Tuesday, February 14, 2017

This is what you NEED to understand before allowing ANY doctor to prescribe Testosterone Creams

I think that anyone that has watched a television show in past twenty years has seen the ads for the miracle cure that science has found for a condition that the medical profession has hyped into another one of the popular health conditions that they have appropriately named as 'Low T'. This condition has been touted as the reason for everything wrong in a man's life. Everything. Below is a list of a few of the symptoms from the Google search for Low T.

Physical Signs and Symptoms
  • Erectile dysfunction (impotence: inability to develop or maintain an erection)
  • Fatigue (lack of energy)
  • Muscle mass and strength (reduced)
  • Body fat (increased)
  • Back pain.
  • Osteoporosis development (reduced bone mass/density and increased risk of fracture)
The diagnosis for Low T is simple, the doctor takes some blood, and they measure your Testosterone level. If it's below standardized norms by even a small amount, then you get a prescription for Testosterone Cream. One manufactured by any number of pharmaceutical companies and generally from the one that has offered the greatest incentives to your doctor for writing that prescription.

Except, wait a second. Isn't every one of those symptoms also related to the simple basics of good health, poor diet, no exercise and excess consumption of alcohol?

Well, yeah, they are. The difference being in that doctors can't get those wonderful incentives from the drug manufacturers if they have you do a little self discipline and lose weight, exercise and stop drinking alcohol. 

And the pharmaceutical companies can't make billions in profits if we as consumers don't want to take the easy way out and instead of practicing that self discipline, opt for the easy cream, patch, pill, or liquid instead of attempting to better ourselves with lifestyle changes. 

So here's the thing, doctors prescribe testosterone creams based on what the lab result is for your individual level of free testosterone in your blood work. And that's the problem. Free testosterone and bioavailable testosterone both vary dramatically in EVERY individual on a daily basis. T levels follow the same basic circadian rhythms that control so many of our bodily functions. Our natural levels rise and fall dramatically, by up to 43%, DAILY. Lowest in the early afternoon, highest at night and early morning after and during sleep. Getting a single blood test to acquire a definitive level of testosterone for any individual is not best medical practises.

Then there are the simple effects that the body has in response to other stimuli. Our testosterone levels vary depending on whether or not we've had vigorous exercise within a 24 hour period. Whether or not we've been sexually active, or whether or not there was a lot of alcohol ingested. Yeah, it's true, alcohol suppresses the production of testosterone. Especially distilled alcohols. 

All of these factors need to be considered and multiple blood tests done to get an accurate picture of what's happening with your individual body's ability to manufacture the testosterone you need to exist. A diagnosis from one single blood test taken in the afternoon on a day in which you haven't done any physical activity for several days is going to be misleading and may result in a prescription that may do more harm, than any good possible.

Again, if you ever watch any television at all, you've seen the commercials from lawyers that are trying to drum up business by letting you know that if you ever took any testosterone cream and had any of a large number of deleterious events happen to you, then you can sue everybody and get compensated. This is of course a product of our litigious society. But with a good reason. The fact is that excess testosterone does cause horrific problems with our bodies. Chief amongst them,blood clots in the lungs. This is a very serious and often fatal consequence of taking a medication to increase the available free testosterone in your body when in fact your natural ability to produce testosterone is working fine and it was environmental factors that led your doctor to diagnose you as having low T. 

Be careful. Doctors are not the end all be all pearls of wisdom and they don't know every single thing about you as a patient unless you tell them and question every thing that they tell you. All doctors want to get through as many patients in a day as possible and to prescribe as many medications as possible. Those are their goals. If you want the best care possible, question them, make them think about what it is they are doing, let them know that you are not patient XYZ, you are YOU and you think!

 Yep

Google search for low t
Peak and low values for testosterone

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