Maybe not having testosterone treatments is a good thing?

[Bman41]

businessweek.com/news/2014-01-31/heart-attack-risk-of-testosterone-drugs-under-u-dot-s-dot-fda-review

(Mods, please move this to appropriate place, doubtful this is best)

[hammer]

Thanks Bman, that is some good info!

[Paa_Paw]

The risks are the greatest with the non prescription products. Some so called testosterone boosters are really not effective at all. The ones that actually do increase the testosterone levels are really dangerous. Increased incidence of heart attack is only one potential problem. Gynecomastia, prostate enlargement and prostate cancer risk are all increased in likelihood.

Testosterone levels normally and naturally decrease over time. If they remain high, there are a lot of problems as a result.

It is really better not to tinker.

[Bman41]

Starting to see more lawyers advertising for people who have had adverse reactions to testosterone treatments, even death.

[hammer]

I have too, and it doesn't mater if it is injections or creams! Bman, I must have had good sense or foresight with the other side effects with the replacement years ago and stopped taking it when I did!

[Bman41]

Yup!  I wonder why so many people are having issues?

[Paa_Paw]

Testosterone levels just naturally diminish as a man ages. This is normal and not a problem.

When testosterone levels are maintained at a level that is actually too high, there are a number of adverse reactions. Ironically, surplus Testosterone leads the body to convert the excess to Estrogen and, at the same time, reduce testosterone production. Feminization of the body can result. Another thing that happens is that the incidence of prostate and testicular cancers increase. There are adverse effects on most of the body systems, I just took a couple from the top of the list.

[Alchemist]

I've been on testosterone prescriptions for 14 years.  My testosterone fell through the floor when I was 39 and my whole body crashed.  I had more energy. less depression, felt tremendously better and became sexually functional again.  I haven't had any side effects I can point out.  It also may have been a factor in restoring atrophied muscles along with a complicated nutritional program. I lost 85 pounds of water, lost 50+ pounds of fat and gained 50 pounds of muscle.  I now have normal, ordinary muscles  It became a positive experiences within the first week of starting.  If a person is having damaged health for the lack of testosterone I think it is well worth taking.  I go to my internist twice a year for monitoring all sorts of things.  My body got really messed up and it is difficult to keep a good balance.  Restoring it towards normal has been a good thing for me.  My breasts are not going away, my saggy skin from loosing all that weight isn't going away.  I'm 66 and never going to recover to 39 again when this all went terribly wrong.  I dodged the bullet of colon cancer (in family) with 2 colonoscopies in the last 3 years, this last one was clean.  About the last thing in the world I would worry about at this point is if testosterone were to make any difference on my breasts.  They are what they are and will be until I die.  So now what I really need now is the fountain of youth, regain the middle part of my life I was too sick to participate in.

[jay adams]

The reason people have complications with testosterone is because of not having proper blood work. A lot of people take more than they are supposed to. If levels go too high your hematocrit will rise over time and the chances of heart attack and stroke rise greatly.

Simple blood work is all it takes to keep you fit as a fiddle. Don't forget that low testosterone levels can also cause long term side effects such as stroke, heart attack, diabetes, high cholesterol and more. And the studies are not on natural declining testosterone in aging men but abnormally low levels in men of all ages.

So basically, too much or not monitoring what you are doing can have negative effect on your health. Same goes for prescription drugs, alcohol or even the sun for that matter.

[Alchemist]

I agree Jay.  Careful monitoring is needed to avoid all sorts of problems with a variety of drugs.  I have various tests twice a year to keep things running smoothly.  I do take vitamins and supplements, but not things substituting for testosterone and such.  I've seen people get themselves all sorts of messed up using medications wrongly.

[DDtop]

Hi the thing most need is progesterone not testosterone as it is where testosterone and estrogen comes from it's the building block and works for both make and female read this(raypeat.co m/articles/ and theres a few others
the thing with meds/drugs/hormones or whatever is BALANCE! as take an car engine if you give it more petrol it will run giving you more power esp under load as less knock/pink if running lean now treble it and it now runs rough your choking it plus soot up as un burnt now give it more and keep running it and in the end it will die as you will get bore wash as un burnt fuel will wash oil of bores so end up scored or over heated then that get's into sump which in turn does bearings in. end result KAPUT! just like you will if over doing it and we are just like that engine.

Anyway sorry to piss on the party but hopefully one of you will find that helpful it does clear gyno also.

[Alchemist]

Hi DDtop,

Drinking too much gasoline sounds dangerous. The bearings in my knees are not what they used to be but I assure you, no gasoline.  I don't know about using progesterone; it's not what my doc prescribes.  I also take pregnenolone and DHEA, with the knowledge of my doc and whose results are part of my total results. 


I'm fortunate to be alive, let alone a reasonably healthy normal, such as it is.  My doc has also said that he has never seen anybody come back from so far over the edge (congestive heart failure, multi system body crash; all the worst of Sub Acute Combined Degeneration, FMS, CFS, and ME rolled into one).  A high hematicrit was not my problem, borderline macrocytic anemia was.

I can't tell you that testosterone kept me alive, but it sure felt like it.  One of the problems with b12/folate deficiencies is that the body is quite unable to synthesize hundreds of things needed for life, unable to heal damage.  Very low testosterone (under the basement low) is a common result of low b12/folate.  I crashed in 1987.  The first thing that helped in any way that any docs tried was testosterone.  At that point I was 8 years into congestive heart failure.  Mortality rate of congestive heart disease is about 80% in the first 10 years after diagnosis.  I wouldn't be surprised at all that my docs might have thought that there was no real hazard of any kind to me from testosterone as I was a short timer back in 2000. So 14 years later, I'm not dead yet, I've restored my body much closer to normal.  A healthy heart, a more normal weight, restored atrophied muscles and loss of 10+ gallons of water.  Keeping edema down and muscle health up is part of recovery.  The right vitamins and supplements did that and testosterone appeared to help.  Used properly in appropriate cases and ways can make a big difference.  Good medical advice and proper testing can make a big difference.