Need help. 28 yrs old Low testosterone questions.

[garythethird]

Lets try this again. I'm new to this board; it was recommended from a guy in a different group. Lots of good info here, glad I found it. Anyway here is my story thus far:

I am 28 years old and had been feeling very crappy for a while and went to the doc and got my testosterone levels tested and had an total test. level of 153 (normal range 241-827). I then had it tested again and it was similar. I then got referred to a endocrinologist and got more tests done. My prolaction was 4.8 (normal 2.1-17.7); FSH 3.0 (normal 1.4-18.1); LH 1.4 (normal 1.5-9.3); IGF-1 320 (normal 63-373); morning cortisol 15.7 (normal 4.3-22.4), Free T4 .87 (normal .76-1.46). He has diagnosed me with secondary hypogonadism, which makes sense from all that I have read ( I have read and researched this topic A LOT). He next wants me to go and get a pituitary MRI done. I am very hesitant on doing this because of the use of gadolinium dye. I try to be a natural as I can and don't want to put this heavy metal in my body if I don't have to. On top of that I have read about all of the warnings the FDA had issued about the dye. I have also heard of a lot of people having very bad reactions and conditions when having this dye injected, some have even died. So my first question is should I be worried about the MRI scan, primarily the gadolinium? Have you had one with the dye? Did you have ANY adverse reactions?

So after doing a lot of reading I thought that my hypogonadism was caused by over-exercising and under eating. I'm currently 6'1'' 167 pounds and about 10% body fat. I have been working out since I was 20. I was mainly into lifting weights. I got up to about 185 pounds when I was about 25 and about 10% body fat. I then got into running and started running about 40 miles a week and also doing some body weight exercises. Over this time I lost a ton of weight, basically not eating enough to sustain my exercising level. I was eating about 2500 cals a day, but this obviously not enough because I got down to 155 pounds at one point. I stayed around this weight for about a year and then about a year ago started getting back into lifting and was lifting 4x a week and running 2x a week for about 5 miles eat. This when my sleep started getting very bad. I started waking up 2x a night to urinate even though I wasn't drinking a lot of liquids before bed. I was also waking up many times, tossing and turning. SO I would wake up exhausted. I also have low sex drive (can get an erection if i want to though), low energy, usually not in a good mood, and always have cold hands and feet.

These are the symptoms that led me to get the initial Testosterone test. I have also had a sleep study done, which ruled out sleep apnea. So not wanting to get the pituitary MRI (because of the gadolinium dye), I read from reputable sources that low T can be caused by over exercising and under eating. So I decided to drastically reduce my exercising to only lifting 3 times a week and drastically increasing my food intake to around 3500 cals a day. I have been doing this for about a month and a half now and have gained about 10 pounds. I do feel good some days, but others feel the same as before. Like last week I had about 4 days of feeling good with good sleep and then about 2 0r 3 days where I slept bad and felt like crap, like before. My plan is to keep up the eating and cut back on lifting for the rest of the month and then get my levels rechecked.

Another wierd thing happened too. After talking to my parents about my situation my dad decided to get his levels checked (hes 57) because he had some symptoms and his T levels where very low too. So this kind of scared me that my "under eating and over exercise theory" may not be the case. Like I said I am all about trying to be as natural as I can and want to avoid HRT if possible. I eat very healthy and don't do drugs or drink alcohol or smoke.

Sorry for the long post, but does anyone else have a similar story or suggestions about my situation as a whole and or about the gadolinium issue? Do you think overtraining and under eating could possibly cause these symptoms and my T to get this low? Has this happened to you due to overtraining and undereating?If so, were you able to get you T levels up naturally? How long did it take? Should I stop training altogether for a while? Anything else you can think? Appreciate the help, I really want to get my life back on track because right now it sucks. Thanks

 

[The Matrix]

Could be multiple.factors at play. All.need.to.be evaluated or you are just chasing your tail.like.many others have. I.was one of.them.before i.learned to.look.at the whole picture then it made.more.sense why i was not.well. Hormones are just a small.piece of the puzzle. Need to dig deeper into.things to get resolution to.long term.solution vs short.term satifaction.

