurance company contacted my uro and said that I had to switch from Axiron to AndroGel 1.62 pump to continue their coverage. I have been using AndroGel for 2 months (80 mg/day) and when I first started using testosterone treatment my T level was 329, low for a man my age. My latest T blood test indicated my T level is 957. When my uro saw the numbers he asked me how I felt and I told him that "I feel like a 23 year old horny rabbit!"

I turn 65 in one week and the coverage for AndroGel pump is way, way too high for me to continue using. My part D prescription plan would cost me $488.00 per month just for the AndroGel, a cost I cannot afford. Now I need to get back to my uro and find out what to do. In the meantime, I have been slowly reducing the dose so my last prescription will cover about two months of testosterone treatment.

No matter what happens, I can absolutely verify that both Axiron and AndroGel worked GREAT FOR ME.

Bob