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Experiences with Testosterone Therapy UPDATE BAD DECISION
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I am 47yo who exercises at least 10 hours per week. When exercising for a specific event I may train 12-15 hours a week. For the last several years I have just continued to gain weight and not get much fitter. I am 6' and weight in 242lbs. Put on 50 lbs in the last 2.5 years all the while exercising pretty much everyday. I really don't eat that much, granted some of it is not the healthiest. For the last few years, a friend has been bugging me to get my T level checked because he can't believe my size compared to my exercise level. I went to my PCP and had him test my T level when he did my annual physical.

I was shocked when my level came back at 164. Normal is 400-1200. When I had gotten it checked I figured even if it was a little low I would likely not get any treatment. But, 164 is really low and I have read some of the health issues related to low T. So now I am trying to decide do I want to seek treatment. FWIW I am not a competitive athlete. Never done a tri. The only timed event I have done is marathons (4:12PR running 60-70mpw). Try to do a few organized bike century tours every year.

I would like to hear some personnel experiences with T therapy. How much did it help if any? How long before you felt results? How long were you on therapy?
Last edited by: hazben: Sep 27, 15 6:52
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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This should be good.

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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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hazben wrote:
I am 47yo who exercises at least 10 hours per week. When exercising for a specific event I may train 12-15 hours a week. For the last several years I have just continued to gain weight and not get much fitter. I am 6' and weight in 242lbs. Put on 50 lbs in the last 2.5 years all the while exercising pretty much everyday. I really don't eat that much, granted some of it is not the healthiest. For the last few years, a friend has been bugging me to get my T level checked because he can't believe my size compared to my exercise level. I went to my PCP and had him test my T level when he did my annual physical.


I was shocked when my level came back at 164. Normal is 400-1200. When I had gotten it checked I figured even if it was a little low I would likely not get any treatment. But, 164 is really low and I have read some of the health issues related to low T. So now I am trying to decide do I want to seek treatment. FWIW I am not a competitive athlete. Never done a tri. The only timed event I have done is marathons (4:12PR running 60-70mpw). Try to do a few organized bike century tours every year.

I would like to hear some personnel experiences with T therapy. How much did it help if any? How long before you felt results? How long were you on therapy?


A few questions:

  1. You said you don't eat well, what do you eat?
  2. How much sleep do you get?
  3. What does your exercise consist of?
  4. How much stress do you have in your life

If you fix all of these, there is a good chance with your level of exercise, you can stop gaining weight without doing anything funky. If you can fix 2 and 4 alone in the list above, that can be very positive to restoring good health, but that takes more work on a daily basis than getting the doc to boost your T.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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I remember asking my doctor one time about the rash of T prescriptions among middle aged men, and wanted his opinion on whether I needed it. He asked me, "if a good looking woman walks by, do you pay attention?" I said, "of course". He said, "then you don't need testosterone."

Most men who are on T need to make lifestyle changes first. More/better quality sleep, lift weights, less exhausting exercise, manage life stress, etc.

---------------------

"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right."
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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"Don't eat that much" is a pretty vague statement. Quantify that if you can, especially if, as you say, some of it isn't the healthiest. It is amazing how many calories are packed into some pretty small quantities of food and beverages. Do you drink regular (ie sugary) soft drinks? That's a huge amount of calories right there.

No idea on the T replacement, never even considered it as an option for me.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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because it's next to impossible to get a TUE for testosterone therapy and many if not most guys here are competitive age group
triathletes I don't think you'll get many willing to chime in on their personal experiences with T therapy.

Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [pattersonpaul] [ In reply to ]
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I was talking to an athlete who happened to have a conversation at a race with a Doctor. He said folks would be blown away how many are using T. This doctor has
triathletes all the time ask him to get on T. He said he generally with not support but knows plenty of doctors in his area that for the money will give anyone T that
can afford it.

So folks who think our sport is clean, well, ..

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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http://www.nature.com/nrendo/journal/v9/n8/fig_tab/nrendo.2013.122_F1.html


Fix your sleep and diet, and lose the fat that is converting your testosterone into estrogens.

Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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DNFTT
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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You are unlikely to get many endorsements for such therapy in this forum as it is illegal for any of us who compete in running/cycling/swimming/triathlon to use synthetic hormones for "low-T." In the medical world, it is marketed as an "increase quality of life" drug. It is unlikely to make you more healthy, and is likely to make your cholesterol and blood pressure numbers much worse. I know someone who used to run in a group I ran with who took it (he did not race) and had a heart attack and developed heart failure a couple years later (at age 54). I think he filed a lawsuit after that, but haven't heard from him in a while.

The advice of my fellow ST-ers is largely good. Better sleep, lower stress, good food choices will make the number better. Interestingly Statins are likely to make the number go down. I am NOT telling you to stop taking a statin if you take one.

My advice is: do not make the mistake of thinking the supplementing testosterone will lead to weight loss, increased lean body weight and therefore better health. While lean body mass might increase, and weight loss might happen, and acknowledging that these things are often a marker of good health, when they are the result of hormone manipulation, they usually come at the expense of good health.

One other thing: When did you have your blood drawn? I had my numbers checked as I am a testicular cancer survivor. Had the cancer 23 years ago right after my 21st birthday. Losing a testicle does not, interestingly enough, lower testosterone level, the other one just makes twice as much. I got the test just to prove that to myself. Found my numbers fluctuate between low 400s and high 800s depending on how hard I am working, how much (or little) I am sleeping, and how much high intensity training I am doing. The level was lower after many 65-70 hour work weeks and midnight calls in a winter when my workplace was short-staffed. Testosterone tends correlate inversely (to some extent) with cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone. So the less stressed and more rested you are, the better. Maybe more information than you wanted, but that is my $.02.

-Michael Myette
Racing for RocklinEnduranceSports Racing Team
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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First of all, normal is not 400 to 1200. 600 to 1200 would not be "normal" for a guy almost 50. And I know of guys in that age range where 300's is normal, and they do quite fine with it. You may even be in that range, take off a few weeks, get some good sleep, and do a 100 push ups a day, and then retest. Lots of things can hold your T down, and for good reasons. Before you go and do anything rash, really find out what is going on in your body first.

Remember once you go down this road, likely you will have to do it forever. If you really were someone in the 300 to 400+ range rested, then you will be shutting down your own bodies ability to produce T by supplementing, and if you go too big, well that brings in a host of other problems. Remember when you could not watch TV for an hour and not see at least 3 of these commercials for low T drugs? And ever wonder where they all went, and replaced now by some law group advertising for folks that bought into these therapies? And how you can now get into a class action lawsuit for all the damage that was done? Maybe look into that and see what damage exactly they are talking and suing about, then decide just how bad you need to get 25th in the AG instead of 35th..

And if it is to win the AG instead of getting 5th, well ok then. Can never have enough cheap ass wall plaques around the house, can you? (-;
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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Go lift heavy weights.

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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When they did blood tests did they check your thyroid levels?
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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You've been on the forum for over 2 years and don't know that using T is cheating whether you are FOP, MOP or BOP? You are either extraordinarily naïve or a troll. I suggest you cut your calorie intake by 25% for starters.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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As my Cardiologist told me, "You eat too much". Weight gain can be the result of a number of factors, including aging. But fundamentally, when weight increases it is because there are too many calories going in compared to the number being burned. Too many calories can be portion size as well as what you eat.

I'd evaluate caloric intake before thinking I could just get T supplements and magically lose weight.

BC Don
Pain is temporary, not giving it your all lasts all Winter.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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hazben wrote:
I am 47yo who exercises at least 10 hours per week. When exercising for a specific event I may train 12-15 hours a week. For the last several years I have just continued to gain weight and not get much fitter. I am 6' and weight in 242lbs. Put on 50 lbs in the last 2.5 years all the while exercising pretty much everyday. I really don't eat that much, granted some of it is not the healthiest.

"really don't eat that much". Elaborate. Most likely, you're underestimating what you eat (or its caloric content), and overestimating what your "exercise" and base metabolic rate should burn.
50 lbs * 3500 calories/lb / (2.5 * 365) = 191 food calories per day in excess. Cut out (at least) a daily can of soda and bag of chips (or equivalent snack), keep up the exercise, and in another two to three years you'll be back to where you started, without subscribing to the "low T" crap.

