Doctor said I need a 8 week break

[jabarnes2006]

Here are my latest labs. He said my blood is thick so he wants me to take a break. I said I have no problem with that but I don't want to crash and burn just stopping T. I asked about donating blood and they said I could do that and be re tested but I'm not eligible unit 4/9. Check out my labs. They dont seem to high to take two months off but Im just a guy thats not sure?

 

[Vince]

jabarnes, most here donate blood and continue TRT, it sure would be hard to be off testosterone for 8 weeks.

 

[jabarnes2006]

Thats the plan...Should I stop taking it until the 9th when I can donate again?

 

[croaker24]

Jabarnes - your hematocrit and hemoglobin do not look that awful, getting to the top of the ranges perhaps, but it looks to me you could wait until 4/9?

 

[jabarnes2006]

I was looking over some of the others that post results on here and they didnt seem to be at such a high level that it would be dangerous. I just need to drink a lot of water and take a couple aspirin a day and then on the 9th donate. To be cautious I might lower my dose down from two shots a week to one.

 

[GettingAnswers]

In my experience my blood gets thick no matter what dose I am on. You may mess up your system by going up and down on doses with no impact on h and h. From what I have seen most people just donate. I'm also trying the grapefruit eating every day to see if that has any merit.

 

[ERO]

My 2 cents...I am always amazed when a doctor (that should know better) advises a TRT patient to take 8 weeks off. You are gonna be completely shut down and likely to feel awful, when all you need to do is donate blood. I mean, if you were a Type 1 diabetic, would the doc tell you to take an 8 week break from insulin? (rhetorical question)

 

[T4 Life]

According to your blood work you are within the lab ranges I would like to understand why your doctor told you to take a break for eights weeks? your either on or off trt. I compared mine to yours and mine is higher: Hematocrit-52.1 Range(38.5-50.0) Hemoglobin-17.0 Range(13.2-17.1) I donated in July'14 I was at 53.5 at that time (Hematocrit) not because my doctor told me to but for my own peace of mind he knew what is was and didn't make any recommendations. I would stay on at your levels and donate if you feel the need however I would be careful with aspirin I wouldn't take more than 81 mg/day when I did and I stopped that too I noticed I was bruising easily that's me anyway I'm no Doctor just saying aspirin has it's side effects..............your doctor may want you to lower your total T behind closed doors and not telling you I say this because my doctor thinks that a total T of 646 is perfect regardless of free T and symptoms, you may want to slightly lower your dose and see how he responds to that. Ask him the big WHY? (with an explanation) since your within ranges and not over the limits. You should be fine till your next donation try the double red if you haven't already and see how it affects your levels it would be good to know for future reference.

 

[jabarnes2006]

My Prolactin levels are at 22.1 ng/dl right now. Does that mean Im going to start lactating? I think that is more the concern than the blood level. He emailed me this morning and wants me to cut my dose down to half a CC which is better than none.

 

[NeedRelief]

I'm confused by your report, at the top it says your Hematocrit is 50.4% but at the bottom, under your CBC test it says your HCT (which I believe to be Hematocrit) is 53.60%. Plus, all there refrence ranges are different too.

 

[CoastWatcher]

I believe they reflect two different blood draws on different dates. Is that right?

 

[jabarnes2006]

Yes. For some reason they have both my test dates wrapped up into one report.

 

[Vince]

my hemoglobin was 17.4 (range 12.6-17.7) and hematocrit was 50.2 (range 37.5-51.0) I didn't really want to because of time, but I donated blood for the first time in a long time. Everything went really good I'm going to try to keep donating every 8 weeks.

 

[Vince Carter]

Coming off for 8 weeks isn't going to reduce your hematocrit and will undo everything you've done to this point with HRT. Either donate and tell your Dr to work around it or go some where else. Stopping, for any length of time will be to your detriment.