24 yr/old Low T Hypothyroid Need Help

[kelkel]

Anyone on TRT should be encouraged to give blood on a regular basis. If your levels are to high then your doc can write you a script for a therapeutic draw. Giving blood is good for you and good for society. If your on TRT it's a good idea to do it every couple months.

You obviously have absorption issues. Whether it's related to your bodyfat (no offense, you are a big boy) I'm not sure. Remember agel is applied to the skin. The skin acts as a resevoir for it as it does not disperse immediately. Test is going to do a few things at this point. Its going to turn to DHT pretty much everywhere in the body (via 5AR enxyme) except muscle. Gels are known to blow up DHT levels. It's going to aromatize to estrogen and the more bodyfat you have the more propensity for this to occur, especially abdominal fat. Then a small portion is going to actually go to work for you as "free" testosterone. Normally 2-3 %.

Blood work is your first step. Take a look at the Finding a TRT Physician sticky for a little guidance along with what your already planning on getting. Be sure to check your DHT levels as well as a full thyroid panel and a sensitive estrogen assay. Emphasis on "sensitive" assay.

My initial thought in conjunction with my first post here is to immediately get the BW done and avoid TRT if at all possible. You are to young and you need to find the root cause and fix it. We assume thyroid is playing a part here but is there anything else holding back progress. There are alternatives to TRT such as clomid therapy or HCG/Nolva in effort to jump start your system. Barring a pituitary tumor or testical issue then I'd avoid trt at all costs.

[xtitan1]

Anyone on TRT should be encouraged to give blood on a regular basis. If your levels are to high then your doc can write you a script for a therapeutic draw. Giving blood is good for you and good for society. If your on TRT it's a good idea to do it every couple months.

Yeah but considering I haven't really absorbed the AndroGel, can we really believe the high CBC levels (RBC, HCT, HGB) are due to TRT? Either way, is there a way I can just have blood drawn without donating it because I'm worried since I'm not really sure what is causing my fatigue that I will hurt someone by giving them my blood. Last thing I want is for anyone else on this earth to experience what I'm going through.

You obviously have absorption issues. Whether it's related to your bodyfat (no offense, you are a big boy) I'm not sure. Remember agel is applied to the skin. The skin acts as a resevoir for it as it does not disperse immediately. Test is going to do a few things at this point. Its going to turn to DHT pretty much everywhere in the body (via 5AR enxyme) except muscle. Gels are known to blow up DHT levels. It's going to aromatize to estrogen and the more bodyfat you have the more propensity for this to occur, especially abdominal fat. Then a small portion is going to actually go to work for you as "free" testosterone. Normally 2-3 %.

Haha no offense here brutha. Ever since the fatigue started I've gained a ton of weight, so I'm kind of in the mindset that it's just a temporary symptom and will be returning to normal as soon as I get this figured out. I agree about the AndroGel from the research I've started doing on this forum, so if I eventually decide to do TRT (more on that in a sec), I would probably want to go the injection route.

Blood work is your first step. Take a look at the Finding a TRT Physician sticky for a little guidance along with what your already planning on getting. Be sure to check your DHT levels as well as a full thyroid panel and a sensitive estrogen assay. Emphasis on "sensitive" assay.

Roger that on the sensitive estrogen assay and the DHT. As for the thyroid panel I am seeing a guy who knows his stuff (www.drrind.com) and just recently did a full thyroid panel a month and a half ago, and we decided to up the Armour Thyroid. If I remember correctly, my FT4 was great but my FT3 was low, indicating poor FT4-FT3 conversion. Hopefully taking Armour, instead of straight Levothyroxine (it's generic Synthroid which is T4 only). Whatever issues remain, IMO, are due to something besides thyroid, or at least aren't going to get better because the hypothyroidism has been pretty much addressed.