 

[garythethird]

Thanks for your help Matrix. Yeah I am definitely looking for a long term solution. My original Dr. wanted to go with a short term solution, suggesting HRT, but wanting to have kids someday and other factors; I wanted to try to sort this out naturally IF possible. That is why I cut down on training a lot and started eating a tom more, around 3500 cals for a 160 lber. I am seeing an Endo right now and am going to go get all my levels checked again at the end of the month. My previous levels were taken the end of Dec and since then I have made the training and diet adjustments stated before and like I said I have gained 10 lbs, but don't feel much better. Some other symptoms I have are I always have extremely cold hands and feet. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, which is many times a night, my heart always seems to be beating a little faster than normal, with a stronger systolic and diastolic heart beat. And a lot of times I will all of the sudden wake up at around 3 am, and wont be able to go back to sleep, even though I am dead tired. I just started recently researching thyroid issues; primarily hypothyroidism. The thing is my TSH and Free T4 seem normal I think. TSH 2.136 (normal .358-3.740), Free T4 .87 (.76-1.46). I just started looking into it, but I do have some of the associated symptoms. Can Hypothyroidism cause Low T? I have a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology, but am far from a doctor, but have a good handle on basic endocrine functions.

 

[garythethird]

To add to my symptom list I also have joint pain: Suffered from patellar tendonitis for over a year (and I wasn't even running that much), I also get extremely hungry lat at night and my hands and feet seem to get even colder after I eat. Just a few more I thought I'd add.

 

[bad rad]

Being constantly undernourished like you were can lead to suppressed T levels and you're probably severely overtrained at this point. In research it only took 4 days of limited sleep (4 hrs) to drop T levels by 50%. Another factor overlooked by men is the need for fat in the diet, this includes saturated. Once a man's fat intake drops below 30% of his required Cals his T levels drop drastically. You need some saturated fats too, start with a handful or two mixed raw nuts daily. Before freaking out the Bulgarian OL team ate a diet 70% fat. With your active lifestyle taking in 20 Cals/lb in usual, this is 3300 daily to maintain weight and you should try gaining some weight for a bit. Your body will need a surplus to recover from this state of overtraining you seem to be in.

 

[shbg82]

Where is your DHEAs?

 

[garythethird]

Being constantly undernourished like you were can lead to suppressed T levels and you're probably severely overtrained at this point. In research it only took 4 days of limited sleep (4 hrs) to drop T levels by 50%. Another factor overlooked by men is the need for fat in the diet, this includes saturated. Once a man's fat intake drops below 30% of his required Cals his T levels drop drastically. You need some saturated fats too, start with a handful or two mixed raw nuts daily. Before freaking out the Bulgarian OL team ate a diet 70% fat. With your active lifestyle taking in 20 Cals/lb in usual, this is 3300 daily to maintain weight and you should try gaining some weight for a bit. Your body will need a surplus to recover from this state of overtraining you seem to be in.

Good points. Yeah the sleep issue is ruining me. The problem is I have really good sleep "hygiene"; I got to bed at a good time 9 pm and can sleep all the way until 6 am if I am able to, but my body never lets me sleep that long, I wake up around 3 am a lot of times and can't go back to bed. On top of that, I also wake up around 8 times a night for no reason. As far as the diet thing goes, I eat a really healthy and balanced diet with about 25% protein, 50% carbs, 25% fat, coming from quality meats, veggies, and fruits and no processed foods. My fat many comes from avocados, nuts, coconut meat, salmon, and egg yolks.

Where is your DHEAs?

I have never had my DHEAs tested, should I? Is there anything else I should get tested? I decided I am going to retest my levels at the end of the week. I am going to retest everything I had tested before and can add any other test as well. Anything else that I should get checked? I am also thinking about having a food allergy test done to see if I have any gluten or wheat allergies. I have been reading up a lot lately about how hypothyroidism can possibly cause Low T and food allergies some times come into play due to the autoimmune response of the body when one eats a food that their body can't tolerate. It might not be anything, but I figure why not check it out. My dr. will probably think I am nuts.

