Low T

[tomas1]

Rider's experience sounds a lot like mine. I was lucky that mine hit after Medicare.
One funny (OK not funny) thing was when I took pills and they stopped working was when I started injecting T. Now, I was impotent and horney. Tri-mix got me another couple years until the inevitable happened like for most of us and the implant was the final frontier.

Oldbeek, I'm glad the final word isn't out on T and PC.
I'll have to take my chances, because life is worth living for me (and hopefully my wife).
I have to thank our lucky stars for good health, good mental capacity and being frugal and financial secure.

[NeedWood]

I appreciate everyone’s advice that has been given. I have to go get more labs done on Monday. If I was to want to go with injections by myself, what gauge of needle do you prefer for injections in the buttocks?

[tomas1]

I use 25 gauge. I tried smaller, but had problems injecting. In my cause the pressure required to get the med in me was too great and the needle separated from the syringe. I loaded the syringe with a larger needle and swapped it for the finer. 25 gauge isn't all that bad to me.

[Simbarn]

T causing PC cancer is a myth. The doctor that wrote the paper on it got a Pulitzer Prize, so everyone follows it. Actual study only involved 3 patients and was done in 1946. Would not qualify as a school term paper today. Read or watch on U-tube,,, Dr John Mulhall from sloan kettering. He is world renown for his work. He expands on ALL the down sides of low T. Short answer is PC will thrive on T 0f 200. Unless you get it to absolute 0 , PC could grow on it. There is a practice in LA that espouses that low t is what causes PC. Low T results in more aggressive cases of PC, studies have suggested.

There does seem to be quite a lot of recent research suggesting that it is indeed the loss of T and also DHT and a concomitant increase in E2 that may be a significant player in the initial cause of prostate cancer. I am particularly interested in the loss of DHT here. Much of testosterone's actions in the reproductive organs may actually be mediated via DHT. IMO it plays a vital role in the maintenance of the erectile tissues and in the prostate itself. Using drugs like Finasteride may actually do the opposite to what had been thought, when there is no prostate cancer evident. They may actually predispose one to getting it by wiping out DHT!
I do find it absurd that such an important hormone that the body continues to produce in the male throughout adult life via testosterone has been considered superfluous by many in the medical community. Just because we do not have the capabilities to understand how important a particular organic compound is in our bodies at this time, it should not result in such a naive conclusion.

[Simbarn]

I don't know if you would find shrunken testicles a problem?
To me, that was the only side effect I had.

The loss of testicle size is the result of the pituitary and the hypothalamus shutting down production of "upstream hormones". This is a side effect of TRT that can have consequences in some men, particularly younger men and I am not just talking about loss of fertility. Good sexual function in the male is the result of all these hormones playing their part in all the areas related to sexual function: the penis, the testicles, the seminal vesicles, the prostate and the brain. Shutting down most of them and only replacing one: testosterone, can be an issue. Younger men on this protocol generally feel there are gross inadequacies with TRT. It surprises me how many Endos give little consideration to this cessation of gonadotropins and GNRH. LH has important actions in the body other than just stimulating the leydig cells in the testes to produce testosterone. It also has actions in the brain. Some men develop symptoms of anxiety after time when LH has been suspended. FSH stimulates the production of not only sperm, but also ejaculate and promotes the production of this fluid in the seminal vesicles which is part of the sexual urge a male experiences in the groin area. If levels of FSH drop, over time the refractory period is also lengthened, the urge to ejaculate becomes less as the stimulus to restock so to speak has been severely compromised. FSH is an important player in libido and the sexual urge too. There will be other functions that these hormones also do that we have not yet discovered.
The whole point of male biological sexual function is the successful emission of sperm in a reasonable volume of semen. Stop this and you limit sexual ability IMO.