My initial thought in conjunction with my first post here is to immediately get the BW done and avoid TRT if at all possible. You are to young and you need to find the root cause and fix it. We assume thyroid is playing a part here but is there anything else holding back progress. There are alternatives to TRT such as clomid therapy or HCG/Nolva in effort to jump start your system. Barring a pituitary tumor or testical issue then I'd avoid trt at all costs.

Believe me, having to do TRT or HRT scares the sh*t out of me, especially because I want to have kids (maybe I'll go to a sperm bank before/if I start TRT/HRT) but also I'm just wary of taking powerful anything on a long-term basis. If I can avoid this stuff and feel better, that would make me a lot less nervous, but I'm also unable to work, much less do pretty much anything, without feeling like I'm going to fall asleep.

Now to the most important part: when you say find the root cause, I'm confused. The thyroid is pretty much fixed, my prolactin is normal and I don't feel lumps on a self-exam so it's probably not cancer (I've had this for 4 years almost now), and I've seen like 11 specialists. This hormone issue is pretty much all that's left. Again, I don't WANT to go on TRT/HRT, but it's the only thing left it seems.

[kelkel]

Yeah but considering I haven't really absorbed the AndroGel, can we really believe the high CBC levels (RBC, HCT, HGB) are due to TRT? Either way, is there a way I can just have blood drawn without donating it because I'm worried since I'm not really sure what is causing my fatigue that I will hurt someone by giving them my blood. Last thing I want is for anyone else on this earth to experience what I'm going through. Regardless of the cause, donate. They will subsequently test your blood and make the correct decision about its usefullness



Haha no offense here brutha. Ever since the fatigue started I've gained a ton of weight, so I'm kind of in the mindset that it's just a temporary symptom and will be returning to normal as soon as I get this figured out. I agree about the AndroGel from the research I've started doing on this forum, so if I eventually decide to do TRT (more on that in a sec), I would probably want to go the injection route. Agree with the injection route at this point if you choose not to try a restart, which I would encourage BTW



Roger that on the sensitive estrogen assay and the DHT. As for the thyroid panel I am seeing a guy who knows his stuff (www.drrind.com) and just recently did a full thyroid panel a month and a half ago, and we decided to up the Armour Thyroid. If I remember correctly, my FT4 was great but my FT3 was low, indicating poor FT4-FT3 conversion. Hopefully taking Armour, instead of straight Levothyroxine (it's generic Synthroid which is T4 only). Whatever issues remain, IMO, are due to something besides thyroid, or at least aren't going to get better because the hypothyroidism has been pretty much addressed. Great then. So now to figure out what's holding back your T level. Did you ever get LH & FSH levels pre-TRT and if so, what were they? This leads to the MRI option as a microadenoma can slowly squeeze you out of T. Got personal experience on that one. Also very curious about your E level and if your converting most all your T to E due to higher than normal BF level for you.



Believe me, having to do TRT or HRT scares the sh*t out of me, especially because I want to have kids (maybe I'll go to a sperm bank before/if I start TRT/HRT) but also I'm just wary of taking powerful anything on a long-term basis. If I can avoid this stuff and feel better, that would make me a lot less nervous, but I'm also unable to work, much less do pretty much anything, without feeling like I'm going to fall asleep.

Now to the most important part: when you say find the root cause, I'm confused. The thyroid is pretty much fixed, my prolactin is normal and I don't feel lumps on a self-exam so it's probably not cancer (I've had this for 4 years almost now), and I've seen like 11 specialists. This hormone issue is pretty much all that's left. Again, I don't WANT to go on TRT/HRT, but it's the only thing left it seems.

I mean your still not really sure exactly what is holding your T back so that is what has to be figured out, IMO. If you mean your prolactin is normal so your ruling out a pit tumor issue, don't do that. There are multiple types of microadenomas, not just prolactinomas (unless I misunderstood you there)

Not sure if anything I've said helps but if something leads you in the correct direction then great! Keep us posted on your course of action on this thread please. Very interesting case!