Blood tests past to present - TRT for Life?

[Scorelando]

Please let me know your thoughts on me being able to come off testosterone shots and restart my body's ability to make enough testosterone. I am 34 years old and input a bunch of detail in the chart.

 

[Hydranted]

You can come off testosterone if you want to, but don't expect to be able to produce adequate amounts of testosterone naturally. Clomid is often used to transition off of TRT, so speak to your doctor about that if ceasing treatment is important to you.

The chances of your hormones staying at adequate levels once you stop the Clomid are low though. You'll likely just go back to your pre TRT hormone levels.

 

[Vettester Chris]

Your baseline LH was more than adequate, yet your test serum was sub-optimal. This to me suggests your diagnosis to lean "primary". If this is the case, but you still were producing sub-optimal endogenous test, then that might lean to to think you have one testicle that's functioning and one that's not, or just minimal Leydig cell activity. This is just speculation, but a 7.3 LH value should be getting the testes to pump out a lot more than 331ng/dl of test .. Just my .02

If that's the case, then coming off and trying a run of Clomid will not do much. The purpose of Clomid will be to get the HPTA producing LH & FSH once again. Again, go back to your original LH result, you can see it wasn't getting your testicles to produce optimal levels of testosterone. Make sense?

 

[Scorelando]

Hey Chris and company...

After reading and researching...i have come across some possible hypothesis.

I used ssri's, benzo's, pain killers and alcohol on and off since 19 and I am 34 now. I have not had a sip of alcohol, benzo or pain killer since 4/15/13, which gives me two years on 4/15/15. Something is telling me that was the cause of the hpta issues and stopping the conversion (top of the pituitary axis) amongst many other possiblites. I have never used steroids. I also just got my sleep apnea results and have severe sleep apnea with an 85.9 ahi score. Getting fitted for the cpap nasal machine within the next two weeks.

I feel like I am in the proverbial catch 22 as I want to take the leap with the following HPTA restart but do not want to risk feeling awful.

Currently out of work on medical leave trying to get my total health back.

Any thoughts with this new information and data?

 

[Vettester Chris]

If a restart could work, great, but don't be overly surprised if it doesn't sustain normal gonadotropin levels after you stop the PCT treatment. I see there was some level of LH secretion on your 10/14/14 results, so who knows, maybe it can, but just saying "don't" get your hopes up too high for a restart protocol to be fully successful.

Also, we should probably delve more into you thyroid ... Your previous FT4 results have been suboptimal within the reference range; 20% to 30% of reference range at best while you are on on a 1/2 grain of NDT. FT3 is up closer to the 50% area of reference range, give or take ...

This prompts me to really want to see your Reverse T3, plus antibodies TPO & TgAb for thyroid enzyme & protein autoimmune disorders. The ratios of NDT and human thyroid hormone vary, so that could be a factor where maybe the addition of T4 only like Synthroid could be introduced "if" you want to build the reserves up for more conversion downstream. Prior to that, get the Reverse T3 so we can compare ratios to FT3 ... If something is off on RT3, we will more than likely be looking towards cortisol and/or iron/ferritin/D3/B12.