Therefore IMO it is paramount that if one is to undertake TRT, some form of auxiliary medication is required to keep the gonads functioning at the same time. Not only is it preferable to have the size of the testicles retained (I am sorry, I do disagree completely with the other posters saying no one cares about testicle size! I have found women and men are very turned on by good sized gonads, myself included!) keeping them functioning also improves sexual sensation in the area as well. I found that my scrotum lost all sexual sensation after time on just testosterone alone. This area was highly erogenous for me beforehand. It was as though the area went to sleep and just felt like the rest of my body. I also noticed a substantial decrease of ejaculate from the loss of gonadotropins, this I feel affected how often I could have sex and or masturbate. It took much longer to build up again.
It all made sense to me, cut out these important sex hormones and you get compromised sexual function.
Some men are lucky when on TRT, their bodies keep producing just enough gonadotropins to reduce these sexual issues. However, many men end up after a year on TRT, sometimes longer, with complete shut down and start to feel not so good on testosterone replacement and start complaining of worse sexual function than before being on T replacement. It can take some time for the deleterious effects of HPTA shut down to take hold, especially the effects of no LH in the brain.

The only way we have to remedy this is the use of HCG or r-HCG: Pregnyl or Ovidrel in conjunction with TRT and possibly also now with Gonadorelin injections and or Enclomiphene citrate. Pregnyl and Ovidrel are LH analogues and they also have some FSH action. They can stimulate the testes to keep working and mitigate some of the sexual issues experienced for reasons explained above. They are not exact replicas of our own endogenous gonadotropins so they will not give as perfect a result as a normal healthy young male would experience.
Enclomiphene may work better for some as it can stimulate the pituitary to keep producing natural LH and FSH, this I think will depend on the individuals reaction to the drug and the effect exogenous T has on their pituitary. It has the added benefit of being just a tablet.
The same could be said for Gonadorelin. This is very new to me and some clinics are using it in place of HCG or Ovidrel. It also stimulates the pituitary to produce natural hormones as it is identical to GNRH. However, it is very short acting so I am unsure as to how much and how often it would be needed for a reasonable result. It is a subq injection similar to HCG. HCG has a much longer half-life in comparison.

TRT is not a one size fits all protocol. This you have to understand thoroughly. Each guy will respond differently to it and have their own set of issues with the medications used. How the testosterone is administered and how much is used is also vital, but the loss of upstream hormones is an issue which cannot be ignored.
For young men, I advise against it unless there is no other option. For older men the benefits can outweigh the negatives if administered correctly.
As I have mentioned before, I feel older men expect much less from the treatment as any improvement is welcome. Younger men with their highly tuned and sensitive bodies are far more likely to feel the inadequacies of TRT.

[Mike_b]

^ with all due respect sir, does testosterone cure penile injuries? Thanks

[Mike_b]

I don't know if you would find shrunken testicles a problem?
To me, that was the only side effect I had.

The loss of testicle size is the result of the pituitary and the hypothalamus shutting down production of "upstream hormones". This is a side effect of TRT that can have consequences in some men, particularly younger men and I am not just talking about loss of fertility. Good sexual function in the male is the result of all these hormones playing their part in all the areas related to sexual function: the penis, the testicles, the seminal vesicles, the prostate and the brain. Shutting down most of them and only replacing one: testosterone, can be an issue. Younger men on this protocol generally feel there are gross inadequacies with TRT. It surprises me how many Endos give little consideration to this cessation of gonadotropins and GNRH. LH has important actions in the body other than just stimulating the leydig cells in the testes to produce testosterone. It also has actions in the brain. Some men develop symptoms of anxiety after time when LH has been suspended. FSH stimulates the production of not only sperm, but also ejaculate and promotes the production of this fluid in the seminal vesicles which is part of the sexual urge a male experiences in the groin area. If levels of FSH drop, over time the refractory period is also lengthened, the urge to ejaculate becomes less as the stimulus to restock so to speak has been severely compromised. FSH is an important player in libido and the sexual urge too. There will be other functions that these hormones also do that we have not yet discovered.
The whole point of male biological sexual function is the successful emission of sperm in a reasonable volume of semen. Stop this and you limit sexual ability IMO.

