I've had my testosterone tested I tested perfectly fine the first time then the next time I was a
little low my doctor isn't wanting to put me on testosterone I feel myself slipping not as
strong and not as turned on as much as I have been is there really that much of a chance of
something going bad if I'm on it I'm this is a great question now we've I've gone over so
many times the natural ways to boost testosterone production one of the the quickest ways you can
get more testosterone is if you're not sleeping and you're not on a proper sleep cycle is to fix
that right because our testicles your testicles make the majority of their testosterone at night
during its regenerative and reparative sleep process right but sometimes too uh that may
not be enough you may do everything possible to optimize you may take the supplements that we've
talked about you may make these lifestyle changes but if your testosterone is still trending low not
necessarily trending low but you feel low you've got the symptoms right maybe you're having trouble
losing weight you know maybe the the belly has taken over and you can't lose it even though
you're doing all the right things right that could be your testosterone if you're Moody having mood
swings you know your your wife or your partner is like dang are you on your period right so
that's another thing hot flashes just getting hot all of a sudden and sweating that is a sign that
your testosterone could potentially be low so if feeling really weak really tired not having the
endurance and the stamina that you used to those could all be testosterone related issues so if you
are feeling that then you get your testosterone tested and they're like yeah it's borderline low
or it looks okay and you see the numbers and and it's and it's 400 or it's 500 total that
is likely way too low for you and that you need to have a conversation with a provider who knows
how to supplement testosterone now your family practitioner may know how to how to do that but
a lot of times if they're not doing it regularly enough then they may not know exactly what they're
doing you want someone who is dialed in to this process who reads the journals who really believes
in testosterone supplementation not someone who's just like wow well you know we might
put you on it I'm not really sure um and so what I wanted to do too is I wanted to kind of debunk
some of these these ideas for you you know like I think for a long time we thought if if you on
testosterone it can increase your risk of a heart attack that was a myth we thought for a long time
that if you were on testosterone that could fuel your prostate cancer that too has been proven to
be a myth so what I would love to do is provide for you maybe even like a whole resource sheet
of different Journal articles that you can share with your providers and and look through yourself
so you can know that generally speaking for the average gentleman testosterone replacement can
be positive now I say for the average gentleman because everybody's different for every 10 person
people that you talk to that say testosterone saved me I was depressed I was feeling low blah
blah blah you'll find one or two who say that maybe they they ended up with a blood clot or
maybe they weren't they didn't work for them or what have you but oftentimes with those cases I
wonder what type of testosterone they were taking taking now the difference difference between you
know like getting the the Depo testosterone or the methyl testosterone that you get like at
Walgreens versus getting the compounded version at the compound pharmacy is just a small little
detail now that we we use the word natural and lab made and man-made a lot but both of them are
going to be made in a lab whether this is the bio-dietical kind or whether this is the kind
that you would get mass produced at Walgreens I think the main difference being so if you look
at that this is basically this is testosterone c19 h28 and O2 the the main difference between
these different types of testosterone is really that when you get the bio identical version of
it is what they're they're actually doing is they're using things like yams and and to make
a version of testosterone that looks just like this and what you're doing when you get the kind
that's at like CVS or Walgreens then what you're getting more so of is a version that's made in
the lab too but they are altering it a little so that when it comes into your body your body has
to change it to this active form if that makes any sense right and the reason that they do that
makes is because they got to make money off of it right so they got to make it a little different a
little changing and so on and so forth but the bio identical version just comes into the body ready
for your body to use and that's the big difference when it comes to that now I think deciding whether
or not testosterone is something that you need and what's is right for you has to be a personal
choice you have to say you know am I willing to try this because what I find is testosterone
replacement is the most exciting for you when you first start it because you feel amazing you know
that like you feel testosterone as it's going up and you feel testosterone as it's going down you
don't necessarily feel the euphoria that people talk about when they get on testosterone while
you're just maintaining well your levels are normal and so I think as providers we've got
to be clearer with you about that that usually when you get on testosterone you're not going
to see a massive change in your erections this is more subtle changes in how you're feeling and how
your body is performing and then maintaining it um you know really doesn't for most guys they're
like yeah you know I feel pretty good but when they really notice it is when it's around the
rise when you first start it if something happens and you withdraw from it then you really feel that
too you're like oh I'm tired I'm just not feeling like myself one thing that your doctor has to be
cognizant of when they put you on testosterone is what are your estrogen levels doing
what is your hemoglobin and hematocrit doing and how your overall body is handling this
particularly if you're using kind of one of the synthetic testosterones how's your liver handling
it you know um and those are the big things to pay attention to and of course your free and total
testosterone free and total testosterone meaning free what how much of it can my body use and then
the total how much total is there all right so these are these are great great great questions