Less is more.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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"You've been on the forum for over 2 years and don't know that using T is cheating whether you are FOP, MOP or BOP? You are either extraordinarily naïve or a troll."

not so. it's 37 posts over 2 years, and have you seen the posts? it's very possible to be a member of this forum and be naive to what you are saying, esp if it's a non-competing athlete (non-federation competing athlete). further, he says he has "
Never done a tri," and it doesn't appear by either his posting history or his statement in the thread that he intends to start.

there is nothing wrong with testosterone, EPO, insulin or pot therapy. there is only something wrong with those "therapies" inappropriately used, and we all of course agree that one very inappropriate use is either purposeful or inadvertent competition while undergoing those therapies absent a therapeutic use exemption.

yes, 400 is high for a "low" threshold, esp as you age. but 164 is low. probably not low enough for a TUE. and, yes, if you're 240lb and you're exercising, that is, riding a bike let us say, 10 to 15 hours a week, then one wonders how one is still 240 lb, unless you started at 440lb. so, yes, you're right, diet is highly suspect.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I saw that it was only 37 posts but it is still over 2 years as a registered member and who knows how long lurking before that. But this is still an either or proposition. If the member hasn't seen the many many threads on this subject, then the post falls into the category of incredibly naive. Even if you aren't a participant in triathlon, or cycling, or track and field, etc., just following the Lance saga, the issues in baseball and so on would inform you that there are rules in sport against PEDs. Perhaps naive is too pejorative a term. Can we at least agree on profound ignorance?

Merriam Webster: Ignorant - destitute of knowledge or education <an ignorant society>; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified <parents ignorant of modern mathematics>
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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"the post falls into the category of incredibly naive... Can we at least agree on profound ignorance?"

i have run across a lot of people who think that testosterone legality in sport is determined by whether a doctor prescribes it. what is incredibly naive to you and me is the mindset, and the state in which we live. which either means its just an incredibly naive society, even inside of endurance sport, or you and i live in a bubble.

here's a question for you. any race organization still giving out IVs in their med tents after an long distance triathlon? anybody reader here getting any IVs? here's what USADA says:

"intravenous infusions or any intravenous injection of more than 50mL per a six-hour period are prohibited except for those legitimately received in the course of hospital admissions, surgical procedures, or clinical investigations... the use of IV fluid replacement following exercise to correct mild re-hydration is not clinically indicated nor substantiated by the medical literature.”

so, all you people getting IVs after your ironman, did you just dope? are you all incredibly naive? or just profoundly ignorant? i don't know. do you know?


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [hazben] [ In reply to ]
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$20 says you are eating too much. Get MyFitnessPal on your phone or access it from the web. (It's free.) Log EVERYTHING you eat for a week. I believe you will find that you actually are eating too much.

Do you have a way of quantifying the calories you burn through exercise? Some methods are good like a powermeter on a bike, but some methods are really, really bad and will over estimate what you are burning. Garmin HRM's are notoriously generous with counting up the calories you theoretically burned. i.e. if you figured your basal metabolism, added in Garmin HRM exercise and counted your food and came up even, the reality is that you over ate because of the optimistic Garmin calorie burn.

You don't need Testosterone, you need to eat less.

Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
"the post falls into the category of incredibly naive... Can we at least agree on profound ignorance?"

i have run across a lot of people who think that testosterone legality in sport is determined by whether a doctor prescribes it. what is incredibly naive to you and me is the mindset, and the state in which we live. which either means its just an incredibly naive society, even inside of endurance sport, or you and i live in a bubble.

here's a question for you. any race organization still giving out IVs in their med tents after an long distance triathlon? anybody reader here getting any IVs? here's what USADA says:

"intravenous infusions or any intravenous injection of more than 50mL per a six-hour period are prohibited except for those legitimately received in the course of hospital admissions, surgical procedures, or clinical investigations... the use of IV fluid replacement following exercise to correct mild re-hydration is not clinically indicated nor substantiated by the medical literature.”

so, all you people getting IVs after your ironman, did you just dope? are you all incredibly naive? or just profoundly ignorant? i don't know. do you know?