Therefore IMO it is paramount that if one is to undertake TRT, some form of auxiliary medication is required to keep the gonads functioning at the same time. Not only is it preferable to have the size of the testicles retained (I am sorry, I do disagree completely with the other posters saying no one cares about testicle size! I have found women and men are very turned on by good sized gonads, myself included!) keeping them functioning also improves sexual sensation in the area as well. I found that my scrotum lost all sexual sensation after time on just testosterone alone. This area was highly erogenous for me beforehand. It was as though the area went to sleep and just felt like the rest of my body. I also noticed a substantial decrease of ejaculate from the loss of gonadotropins, this I feel affected how often I could have sex and or masturbate. It took much longer to build up again.
It all made sense to me, cut out these important sex hormones and you get compromised sexual function.
Some men are lucky when on TRT, their bodies keep producing just enough gonadotropins to reduce these sexual issues. However, many men end up after a year on TRT, sometimes longer, with complete shut down and start to feel not so good on testosterone replacement and start complaining of worse sexual function than before being on T replacement. It can take some time for the deleterious effects of HPTA shut down to take hold, especially the effects of no LH in the brain.

The only way we have to remedy this is the use of HCG or r-HCG: Pregnyl or Ovidrel in conjunction with TRT and possibly also now with Gonadorelin injections and or Enclomiphene citrate. Pregnyl and Ovidrel are LH analogues and they also have some FSH action. They can stimulate the testes to keep working and mitigate some of the sexual issues experienced for reasons explained above. They are not exact replicas of our own endogenous gonadotropins so they will not give as perfect a result as a normal healthy young male would experience.
Enclomiphene may work better for some as it can stimulate the pituitary to keep producing natural LH and FSH, this I think will depend on the individuals reaction to the drug and the effect exogenous T has on their pituitary. It has the added benefit of being just a tablet.
The same could be said for Gonadorelin. This is very new to me and some clinics are using it in place of HCG or Ovidrel. It also stimulates the pituitary to produce natural hormones as it is identical to GNRH. However, it is very short acting so I am unsure as to how much and how often it would be needed for a reasonable result. It is a subq injection similar to HCG. HCG has a much longer half-life in comparison.

TRT is not a one size fits all protocol. This you have to understand thoroughly. Each guy will respond differently to it and have their own set of issues with the medications used. How the testosterone is administered and how much is used is also vital, but the loss of upstream hormones is an issue which cannot be ignored.
For young men, I advise against it unless there is no other option. For older men the benefits can outweigh the negatives if administered correctly.
As I have mentioned before, I feel older men expect much less from the treatment as any improvement is welcome. Younger men with their highly tuned and sensitive bodies are far more likely to feel the inadequacies of TRT.

With All due respect, will testosterone replacement therapy heal my penile injury?

[Mike_b]

I also have low t

[Simbarn]

^ with all due respect sir, does testosterone cure penile injuries? Thanks

If your testosterone is within normal limits and you have no low T symptoms, taking extra testosterone in the hope that it will help heal an injury to the tissues in the penis would not be of any help IMO. Testosterone and DHT are needed to keep the penis healthy. They both perform maintenance actions. If T was very low, it could in this instance, possibly retard the healing of such an injury or even exacerbate the issue through oxidative stress and fibrosis. This would most likely occur due to the lack of nocturnal erections of which are testosterone dependent.

[Mike_b]

^ with all due respect sir, does testosterone cure penile injuries? Thanks

If your testosterone is within normal limits and you have no low T symptoms, taking extra testosterone in the hope that it will help heal an injury to the tissues in the penis would not be of any help IMO. Testosterone and DHT are needed to keep the penis healthy. They both perform maintenance actions. If T was very low, it could in this instance, possibly retard the healing of such an injury or even exacerbate the issue through oxidative stress and fibrosis. This would most likely occur due to the lack of nocturnal erections of which are testosterone dependent.

Thank you for the reply sir, I was diagnosed with low t. Waiting for the endocrinologist to call. The referral was made by my uro. He told me my kidney functions were well. I have read what you said. I am excited to start treatment