Hello all,
I've been lurking on this board for about half a year now, gathering up what gems of information I can get my hands on. But I'm now at a kind of crossroads and want to see what you all have to say with your much larger breadth of knowledge! Here is my background (I apologize in advance for giving more info than you need, but context can be important.. and, maybe also because it's nice to vent when you don't want to talk to anyone else about this stuff):
32 year old male, 6'3", about 265 lbs, 28% body fat now. My "yoyoing" weight has been an issue all my life, as has energy levels and motivation. However, I've been working out regularly for going on 8 years. I was this same weight at the heaviest of my life back when I started (although 40% body fat). At first it took me about a year to get down under 200, then another few years to get down to my lowest at 170 (5% bodyfat according to Omtron at the time - I never used the calipers because I always had loose skin). That was about 4 years ago. At that point all of my friends said I was starting to look anorexic (I wasn't - I was on a keto diet and working out 2 hours a day 6 days a week - unemployed will do that for you), so I decided to start bulking up. Well, apparently my body REALLY likes bulking up because fast forward to now and I'm back to where I started, except traded a little bit of fat for muscle.
At this point, however, the weight management issues are only secondary to my complete lack of energy & motivation, coupled with a fairly constant mental fatigue ("fog") and higher anxiety & stress than I should have. I brought these issues up with my GP last year and she tested Vitamin D, Thyroid, and Testosterone. Thyroid was fine, but Vitamin D and T were critically low. Got on prescription for D, referred to Uro for T. Uro put me on Axiron gel - my T actually went LOWER and I felt even worse (I understand now it is likely because the test converted to estrogen while traversing through all my fat). He said to triple up on the dose and see him again in 6 months.
That 6 month meeting was last week and I was able to convince him to run labs on more than he wanted. I suspected Estrogen was high because I've always had symptoms: Emotional, sensitive, empathetic, weak jawline, lots of fat (see: moobs, but no hard spots luckily), lower sex drive, and mood swings. Those lab results are below. He does not believe there is an issue with my pituitary as my FSH and LH levels are low-normal. So he now wants to refer me to an Endo to figure out why things are as they are, but I think I could convince him to put me on injections as he is luckily pretty open to my input (he actually gave the 'I work for you' statement as many of you suggest).
Of note: I have an unhealthy and pathological fear of needles - always have, don't know why. I can't even watch my dogs get shots - the vet has to take them in the back room, or I will get woozy and sometimes feint. My parents told me when I was getting my shots for kindergarten it took three male orderlies to hold me down, and I had never had blood drawn in my life until just last year when this all started full swing. Yes, I understand it is irrational and all in my head, but that doesn't make it any easier to dispel
At this point now, I think I am at the point where the burden of my issues will outweigh my irrational fear and I need to 'just do it'.
So, I guess I have three questions here:
9/2012
I've been lurking on this board for about half a year now, gathering up what gems of information I can get my hands on. But I'm now at a kind of crossroads and want to see what you all have to say with your much larger breadth of knowledge! Here is my background (I apologize in advance for giving more info than you need, but context can be important.. and, maybe also because it's nice to vent when you don't want to talk to anyone else about this stuff):
32 year old male, 6'3", about 265 lbs, 28% body fat now. My "yoyoing" weight has been an issue all my life, as has energy levels and motivation. However, I've been working out regularly for going on 8 years. I was this same weight at the heaviest of my life back when I started (although 40% body fat). At first it took me about a year to get down under 200, then another few years to get down to my lowest at 170 (5% bodyfat according to Omtron at the time - I never used the calipers because I always had loose skin). That was about 4 years ago. At that point all of my friends said I was starting to look anorexic (I wasn't - I was on a keto diet and working out 2 hours a day 6 days a week - unemployed will do that for you), so I decided to start bulking up. Well, apparently my body REALLY likes bulking up because fast forward to now and I'm back to where I started, except traded a little bit of fat for muscle.
At this point, however, the weight management issues are only secondary to my complete lack of energy & motivation, coupled with a fairly constant mental fatigue ("fog") and higher anxiety & stress than I should have. I brought these issues up with my GP last year and she tested Vitamin D, Thyroid, and Testosterone. Thyroid was fine, but Vitamin D and T were critically low. Got on prescription for D, referred to Uro for T. Uro put me on Axiron gel - my T actually went LOWER and I felt even worse (I understand now it is likely because the test converted to estrogen while traversing through all my fat). He said to triple up on the dose and see him again in 6 months.
That 6 month meeting was last week and I was able to convince him to run labs on more than he wanted. I suspected Estrogen was high because I've always had symptoms: Emotional, sensitive, empathetic, weak jawline, lots of fat (see: moobs, but no hard spots luckily), lower sex drive, and mood swings. Those lab results are below. He does not believe there is an issue with my pituitary as my FSH and LH levels are low-normal. So he now wants to refer me to an Endo to figure out why things are as they are, but I think I could convince him to put me on injections as he is luckily pretty open to my input (he actually gave the 'I work for you' statement as many of you suggest).
Of note: I have an unhealthy and pathological fear of needles - always have, don't know why. I can't even watch my dogs get shots - the vet has to take them in the back room, or I will get woozy and sometimes feint. My parents told me when I was getting my shots for kindergarten it took three male orderlies to hold me down, and I had never had blood drawn in my life until just last year when this all started full swing. Yes, I understand it is irrational and all in my head, but that doesn't make it any easier to dispel
At this point now, I think I am at the point where the burden of my issues will outweigh my irrational fear and I need to 'just do it'.So, I guess I have three questions here:
- 1. Would you recommend not even messing with the Endo and instead just seeing if I can convince my Uro to prescribe injections? Or go with both to maybe try and figure out WHY this is happening?
- 2. Based on the labs below and my lifelong symptoms above, would you recommend an estrogen blocker? Or wait and see how my levels change after injections? If so, what kind and dosage? My uro had never even heard of them before I mentioned the possibility, but is open to the idea.
- 3. I am getting married in 2 months and we are concerned about the possibility of having kids (have none currently). How can I move forward while best ensuring my ability to procreate?
9/2012
- LH: 2.3
- FSH: 3.9
- Total T: 309.7
- Vitamin D: 13. D has been taken four times. 13 was first, then it went up to 30, then 43, and lastly it was 56 on 6/6. That is a lot better and middle of reference range, but still lowish and I plan to double up on my daily dose of 5,000IU.
- Total T: 226.9 - this was after being on Axiron for a month - yep, lower!
- Total T: 550 - this was after being on a triple dose of Axiron for 3 months - but that was such a pain (hard to do three times a day, messy, afraid of getting it on fiance/pets, etc.) and I continued to feel even worse than before the treatment.
- Total Test: 176.9 (holy crap) - yes, I had discontinued the Axiron for about a month leading up to it, for the same reasons above at 550
- Free Test: 49.8 (don't know the reference range - is this bad?)
- Estrogen: 195! Reference range they gave me was 'should 130 or less' (holy crap)
- Estradiol: 12.3
- Progesterone: 0.39 (reference 0.20 - 1.40)