I don't believe that an IV, prescribed by a doctor after a hot long course race, is analogous to a PED. In fact, I would classify your question as a red herring but I will bite: I have no idea whether WTC or USAT has directed MD's at their races to not give IVs to seriously dehydrated athletes, but I doubt they would as that is dangerous legal territory. Nor is that prohibition absolute...it hinges on the term "mild re-hydration" which is highly subjective. When someone is staggering in to the med tent with an ashen face, dangerously low blood pressure, and severe cramping I don't think USAT wants to stand over and tell a doc not to give an IV to someone based on "medical literature". Further, since the prohibition specifically cites a "six hour period" it indicates to me that the rule was designed to prevent the use of IVs DURING a race, not after. E.g., stopping for an IV after completing the bike leg of an IM, say at last week's IMCDA, prior to starting the marathon. In that case, yes, I would consider an IV to be a PED.
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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"I don't believe that an IV, prescribed by a doctor after a hot long course race, is analogous to a PED."

neither do a lot of folks taking testosterone prescribed by a doctor. nevertheless it is.

i'm just reporting to you the rules. you might not agree with them, or think they're fair, and you might be right. nevertheless i don't see how they could be any more clear than they are. is the IV in the med tent the result of "
hospital admissions, surgical procedures, or clinical investigations."? no. further, WADA specifically targets the mention of post-race rehydration as not a good candidate for an exception. therefore, unless the subject is taken to the hospital for his IV, i don't see how it counts as anything but a violation of anti-doping. do you?

my point is - which i think you realize - a lot of people are under false assumptions regarding PEDs. i have always felt that PEDs for AGers starts with education and then flows to testing. sports governance tends not to agree with me as regards the education part. hence this exercise.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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 i have always felt that PEDs for AGers starts with education and then flows to testing. sports governance tends not to agree with me as regards the education part. hence this exercise. //

Well as long as he reads his inbox from this threads responses, I would say he is now educated. But his lack of participation since his OP might be telling us he doesn't really want to hear the answers(can't handle the truth), or he actually has a life and has something to do on the 4th of July besides read slowtwitch.. (-;
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Re: Experiences with Testosterone Therapy [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
hazben wrote:
I am 47yo who exercises at least 10 hours per week. When exercising for a specific event I may train 12-15 hours a week. For the last several years I have just continued to gain weight and not get much fitter. I am 6' and weight in 242lbs. Put on 50 lbs in the last 2.5 years all the while exercising pretty much everyday. I really don't eat that much, granted some of it is not the healthiest. For the last few years, a friend has been bugging me to get my T level checked because he can't believe my size compared to my exercise level. I went to my PCP and had him test my T level when he did my annual physical.


I was shocked when my level came back at 164. Normal is 400-1200. When I had gotten it checked I figured even if it was a little low I would likely not get any treatment. But, 164 is really low and I have read some of the health issues related to low T. So now I am trying to decide do I want to seek treatment. FWIW I am not a competitive athlete. Never done a tri. The only timed event I have done is marathons (4:12PR running 60-70mpw). Try to do a few organized bike century tours every year.

I would like to hear some personnel experiences with T therapy. How much did it help if any? How long before you felt results? How long were you on therapy?


A few questions:

  1. You said you don't eat well, what do you eat?
  2. How much sleep do you get?
  3. What does your exercise consist of?
  4. How much stress do you have in your life


If you fix all of these, there is a good chance with your level of exercise, you can stop gaining weight without doing anything funky. If you can fix 2 and 4 alone in the list above, that can be very positive to restoring good health, but that takes more work on a daily basis than getting the doc to boost your T.

1) I work night shift typically at 0300 I will eat a salad or a can of soup. 10-11 I will eat cereal, 3-4 maybe a snack. Drink lots of coffee during night. I am guilty of mot drinking much water.
2)My sleep is a problem. I have worked midnights (0000-0800) for 19 years. I average 5-6 hours a night. When my kids start back to school there is one night where I only get 2-3 hours. When I sleep many times I get woken up by noise in the house.
3)Currently I am in maintenance mode. run 3xwk 6 miles 10 min pace avg HR 147bpm. 3 rides a wk 35, 45, 65miles avg. HR 140BPM. When I am training for an organized century I will still run but try to put in 150-250 mpw on bike. 2 of which are 70-75 milers w/o stopping. On these rides (cool weather) many times I will only consume 1 bottle of Gatorade for the whole ride. My body just seems not to need that much.
4)I do put too much stress on myself at work. At home things aren't too stressful..
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