 

[shbg82]

Before I had an MRI, I would get the Labcorp (use privatemdlabs.com) Male Ultimate Anti-Aging Panel. You might want to add a FT blood test to the panel, although there is a way to calculate FT with all the other data that that Panel contains.
DXing secondary hypogonadism without having any idea where your SHBG, FT, E2, DHEA, PROGESTERONE is, is just wrong.
Yes your TT is low, but if your SHBG is low your FT+E2 could be high enough to keep your LH level low.

 

[The Matrix]

Before I had an MRI, I would get the Labcorp (use privatemdlabs.com) Male Ultimate Anti-Aging Panel. You might want to add a FT blood test to the panel, although there is a way to calculate FT with all the other data that that Panel contains.
DXing secondary hypogonadism without having any idea where your SHBG, FT, E2, DHEA, PROGESTERONE is, is just wrong.
Yes your TT is low, but if your SHBG is low your FT+E2 could be high enough to keep your LH level low.

Majority of issues I have found can be found in poor lifestyle, stress management, and nutrition. Correcting this along with supporting other factors including the immune system, proper neurotransmitter balance, and if need be adrenal, thyroid and hormones modulation will get a person back on their way to better over all well being. Correcting the first couple things will result in correcting the down stream of overs. If less then 35 try to correct hormones by correcting other factors first if they are present before resorting to HRT. At the age of 28, you want to get down to reasons why you are feeling like crap. As noted before there could be several of them..

 

[garythethird]

Before I had an MRI, I would get the Labcorp (use privatemdlabs.com) Male Ultimate Anti-Aging Panel. You might want to add a FT blood test to the panel, although there is a way to calculate FT with all the other data that that Panel contains.
DXing secondary hypogonadism without having any idea where your SHBG, FT, E2, DHEA, PROGESTERONE is, is just wrong.
Yes your TT is low, but if your SHBG is low your FT+E2 could be high enough to keep your LH level low.

So you think I should get all of those tested? What is FT?

Majority of issues I have found can be found in poor lifestyle, stress management, and nutrition. Correcting this along with supporting other factors including the immune system, proper neurotransmitter balance, and if need be adrenal, thyroid and hormones modulation will get a person back on their way to better over all well being. Correcting the first couple things will result in correcting the down stream of overs. If less then 35 try to correct hormones by correcting other factors first if they are present before resorting to HRT. At the age of 28, you want to get down to reasons why you are feeling like crap. As noted before there could be several of them..

My nutrition is great (unless I have an unknown food allergy, which I am going to get checked out), I meditate when I can to help manage stress. I'm sort of stressed out, but I think all grad students are. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. What else should I look at? What are your opinions on hypothyroidism causing low T?

 

[The Matrix]

So you think I should get all of those tested? What is FT?



My nutrition is great (unless I have an unknown food allergy, which I am going to get checked out), I meditate when I can to help manage stress. I'm sort of stressed out, but I think all grad students are. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. What else should I look at? What are your opinions on hypothyroidism causing low T?

Having a great diet usually means it unbalanced. 90% of health nuts I run into when I check intracellular testing have the worst profiles even people eating crap off are more balanced. Remember we are not what we eat but what we absorb, assiimilate then eliminate.

 

[garythethird]

Having a great diet usually means it unbalanced. 90% of health nuts I run into when I check intracellular testing have the worst profiles even people eating crap off are more balanced. Remember we are not what we eat but what we absorb, assiimilate then eliminate.

