Pregnancy related hormonal dips

[HR_Watson]

So I've been on hCG +AI therapy for about a year and a half now, and for the most part, have been feeling great.

My wife is about 37 weeks pregnant, and over the course of the pregnancy, I've been feeling worse and worse - feeling pretty much like I did pre-treatment - brain fog, low libido, moody, ED, etc etc. Sure enough, when I went in for labs, my T levels have dropped by about a third, down from 950 to 735.

There's a lot of literature to support this - it's apparently pretty normal for expecting father's to go through this, and in theory, things should start to return to revert within 3-4 months after the baby is born.

Has anyone else gone through this - and has anyone else tried to supplement? I'm kind of surprised that even with the hCG I'm experiencing as severe a dip as I am.

Thx!

 

[Vince]

How is your estrogen levels? How about your thyroid level.

 

[Cataceous]

Given that hCG directly stimulates the testes, it seems questionable that the pregnancy is the cause of the testosterone reduction.

 

[HR_Watson]

How is your estrogen levels? How about your thyroid level.

I had crashed my E using an AI, and it's slowly coming back, it's currently at 15.

My TSH is slightly higher than I'd like at 2.2. This is unusual - I'm hypothyroid and had increased recently increased my dosage. I feel best between 1 and 2.

@Cataceous - There's a ton of literature to support the pregnancy theory, and the timing of my symptoms coincide perfectly. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it's pregnancy-related.

I'm curious to know if other men have experienced this third/fourth trimester dip, and how they've dealt with it.

I'm surprised that even with Synthroid and hCG my levels are off...but it would explain my symptoms. I feel pretty awful.

 

[Cataceous]

... There's a ton of literature to support the pregnancy theory, and the timing of my symptoms coincide perfectly. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it's pregnancy-related.
....

I'd bet money it's not. The studies are not on men taking hCG or TRT, and most are not in the prenatal period. And at best the effect is quite small.

To date, the only study that has assessed between-partner correlations in prenatal testosterone revealed no significant correlations in expectant couples (Berg and Wynne-Edwards, 2002). ...

[1]

The study using the citation found a decline in male salivary testosterone from 50.23 pg/mL at week 12 of the pregnancy to 47.62 at week 36, a mere 5% drop, and with very large standard deviations. This is going to be dwarfed by measurement variations when applied to a single male.

 

[HR_Watson]

I'd bet money it's not. The studies are not on men taking hCG or TRT, and most are not in the prenatal period. And at best the effect is quite small.

[1]

The study using the citation found a decline in male salivary testosterone from 50.23 pg/mL at week 12 of the pregnancy to 47.62 at week 36, a mere 5% drop, and with very large standard deviations. This is going to be dwarfed by measurement variations when applied to a single male.

I appreciate your feedback, for sure, and there’s a lot we can parse here.
But like I said, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s pregnancy related.

My question still stands to fellow members of the site: have other men on TRT experienced any pregnancy related issues with their T levels, and if so, did they do anything to treat it, or did it bounce back naturally?

 

[madman]

I appreciate your feedback, for sure, and there’s a lot we can parse here.
But like I said, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s pregnancy related.

My question still stands to fellow members of the site: have other men on TRT experienced any pregnancy related issues with their T levels, and if so, did they do anything to treat it, or did it bounce back naturally?

All of these studies are talking about natural endogenous T levels (natty men).

When using exogenous T this would never happen simply because your HPTA is shutdown.

 

[madman]

I had crashed my E using an AI, and it's slowly coming back, it's currently at 15.

My TSH is slightly higher than I'd like at 2.2. This is unusual - I'm hypothyroid and had increased recently increased my dosage. I feel best between 1 and 2.

@Cataceous - There's a ton of literature to support the pregnancy theory, and the timing of my symptoms coincide perfectly. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it's pregnancy-related.

I'm curious to know if other men have experienced this third/fourth trimester dip, and how they've dealt with it.

I'm surprised that even with Synthroid and hCG my levels are off...but it would explain my symptoms. I feel pretty awful.

In men with a healthy functioning HPTA.....natural endogenous testosterone production.
'
When using exogenous testosterone most definitely not!

 

[HR_Watson]

I'd bet money it's not. The studies are not on men taking hCG or TRT, and most are not in the prenatal period. And at best the effect is quite small.

Cataceous, you might very well be right, and the pregnancy thing might be a coincidence or just making an existing issue worse - although for the record, all the articles I read on the subject documented men's T levels throughout pregnancy, up through the postpartum stages, and most showed a decline of up to 1/3rd.

Regardless, I suspect you're correct, and my symptoms are most likely being caused by my crashed E. I had been on a low dose of 2.5 mg of Letrozole to prevent Gyno, but that it totally wiped out my estrogen.

My MD lowered my letro dose to half, and it's climbed back up to 15...but that's still really low in comparison to my T levels. It might be worth halving the dosage once again, but that means cutting a very tiny pill into quarters.