I hear ya, but I would say that I do indeed have a truely balanced diet (unless like I said I have a hidden food allergy that is causing malabsorbtion). IN a geiven week I'll eat: eggs (whole and egg whites, ezekial sproated wheat bread, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, oranges, apples, bananas, canteloupe, tangerines, kiwi, spinach, red and green bell peppers, LOTS of brocoli, kale, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, avocados, almonds, walnuts, cashews, lean beef, chicken, lots of wild caught alaskan salmon, tuna, milk, greek yogurt, brown rice....and the list goes on..I have a vitamix blender so I make some pretty crazy veggie/fruit shakes....so I don't think the diet is the issue

 

[The Matrix]

I hear ya, but I would say that I do indeed have a truely balanced diet (unless like I said I have a hidden food allergy that is causing malabsorbtion). IN a geiven week I'll eat: eggs (whole and egg whites, ezekial sproated wheat bread, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, oranges, apples, bananas, canteloupe, tangerines, kiwi, spinach, red and green bell peppers, LOTS of brocoli, kale, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, avocados, almonds, walnuts, cashews, lean beef, chicken, lots of wild caught alaskan salmon, tuna, milk, greek yogurt, brown rice....and the list goes on..I have a vitamix blender so I make some pretty crazy veggie/fruit shakes....so I don't think the diet is the issue

Only intracellular testing will show it. Its may be not what you are eating, but what your body is doing with it. I have seen people (myself included) look like they are sucking down a half of bottle of fish oil a day never evening taking them. It the metabolic response to the nutrients which we take in is what I focus on not so much what we take it.

 

[shbg82]

FREE TESTOSTERONE (FT)

That is a well thought out and excellent diet.. I eat very similarly, but I had some crap to it.

 

[garythethird]

FREE TESTOSTERONE (FT)

That is a well thought out and excellent diet.. I eat very similarly, but I had some crap to it.

Thanks. I try to live as healthy as possible, including a healthy diet and exercise. It just sucks when one tries to do all they can do to live as healthy as possible, but still feels like crap. And then finds that Hormone levels are very low and that am FAR from healthy. One day at a time I guess.

 

[The Matrix]

Thanks. I try to live as healthy as possible, including a healthy diet and exercise. It just sucks when one tries to do all they can do to live as healthy as possible, but still feels like crap. And then finds that Hormone levels are very low and that am FAR from healthy. One day at a time I guess.

There are deeper issues at hand I can pretty much guarantee it....

 

[mkretz]

i oudl love to see what ur levels come back to be after resting and eating more

 

[The Matrix]

i oudl love to see what ur levels come back to be after resting and eating more

I suspect the immune system has been compromised and vulnerable to infections the body would normally be able to fight off. I have been down this road my self, resting and eating did not resolve the issues because their where other factors which were not allowing your body to recovery. I see it all the time..

 

[garythethird]

Mkretz- I will definitely post my results once I have them tested. I am hoping to get them tested at the end of the week along with a lot of throid tests. I am also trying to get a food allergy test.

I suspect the immune system has been compromised and vulnerable to infections the body would normally be able to fight off. I have been down this road my self, resting and eating did not resolve the issues because their where other factors which were not allowing your body to recovery. I see it all the time..

Now that I look back at the past 6 months to a year, although I was training decently hard; I am kind of questioning if I was actually overtraining. I am possibly thinking that I had this hormone problem (be it thyroid and or testosterone) for years now and the training just made it a worse. Even with my cut down on training and eating plenty, I don't seem to feel that much better or sleep better. I am sleeping a little better though. I was hoping that cutting down on training and up my calories would take care of it, but like you said I am beginning to think the might not cure all. Right now I have totally cut out training. I lifted 2 times last week with no cardio. This week I have not worked out at all.

 

[The Matrix]

You pushed your cellular matrix which started the whole hpta dysregulation.

 

[garythethird]

DetroitHamer-
You posted in one of the duplicate threads of this thread (I'm not sure how duplicates were made but this is the real one, I am trying to get mods to delete the other 2 duplicates. Anyway you posted:

"Long distance running will kill your test levels. I ran 6 miles a day and my test was down to 180. Stop running for a fe wmonths then test again. I'll bet you'll be fine."

Where you able to get your T levels up just by stopping running so much? Or did you have to use other means too? How long did it take to get your levels up? How high were you able to get your levels up (You said they were down to 180 at one time)? I Pm'd you too.